"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."

Guess there is a difference between men and women.

Thanks for the post. My spouse and I go round and round on this. He thinks I don't know how to negotiate on salary, and I often have the feeling that in my situation it's not an option. Seems like I might have been right.

And now that the Supreme Court has ruled that unless women promptly find out they're making less than men and bring suit, women are time-barred from alleging that they were traditionally paid less .... quite a Catch-22 going on here.

If you were to extrapolate these research results to the Democratic nomination for President, would you think that women would treat Hillary like a woman negotiating for her salary?

I'd bet that women will be more against Hillary than men are. I'd also expect to see the polls not pick up on this because, like Racists, the people with these attitudes will not want to tell them to pollsters.

I negotiated once, for the first time. The plant manager of my soon-to-close plant (who was also in job search mode) walked me through it, reviewed my counter-offer letter, and encouraged me to push for even more than I had finally suggested.

The hiring manager rescinded the offer!

Laura

I do believe that women are penalizing for asking for more money, because women are always penalized for asserting themselves.

In 1969, I signed up late for some graduate classes in English Literature at a local state college in the hopes of entering the Masters of Arts in Teaching program the next term. One of the classes was survey course of Shakespeare plays. After we wrote our first papers, the teacher praised a male student for writing a paper that contradicted something he had said in a lecture. He went on and on about how impressed he was with his courage and critique.

So, like a fool, I tried to do the same thing on the next paper. Instead of praise, I got a phone call from the professor and was told to come see him in his office. He was furious with me for taking an opposite point of view. He wanted me to change my paper and told me that if I got a C in the course I wouldn’t get into the graduate program. I told him that I didn’t care. I wasn’t going to change my paper. (For some reason, he backed down and I got a B in the course.)

I signed up for another of his classes the next term, because I actually liked his classes. But, he was livid when he saw me sitting in class. He commenced to explain his grading policy as follows, “In my class only manly men and womanly women get an A.�

Really, as a woman, all you can do is laugh.

I find that women in management positions, at least at my corporate office, are very resistant to promote women. The middle management position in my section is and has been men for the three + years I've been there, except for one woman manager who's been there longer than I have. She recently had a baby and negotiated for a lower-profile position when she returned from maternity leave (i.e., a demotion from Senior Manager to Manager).

As a woman in that office, with a female director and VP but male managers between me and them, I am often struck with the idea that women in positions of power are more punitive towards younger women than they are of aspiring men.

It ain`t just those bags of testosterone driving this dynamic...

"The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist thinks it will change; the realist adjusts the sails." - William Arthur Ward

That's a sad observation if true. Women and men, in a truly "free market", should be equally encouraged to assert their value to perspective employers.

These differences, Babcock and other researchers have concluded, may partially explain the persistent gender gap in salaries, as well as other disparities in how people rise to the top of organizations. Women working full time earn about 77 percent of the salaries of men working full time, Babcock said. That figure does not take differing professions and educational levels into account, but when those and other factors are controlled for, women who work full time and have never taken time off to have children earn about 11 percent less than men with equivalent education and experience.

Well, when I see a figure of 11% reported as 23% I figure I need to take all of the figures of this article and the studies with a pile of salt.

My experience is that most people have no clue as to HOW to negotiate and many people think it is actively bad to negotiate. But if everyone were given classes on HOW and WHY negotiate then people would get over their thoughts as to how BAD it is.

An 11% wage gap is not equality, but it is far less an issue than a 23% wage gap, and it should not be reported as a 23$ wage gap. That just devalues all of us.

Shamanic,
Women can internalize misogyny too.

Here's the thing:

I have a daughter and four granddaughters. Thus you can bet your bottom dollar that I will vote for Hillary Clinton.

Kevin: "Still, 'the worst that can happen is that they say no' is obviously a little too glib, especially if you're dealing with a seething biological sack of testosterone ..."

Such male posers deserve to be publicly emasculated.

