Maybe if we lived in an ideal society equal work would translate into equal pay, but the reality is that in business and the real world things are much more complicated.
If a man and a women are both doing the same job absolutely equally well, than logically they should both receive equal pay. But then businesses often also operate by giving raises based on performance or loyalty. This is done for moral or in order to encourage future performance or continued work with the company. But this system of pay reward is also often based on the judgement and maintenance of some kind of manager or higher up.
Now whether or not you agree that that system is acceptable, you then have to ask whether legislators and government should be given the power to make these kinds of decisions. The question is often not whether something is right, but whether it is right to regulate.
If I was the owner of a company and I was able to pay female workers less for doing an equal job equally well, then I would only use female workers. Would it be fair? At any rate, it would be a logical business move.
If people believe that women are inferior to men, then it will be their loss when they loose the skills possessed by women. That is a societal issue that can only be combatted by education and will never be fixed by legislative measures.
The real question is whether it is right for the government to impose equal pay measures on companies. Not whether equal pay is right.
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