IMO negotiating is part of relevant skillset. Especially for more senior (= better paid) positions. One has to know not only how to write code, but back up his decisions as well. Or prevent others from causing issues.
That skill has little to do with salary negotiation. And you keep on asserting that salary negotiation has nothing to do with gender, which seems to me to be skipping most of the work of refuting my arguments, based as they are on the premise that one's gender affects one's success in salary negotiation.
Also, I think that these changes would likely benefit male workers too, but not to the same degree as women.
Yes, you're correct, I think we shouldn't discuss this as a gender issue.
IMO you're mistaking correlation for causation. As you say yourself, changing current salary setup would affect both women and men. This is not gender issue and this should be discussed on other points than gender. Making it about gender is counter productive.
Looking at this form economical perspective, as long as we don't have objective way to measure programmer's productivity, I don't think we can get away from salary negotiations.
IMO negotiating is part of relevant skillset. Especially for more senior (= better paid) positions. One has to know not only how to write code, but back up his decisions as well. Or prevent others from causing issues.