Yes, as a male it's easy for me to get sucked into the patriarchal conclusion: it's the fault of clueless females. And rather than taking this moment to question whether our remuneration system is comically aggressive and deceitful, it's better to finally teach the females a couple weapons of the menfolk.
(After all, we males have never been known to retaliate against females asserting themselves in meaningful ways, particularly not when some aggressive guy's haggling them down. Patriarchy is actually caused by whatever's going on in women's heads, turns out. Men are neutral. Especially the kindly guys in the hypermale programming profession.)
Sorry to disappoint. ;) The remuneration system is well-known for its antagonism. While (if you're fortunate) some individual negotiations may not seem aggressive on their face, if you step back and consider the forest, there's intense pressure to bargain down costs.
Like take "labor" costs (most of us here get called "labor", even if we're a privileged class of it). Lots happens behind the scenes to beat down things like collective bargaining, because they increase labor's bargaining power.
(After all, we males have never been known to retaliate against females asserting themselves in meaningful ways, particularly not when some aggressive guy's haggling them down. Patriarchy is actually caused by whatever's going on in women's heads, turns out. Men are neutral. Especially the kindly guys in the hypermale programming profession.)