Should Men get paid 23% more than women for doing the same job?

On April 9, 2013, we celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Equal Pay Act of 1963, which President John F. Kennedy declared to be the end of the "unconscionable practice of paying female employees less wages than male employees for the same job" when he signed it.

The anniversary, known as Equal Pay Day, marks how far into 2013 women must work to earn what men earned in 2012. That doesn't exactly sound like the Equal Pay Act achieved its goal, does it?  Women in the United States today are paid on average 77 cents for every dollar paid to men. (1)

So do should female school teachers, nurses, police dispatchers, etc. get paid 23% less than men doing the same job?  The GOP unanimously think so.  100% of Republicans in the House of Representatives voted to kill attempts to rectify this inequality. 

And recently the Senate voted 53 votes in favor of a bill designed to help keep the playing field (or paying field) equal.  Not enough to overcome the GOP’s 44 votes to keep females in the back of the wage bus.  The 53 to 44 majority vote was of course not enough to overcome the obstructionist use of the filibuster by the GOP.  (2)  

(1)  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/09/women-and-equal-pay-wage-gap_n_3038806.html

(2)    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/09/paycheck-fairness-act_n_5118254.html