My mother was widowed at age 28 by the Vietnam War. As a single parent and primary provider, she raised her boys to respect women with due regard as a man's equal in every sense of the term, without reservation and without condition.

Watching her work full-time while simultaneously maintaining a decent household and family environment, I never had any reason to suspect that there were men out there who thought otherwise.

Now 71 years young, she has since shared with me a bit of wisdom she always found useful whenever "dealing with a seething biological sack of testosterone", a lesson she said that she learned while constantly picking up our toys back in the day:

When stripped naked, even the most über-macho G.I. Joe doll has no genitalia.

Anon: Well, when I see a figure of 11% reported as 23% I figure I need to take all of the figures of this article and the studies with a pile of salt.

Except the article does no such thing. The 23% gap is "women who work full time". The 11% gap is "women who work full time and have never taken time off to have children". These are not the same, and it suggests that there is a very high wage penalty for taking a few years out of the work force.

I'd bet that women will be more against Hillary than men are. I'd also expect to see the polls not pick up on this because, like Racists, the people with these attitudes will not want to tell them to pollsters.

No, women favor Hillary to a greater extent than do men, but, as you might guess, the results are complex. This article describes the results of a recent NYT/CBS poll in considerable detail.

The summary I heard on several of the Sunday talk shows was, "Women, especially younger single women, are more favorable toward Hillary than are men."

The article is worth a look. Among other things, it appears that the percentage of people who view her favorably is increasing, and, whatever their own views, a majority of all voters believe she will be the next president. To wit:

"The vast majority of all voters — more than 80 percent — think it very likely or somewhat likely that Clinton will win the Democratic nomination. More than 60 percent think she is likely to win the presidency."

What a downer. When you post these sorts of posts, couldn't you at least include a few shots of cute kitties to cheer us up? :)

I have been assertive all my life and I can attest that you are penalized for it, but I decided long ago that it would be unfair to myself to act otherwise. It is considered a personality flaw for a woman to behave as a man would do. Thus, you are damned if you do and damned if you don't. This does not apply only to salary negotiations but also to expressing opinions in a variety of contexts, decision-making, supervising staff, etc. I admire Hillary Clinton and will definitely be voting for her.

I'm not going to argue with the experiment, but it sure doesn't describe my wife. She is the kind of person who haggles everything--usually successfully. (She was reluctant to buy a Saturn because she disliked the no-haggle buying experience.) She particularly enjoys taking on raving sacks of testosterone. Depending on the individual sack, she will either scare it witless or let said sad sack disadvantage itself through its crazy behavior.

(Me? I can't haggle worth a damn, and hate it.)

I'll accept that women--as a group--have a harder time haggling. I'm not sure that individual women who like haggling are at any kind of disadvantage.

There are two ways to look at a situation where women do not negotiate: (1) it is women's fault for not negotiating because they don't know how to do it or won't for some unaccountable reason; (2) women would be as good at negotiating as men but they are not negotiated with by men and thus when they negotiate it does not improve their situation but rather harms it. Most of the women who have posted here have described the second situation, not the first. Men like Joe S. assume that there is something wrong with most women and that they do not negotiate because they are women and either do it wrong or are too wimpy to try it. I get so tired of having women's problems blamed on women. Why on earth would a woman not ask for more salary when she deserves it? It is because when she does so she jeopardizes the job offer -- as women posting here have already said. Joe S's wife can haggle at the market to her heart's content, a traditional activity, but if she haggles with a job interview she will be regarded as pushy and a potential trouble maker, and the offer may be rescinded. In my own situation, I asked about negotiation when I was offered my current job and was told there was no possibility of it. Later, I found that more recent job candidates were able to negotiate higher salaries. I asked about an equity increase and was told not to pursue it. Then I saw others requesting and receiving them, so I pursued it myself, against the advice of my Dean and Dept Chair. It is not lack of assertiveness that dooms women. It is a perception that women need to go along to get along, while men do not (at least when it comes to looking out for their own self-interest). Women who seek to maximize their pay are perceived as uncooperative, difficult, and uncolleagial (in academic terms). They are told so, treated badly (which discourages other women observing the situation), and blacklisted by bad recommendations if they do the same things as men do -- Joe S's wife notwithstanding. Letters like Joe S's infuriate me because he is using his wife as a surrogate for invalidating personal experiences expressed by a variety of women in this post. I'll bet Joe S's wife does not agree with him -- how much evidence do some men need? Kevin, this includes you. Every once in a while you post one of these articles with wide-eyed incredulity that there is any kind of discrimination against women, despite the abundance of statistics and a women's movement that has been talking about this for over a hundred years now.

