[Udik]

These statements might be hurtful and counterproductive, but they are a reaction to other statements which are perceived as being simply disregarding the reality of things. I can understand somebody making them just for the sake of reminding others what he thinks reality is. You can imagine plenty of situation in which the truth is ugly and hurts everybody- is that a good reason to let people do all sorts of intellectual contortionism just to avoid mentioning it?

On the other hand, any female engineer in Google earns more than I do, and deservedly so. I don't work at Google and I strongly doubt I'd pass their interviews.