I saw this poster again the other day. It encapsulates one of the strongest rows about inequality.

The TUC recently reported that women over  50 earn a staggering fifth less than men of the same age, and on average women earn £5000 less than men a year.

And the gap widens in some professions; for example in the health profession the difference in pay is over 30 per cent.

Interestingly, the only age bracket in which women earn – a small fraction – more than men is between the ages of 22 and 29.

I’m embarrassed to add I was actually impressed that women do earn more than men in one bracket  – and that’s the point.

Back to the facts.

Other than that time in our twenties, we’re earning less.  Why?

Is it simply the case that women are still valued less?  Is it down to the lack of transparency and our naivety about what our male counterparts earn?

I think it’s simple – women are still treated as unequal.

End of.

And not only do we face inequality in pay, we still have huge inequality ‘at the top’:  23 per cent of judges in England and Wales are female; 31 per cent of Labour MPs are female – and that is higher than the other parties; 19 per cent of the FTSE 100 companies have female board members and only 3 have a chief executive who is female.

This treatment of women hit me again today while I was watching the winter Olympics. The BBC celebrated that at last women could compete in the ski jump competition for the first time, but we still can’t compete equally in all events.

Crazy isn’t it: because we have no male genitalia and can’t grow a beard, for some reason we can’t compete in the ‘Nordic combined’ (cross country skiing).

I digress again.

Back to pay.

Like many, I think about this inequality of pay lots. I have always been interested to know why women earn less.

I am a mum, and for the first 12 years of my children’s lives I worked part-time. But why?

Two reasons, I feel.

The first is, as a woman, I was the only person who could expect a reasonable amount of maternity leave and maternity pay (at that time).

Secondly, I genuinely wanted to stay at home and spend as much time as I could with my son and daughter.

The problem is I don’t know if this is something I actually wanted or something I was expected to do or whether I just didn’t really have a choice.

However, I can hand on heart honestly say that it is something I am glad to have done. I wouldn’t change it.

I can’t beat the memories of making my first cardboard teletubby and placing a photo of my two year-old daughter in the middle, sending it off to the BBC and seeing her eyes as CBBC read it out. I would never have experienced my son’s first food fight with mashed potato which covered the whole kitchen floor, his hair and the cat.

But whose decision was this, for me to stay at home? For my friends to stay at home and for their partners to go to work? Who influences that many men miss out on the mashed potato mayhem?

I was thinking about this today and about my friends and their work patterns. I thought of ten random friends and whether they worked full time.

Out of the ten friends, three work full time (me being one), most of the others have much younger children and they are clearly the lead carer for the children in their family. Why? In 2014, why is this is still the case?

I asked some of them and received various responses.

One who works full time said she likes to work close to home because it means she can take her children to and from school and also that she earns less but she isn’t bothered about that because she can do all the things she wants like making their tea, taking them swimming and also that when she has finished at work her job is done for the day so she doesn’t have to think about it.

She also added that when her husband isn’t at work then he takes some of this role on.

The other answers were very similar, in that the female earned less (although this wasn’t always hourly rate – if they could work more they might have earned more ) but, predominantly, the women worked less because it was convenient and the men didn’t work less or take on child care because they couldn’t.

But why?

We have increased rights for fathers, but according to ACAS the take up is low.

Paternity leave brings with it a low amount of money, a paltry £136.78 per week. Guess where this is going?  Yes you guessed it,  men generally earn more, so when it comes to deciding who is taking paternity/maternity leave – who are you going to choose?  The one who earns the least or the most?  Nappies aren’t cheap…

I don’t think it is a coincidence that the age bracket where women earn slightly more is when they are between 20 and 29 when the average age in Britain of women having their first child is 29.8 years.

It’s all down-hill from there with the pay gaps, and the older you get the worse it gets.

Women, like men but cheaper?

Not just cheap, it seems.

We’re a real bargain.