I recently encouraged my daughter to negotiate for what she is worth at a new job -- she had done so with a previous job and it worked out fine -- so she negotiated hard and did get a bit more money -- and has subsequently had great difficulty working with the testosterone sacks who run the business. She is able to compare her treatment with others in her same station -- and this theory of assertive women making men uncomfortable certainly fits her experience there. She did the right thing. But it didn't have the outcome it should have had, nor that it would have had if she had been one of the guys.

She is exceptionally good at the job. But it is taking her awhile to get the appreciation she should; they seem to have started out with a chip on their shoulder.

I'll accept that women--as a group--have a harder time haggling. I'm not sure that individual women who like haggling are at any kind of disadvantage.

Joe, do you really not understand the difference between a customer, who is negotiating from a position of power and can walk away, and an employee, who is negotiating from a position of weakness because she needs the job?

It's easy to decide, "They won't give me a good price, so I won't buy that car." It's a lot harder to decide, "They won't give me the salary I want, so I'm going to quit my job and try to find one that does give me the salary I want."

Long post for people actually in the job market - You need to understand that negotiating is a skill that requires practice and knowledge. Regardless of whether you are a man or woman, you simply cannot afford not to negotiate. Nevertheless, it's not just whether or not you negotiate, but HOW you negotiate. While it's cool that Kevin has opened up the topic, with quotes like this - "Your choice, then, is to either negotiate and risk not getting the job at all, or to stay quiet and accept a lower offer than a man would get" - I strongly advise you women get your negotiating advice from someone else (notwithstanding the fact that Kevin is a great guy, it's a pretty safe bet that he isn't a great negotiator). Without going into great detail, this quote presumes the individual is negotiating prior to being offered the job. That breaks one of the first two big rules of effective job negotiation:
1) Never talk numbers first - NEVER!
2) Never negotiate the details (compensation, etc.) until you have been offered the job - NEVER!

Practically speaking, these are not necessarily easy ideas for everyone to put into practice. For some people, skillful negotiating is easy - they are the ones who make 25% more than you in the same job! BUT, this doesn't mean that everyone can't do better. As I said, it is a skill that requires practice and knowledge - you get the knowledge from talking to good negotiators and, yes, reading books on the subject - there are lots of them out there. You get the practice from negotiating and then considering what you did well and what you did poorly - and you will do better on the next round as you carefully consider what you did poorly.

Seriously people, negotiating your salary effectively is one of the most important long term wealth management skills to possess. Quick example: let’s assume Sally A) takes the $50,000 offered (and gosh, don’t we really like Sally!) or B) negotiates smartly and gets $55,000. Now, let’s assume that all other things are equal for the next 20 years and she gets a nice 4% cost of living adjustment every year and nothing more. Final salary after 20 years? A) $109,556 and B) $120,511. That’s about $11,000/year in the end! And you don’t even want to know what the differences in long term wealth would be if both versions of Sally invested 10% of their salary in the market for those same 20 years (or 30 to 40 years). Further, doesn’t everyone just know that Sally version B also got bigger raises and moved up faster in the hierarchy - come on people. There’s no reason whatsoever that Sally’s peers at work have to think she is a bitch or whatever for negotiating - it’s all how it is done. The goal of effective negotiating is NOT to rip off your employer, but simply to be paid what you are worth by reasonable comparison to the current market. Tune out the noise people!

