LIFE is a ream of secret numbers it is socially verboten to reveal or to pry into. Weight is one, previous sexual partners another and earnings a third. God forbid one might ask a friend or colleague how much they earn.

Such squeamishness about such an insignificant thing. It's perhaps a by-product of our class system, being so funny about money, although the irony is this propensity to keep our salaries secret shores up income inequality.

There was much glee and Schadenfreude as the BBC released the numbers attached to its talent, and this from quarters that would never dream of admitting their earnings. Alongside the finger pointing was outrage at the gender pay gap displayed by Auntie. Two-thirds of top-earning stars are men. Chris Evans is top of the earning tree, making between £2.2million and £2.25m in 2016/2017. Claudia Winkleman, the highest-paid female celebrity, earned between £450,000 and £500,000.

The lack of diversity was also startling - there were no black or ethnic minority staff in the top 20 of the broadcaster’s rich list.

Now there's talk of a rebellion as it emerges a group of female staff are to sue. "This is the sisterhood in full flow", said Radio 4 Woman's Hour presenter Jane Garvey as she claimed not a single male broadcaster had offered support.

Speaking of support, there was a small flurry of colleagues tweeting their pay in support. BBC Radio 5 Live's Rachel Burden kicked it off with Chris Mason and Paul Lewis following behind. The flurry swiftly dried up. Hashtag Tweet Your Tie and Hashtag Tweet Your Tea might be a thing - but Hashtag Tweet Your Pay was never going to take off.

It's hardly sensible for anyone from a large company to be gloating over the BBC's pay gap. From April 6 this year large companies with more than 250 employers will have to publish their gender pay gap figures. Those employers must publish the gender pay gap between average and median pay, the gender gap between bonuses and how much is earned by the proportion of women and men within each quartile of the firm's staff.

Number should start dropping any time now. Queue squirming and deep unease. Of course, if we lived in Scandinavia, none of this would be an issue. There, tax returns are publicly available. In Norway, on a date in October, shortly after midnight, citizens’ annual tax returns are posted online. It's an easy hit for newspapers looking to find the country's top earners and sniff out any anomalies.

Here, earning are treated as something salacious. The publishing of gender pay gaps should be prompting sensible discussions about value and worth.

The union representing low-paid production workers at the BBC stepped up demands for a minimum salary of £20,000 compared to the current £16,000 in wake of the top earners being published.

According to the Scottish Parliament Information Centre, gross annual pay in Scotland is currently £22,918, the third highest across the UK. However, Scotland has seen the lowest increase in income across the UK.

This year's Tory party manifesto contained figures for the difference between those paid most at large corporations and the average pay of workers. In 2015 the difference was 128:1, a rise from 47:1 in 1998.

The CEOs of the UK’s largest 100 companies take home around 190 times that of the average employee.

These are just a selection of talking points - there are easily many, many more.

Earnings are a weird measure of worth. From pride in high pay at one end of the spectrum to benefits shaming at the other. It shouldn't be this way. Salary transparency harms no one but employers who treat their staff unfairly.

Of course, the argument that two people doing the same job should be paid the same doesn't hold. Two people may be sitting next to one another doing exactly the same job but there are variables: experience, productivity. It's not easy or straightforward to measure an employee's worth.

"Hard work" is the phrase used to justify earnings and the keeping of earnings secret. “I work hard for my money”; “hard working families” - as if it means something. As if it is quantifiable and not just meaningless bluster. One man's hard graft is another's easy breeze.

But secrecy allows nepotism, discrimination and inequality to flourish. It allows the gender pay gap to flourish. Simply, how do we know what to ask for if we don't know the going rates?

We'll never solve salary discrepancy with secrecy as the default standard. Change is due. So, I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.