The double bind, yet again

[astra_nomer]

I can't recall if I ever got around to posting a review of the book "Women Don't Ask" by Linda Babcock and Sara Laschever. It's very good reading, looking into how women are conditioned to avoid negotiation, and end up losing out because of it. It's a strong driving force behind the gender pay gap.

One would think that the solution would be to encourage women to stand up for themselves, be more assertive, and go out of their way to get what they want. But you'd be wrong.

This article from today's Post refers to a new study that shows that when women do ask for more, they get penalized for it. This conclusion shouldn't be terribly shocking - it's the same old saw about assertive women being perceived as bitches, even though the exact same behavior in men is not only accepted, but rewarded. However, it certainly helps explain why women are reluctant to ask for more in the first place.

It's evidence like this that shows that it's not women's fault that we aren't getting ahead - there are serious cultural hurdles that we need to overcome in order to be successful.

Comments

[dcltdw]

oh, that bit at the end of the article is interesting, that women always hold negotiating against you while men will reward men for it.

Where do you see that? I saw that men and women were both penalized for being assertive, and that women were penalized at 2x the rate of men.

[capsicumanuum.livejournal.com]

It said that a female decision maker will hold negotiation against the applicant, regardless of the applicant's gender, but that male decision makers held negotiating against the applicant when the applicant is female at a much higher rate (but did not quantify that rate) than when the applicant is male.

""What we found across all the studies is men were always less willing to work with a woman who had attempted to negotiate than with a woman who did not," Bowles said. "They always preferred to work with a woman who stayed mum. But it made no difference to the men whether a guy had chosen to negotiate or not.""

. . .

"A new group of 285 volunteers were again asked whether they would be willing to work with the candidates after viewing the videos. Men tended to rule against women who negotiated but were less likely to penalize men; women tended to penalize both men and women who negotiated, and preferred applicants who did not ask for more."

[dcltdw]

Paragraph above the one you quoted says twice the rate for via-paper events.

Neither says that men are rewarded for engaging in salary negotiation.

[capsicumanuum.livejournal.com]

Paragraph above the one you quoted says twice the rate for via-paper events.

Sure. But you asked about where it said that female decision-makers behave differently from male decision makers.

Neither says that men are rewarded for engaging in salary negotiation.

I didn't say they were. Although one could easily argue, if they wanted to be pedantic, that receiving better salaries and bigger raises counts as a 'reward.'

[dcltdw]

Lokie was asserting that men are rewarded for being aggressive. I was trying to figure out if I was missing something, because her assertion is, I believe, not supported by the article.

I'll agree with your pedantic point, including that it's pedantic. ;)

[astra-nomer.livejournal.com]

I see it this way: men are rewarded in that they get what they want without penalties. Women not only have a tougher time negotiating in the first place (this assertion is not the subject of the article, but is addressed in "Women Don't Ask") and then suffer again in future negotiations.

It's a matter of semantics - you can say women are penalized or men are rewarded, but in the end it comes to the same thing.

[dcltdw]

It's a matter of semantics - you can say women are penalized or men are rewarded, but in the end it comes to the same thing.

Guy 1 interviews for a job, gets an offer, accepts it.

Guy 2 interviews for a job, gets an offer, counterproposes, accepts higher pay, suffers no consequences.

To me, "in the end it comes to the same thing" is false for Guy 1.

[firstfrost.livejournal.com]

To me, "in the end it comes to the same thing" is false for Guy 1.

Really? Guy 1 is not aggressive, Guy 2 is. Guy 2 is rewarded for his aggression with the higher pay.

Sure, Guy 1 isn't being rewarded, but it was a logical conditional. He didn't X, therefore he doesn't Y.