For a beginner in salary negotiation I strongly recommend the following book (disclaimer - I don’t know the author or get anything for the recommendation - it’s just a book that helped me a lot when I was first starting to negotiate jobs):

Negotiating Your Salary: How to Make $1000 a Minute by Jack Chapman

Yeah, the title is a bit cheesy, but it is a great book. Good luck guys and gals!

Long post for people actually in the job market - You need to understand that negotiating is a skill that requires practice and knowledge. Regardless of whether you are a man or woman, you simply cannot afford not to negotiate. Nevertheless, it's not just whether or not you negotiate, but HOW you negotiate. While it's cool that Kevin has opened up the topic, with quotes like this - "Your choice, then, is to either negotiate and risk not getting the job at all, or to stay quiet and accept a lower offer than a man would get" - I strongly advise you women get your negotiating advice from someone else (notwithstanding the fact that Kevin is a great guy, it's a pretty safe bet that he isn't a great negotiator). Without going into great detail, this quote presumes the individual is negotiating prior to being offered the job. That breaks one of the first two big rules of effective job negotiation:
1) Never talk numbers first - NEVER!
2) Never negotiate the details (compensation, etc.) until you have been offered the job - NEVER!

Practically speaking, these are not necessarily easy ideas for everyone to put into practice. For some people, skillful negotiating is easy - they are the ones who make 25% more than you in the same job! BUT, this doesn't mean that everyone can't do better. As I said, it is a skill that requires practice and knowledge - you get the knowledge from talking to good negotiators and, yes, reading books on the subject - there are lots of them out there. You get the practice from negotiating and then considering what you did well and what you did poorly - and you will do better on the next round as you carefully consider what you did poorly.

Seriously people, negotiating your salary effectively is one of the most important long term wealth management skills to possess. Quick example: let’s assume Sally A) takes the $50,000 offered (and gosh, don’t we really like Sally!) or B) negotiates smartly and gets $55,000. Now, let’s assume that all other things are equal for the next 20 years and she gets a nice 4% cost of living adjustment every year and nothing more. Final salary after 20 years? A) $109,556 and B) $120,511. That’s about $11,000/year in the end! And you don’t even want to know what the differences in long term wealth would be if both versions of Sally invested 10% of their salary in the market for those same 20 years (or 30 to 40 years). Further, doesn’t everyone just know that Sally version B also got bigger raises and moved up faster in the hierarchy - come on people. There’s no reason whatsoever that Sally’s peers at work have to think she is a bitch or whatever for negotiating - it’s all how it is done. The goal of effective negotiating is NOT to rip off your employer, but simply to be paid what you are worth by reasonable comparison to the current market. Tune out the noise people!

For a beginner in salary negotiation I strongly recommend the following book (disclaimer - I don’t know the author or get anything for the recommendation - it’s just a book that helped me a lot when I was first starting to negotiate jobs):

Negotiating Your Salary: How to Make $1000 a Minute by Jack Chapman

Yeah, the title is a bit cheesy, but it is a great book. Good luck guys and gals!

Sorry for the double post above!

"Joe, do you really not understand the difference between a customer, who is negotiating from a position of power and can walk away, and an employee, who is negotiating from a position of weakness because she needs the job?" - Mnemosyne

Most excellent point Mnemosyne. Quick quiz for everyone - where does an employee (or future employee) have the most power? In other words, is there one place where the employee is clearly not negotiating "from a position of weakness?" While not the only powerful position, the time where you will have the most leverage for salary negotiation is when you have been offered the position, but still haven't agreed on compensation. This is why you NEVER talk compensation before the offer. And, yes, this can be done done nicely and effectively without pissing anyone off. It's a skill people!

