Women now make up approximately half of the workforce, and
yet their earnings equal only 80% of what men take home. That is up just 4% from
ten years ago, when women earned about 76% vs men. At this rate, we should hit parity
around the year 2058. Personally, I think that’s a long wait. I like to think
that some 50 years from now, I’ll be enjoying a leisurely ride on my BMW
through the Swiss Alps amidst some version of retirement, worrying more about
where I’m going to find that night’s dinner than I am about the gender pay
ratio in the U.S.
But here in the present, my antennae go up when I hear how
people frame their advice to “fix” this ratio imbalance. I see writing on this
subject focus on the cause that women simply do not ask for more money, therefore they do not receive as much. The
message here is that the responsibility is in the woman’s hand. It belongs to
her and if she would simply step up and negotiate like a man, she would be paid
like one. In an effort to “help” women out of this situation, these writings highlight
the successful negotiating strategies that men use, and recommend them to
women.
Most of these articles and books follow up their advice to women with some acknowledgment that there are expectations in our society that train women to not ask, but then the discussion seems to fade. I get very frustrated at this point because the idea that there might be a systematic problem is lost behind the noise of what women can do to fix their own problem. The overall message one walks away with is that the responsibility is more on women to adjust to the ways of business, and less on business to find a way to help.
Is this truly where the onus of this problem lies? I don’t think so.
There is common agreement that women and men communicate differently. Specifically, women are expected to have a more feminine style of communication, and often do. In fact, when they don’t align with the expected feminine style, it can play against them and earn women negative labels like aggressive or bitch. Similarly, though less stringently, men are expected to communicate in a more masculine style, and often do. However, when a man wanders into a more feminine style of communication, it doesn’t seem to play against him as harshly as it does a woman. Rather, a man is considered surprisingly insightful and well-rounded, and the better for it. With these specific differences and expectations in mind, the negotiation styles that men use should not be expected to work for most women. In fact, to suggest that a woman behave in ways that belong to the masculine style is to suggest that she play a hand that will most likely work against her.
With all of this in mind, I want to emphasize that asking should not be an expectation or a requirement. As much as I am in the business of helping women successfully negotiate situations like these, it cannot be overlooked that this behavior is a masculine style of communication in a patriarchal work environment. If U.S. business is going to benefit from 100% of the brain power this country offers, then it needs to put aside gender and consider 100% of the people. That means, implicitly, that it needs to put aside a requirement that falls so strongly within the masculine style of communication so that they can be more open to the feminine communication style as well.
I’m not saying that negotiating is wrong; I’m not saying that there’s something wrong with asking. What I am saying is that the expectation of the asking – the step in the process that involves the interviewee challenging the offered pay and requesting more– falls outside of the feminine style of communication. That step in the hiring process is where women are seen to lose the extra money that men earn. If that step is the common denominator, change it. Change that step, that expectation, and you change the result.
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