I think many of those pushing their false "equality" crusade are confusing equality of opportunity with equality of outcome. I think another factor is that some people, of whatever gender, simply don't want to do certain jobs. And then there's the factor that some jobs require a certain amount of physical strength and the average woman simply isn't physically capable of doing them.
I remember many years ago, back when things were starting to be referred to as -isms (before -phobias appeared in silly contexts), a male friend was having trouble at work because of the newfound push to hire more women. His job routinely involved carrying 50lb or more of tools, indeed the first thing he had to do in the morning was lift his toolbox into his van before he drove to his first job for the day. And then the company hired a very petite, slightly built, female engineer because apparently it was sexist to do anything less. This poor woman couldn't physically lift the toolbox at all, let alone lift it in and out of the van. And so began an ongoing face-off because she expected the men to do the physical aspects of her job while not earning any more for covering the parts of her job she couldn't do. The whole situation was absurd but anything less was apparently sexist.
If a woman chooses to take a career break to look after her children she shouldn't be surprised at the loss of earnings during that time, nor should she be surprised at the loss of earning potential during that time and the fact she may need to return to the workforce at a more junior level to when she left. This would be exactly the same if a man took a career break to care for his children, the main difference being it is more unusual for a man to leave work to raise his children.
Personally I think society would be immeasurably better off if one parent were to quit employment for at least the first few years of their childrens' lives. The current situation we have where there's an endless push for childcare, then complaints that it costs money (as if child minders should work for free), then the associated push to shift the cost onto employers or taxpayers because working parents can't afford it, when all the while we might do better to ask the question of what purpose there is in going to work if all it funds is the opportunity to dump your kids onto someone else so you can then wonder why they barely know you. Of course it's not always possible, particularly in an age where more and more children are raised by single parents.
I agree with you that there seems to be a relentless push to discriminate under the guise of removing discrimination. Whether it's forcing the issue to create more female faces, more black faces, more of whatever kind of faces are in vogue today, the end result is that you don't hire the most suitable people. For good measure you also create a lot of uncertainty among the people who have been hired - I remember working on a team of 10 white men, 1 white woman and 1 black man. The woman was incredibly good at what she did and there was little doubt that she was hired for her expertise. The black guy was always uncertain. He didn't have anything like the level of expertise the woman had so didn't have the clear evidence he was hired for his skill rather than his skin color, and often wondered whether he had been hired just to be the token black face on the team.