Gotta love gender stereo-types.

Yes, this is wrong. but it doesn't mean men are pigs. This isn't really even behavior that's classically considered 'piggish', that term is usually reserve for sexual crudeness. OH gee, executives are bigotted assholes that hate women, gays, and minorities. What a fucking discovery.
I doubt you'll be doing an expose on the tendency of women to choose the mate with the highest earning potential, and completing this little coin of gender hatred? Oh wait, you're a liberal and they only admit that men are scum, never women.

I'm surprised nobody commented on the finding that female hiring managers get upset when ANYBODY negotiates (male or female). On the one hand, "at least they're fair", but you wonder what goes into that, exactly. Having recently become a hiring manager I (a woman) hired a man who frequently tries to negotiate up every part of his compensation (starting salary, bonus, raise) and frankly, it does annoy me and make me LESS likely to want to push for additional compensation for him. Part of my thinking is "fairness" (ie why should he get a raise and others not, just because he asked and they didn't) and "performance" (he's not really doing any better job than the people not constantly asking for raises.) I think most people would tell you that if you have no performance OR fairness related reason to ask for a raise or a higher salary, there's not much reason someone would want to give you a raise or higher salary. Oh, there might be some people who like to play mind games (I'll only give this person a higher salary if they ask for one to prove that they are not a wuss), but I'm not like that and wouldn't want to work for someone like that. But yes, negotiation probably involves figuring out how the person on the other side thinks and getting to an agreement that makes sense to everyone. In my case, if you work for me and demand more money before you've proven you are "worth it", it just makes me annoyed.

On the flip side, I non-negotiated myself into a pretty hefty raise last year. Instead of directly asking, I pointed out that what I was making was NOT commeasurate with the market (as revealed by the average asking salaries for people applying to the job I was filling--which were generally higher than mine). I didn't even have to go as far as mentioning that I might want to test out that market if my pay didn't improve before a raise was approved. Cool, huh.

"Instead of directly asking, I pointed out that what I was making was NOT commeasurate with the market (as revealed by the average asking salaries for people applying to the job I was filling--which were generally higher than mine)." - JMS

JMS points out another key of good negotiating - knowing your actual market value. We would all like to make more money, but what are you actually worth? You shouldn't put yourself in a negotiating position until you know the answer to that question - how else can you effectively point out that an offer is way under the market? How else can you know when to shut up because the offer is great? Knowledge is power.

As I said above - The goal of effective negotiating is NOT to rip off your employer, but simply to be paid what you are worth by reasonable comparison to the current market.

I will add this as well, if there is a pay scale for your job at your level of experience (there always is), you want to negotiate yourself towards the top end.

the dismissive posts are interesting. e.g. Chad assumes women are not having luck because they don't know how to negotiate or are negotiating before the offer etc -- but that is not the case in the study or in the experiences of friends of mine.

my daughter successfully negotiated a small hourly increase with one job (with a woman manager I might add) because she was good and they wanted her and she knows how to negotiate because she has parents and a brother who can advise her. So when a major salaried job was in the offing, she waited for the offer and then did the kinds of things that negotiation experts recommend. She had some success, getting a bit more money BUT has had to deal with arrogant bosses who are somewhat hostile to her compared to her female peers who didn't push.

My son on the other hand obviously increased his desirability by negotiating hard -- he makes significantly more than his peers, is on the fast track -- all partly because he made it clear going in that he expected a major offer and then once it was made pushed for more and got it.

The rules are different for female academics both in negotiation and in what they are rewarded by in student evaluations. There is lots of evidence that women are expected to be 'nice' and nurturing and not demanding that supports the findings of this negotiation research. The idiot professor who said 'As go to manly men and womanly women' IS an idiot but is just voicing a norm that underpins the research reported in this article in the Monthly. Apparently the same applies in the business world.

I do think that this hurts Hillary especially with insecure men. But they may surprise us as did Title 9. What the men who opposed Title 9 forgot is that men have daughters as well as sons -- and now that we have seen what Title 9 has brought us in the way of competitive women athletes -- opponents are discovering that men are proud of those daughters and want to see those opportunities continues. -- Both men and women have got to see women who are successful as boding well for their daughters future. And those who really believe women are chattel are not voting for a Democrat anyway.

I do think that this hurts Hillary especially with insecure men.

But most Republicans probably aren't inclined to vote for her anyway.

"the dismissive posts are interesting. e.g. Chad assumes women are not having luck because they don't know how to negotiate or are negotiating before the offer etc -- but that is not the case in the study or in the experiences of friends of mine." -artemesia

I make no such assumption about women and I don't think that is a reasonable reading of my comments - not even remotely reasonable. In fact, it was Kevin who made the statement about negotiating before the offer and I merely pointed out that women - to a large extent the subject of his original post - should not consider this to be good negotiating advice. I have tried to take a neutral stance on negotiating as far as gender and one could readily substitute a male name in my example above. My thoughts were expressed with a genuine desire to inform and I don't appreciate your assumptions about me.

My points about negotiating come from my conversations with many people - both male and female - who readily admit they don't do it well and have suffered the consequences of not doing it well. So - if you would really like to know the assumption from where I begin, here it is in a nutshell: Most people, male and female, suck at negotiating. The fact that your daughter has had some successes at negotiating is great and she will likley be even more effective in the future.

Whether or not the playing field is unfairly stacked against women (and I have no doubt that it is), it would be a disaster to see that as a reason not to negotiate.

Actually JMS points out one of the problems of not having taken a course in negotiation. Understanding your market value is step one. Playing that card is definitely negotiation.

Perhaps her non-negotiated raise was exactly a negotiated raise as her employer's viewed it.

There is nothing fluffy about negotiation courses. They should make every high school student take them, and certainly every college sophomore.

Not only is it good to know how to negotiate. It is good to be able to recognize a situation that can use negotiation skills and to recognize when someone is trying to negotiate with you.

Recognize the win-win.

Women working full time earn about 77 percent of the salaries of men working full time, Babcock said. That figure does not take differing professions and educational levels into account, but when those and other factors are controlled for, women who work full time and have never taken time off to have children earn about 11 percent less than men with equivalent education and experience.

The 23 percent figure is meaningless in terms of determining if there is a wage gap between equal workers.

Yes, taking years off from work penalizes your pay. That's news? That's unexpected? That's unfair?

The 23 percent figure is meaningless in terms of determining if there is a wage gap between equal workers.

Apparently, the 11 percent figure is meaningless to you since you're trying to pretend that only the 23 percent figure exists.

I assume that if you found out that everyone at your level was making 11 percent more than you are, you'd be perfectly fine with that?

Yes, taking years off from work penalizes your pay. That's news? That's unexpected? That's unfair?

Ah, yes, the old, "But women choose to have children, so it's not our fault if the way we set up the workplace is completely hostile to anyone who wants to be involved in their child's life."

Here's a question for you: why should your employer pay for your vacation? After all, that's a week -- if not more -- that you're not at work. Why should he have to pay for you to not work? And sick pay is stupid, too. After all, it's not your employer's fault that you were too sick to work. You should have thought of that before you decided to get appendicitis.

My experience is that when you negotiate hard and win, the men you have negotiated with feel emasculated and punish you for winning. They agree to your terms and then call you a bitch and try to sabotage you from then out. When you negotiate successfully on behalf of your employer, they take it for granted and do not recognize your accomplishment. When you do not negotiate hard enough and secure bad terms, you are blamed. I once spent close to 6 hrs negotiating the price of a new car. At the end I was exhausted and resentful that the dealer put me through that. I believe it happened that way because the dealer didn't want to give me the deal (which was reasonable) but didn't want to lose the sale either. Why should a woman have to go through such an ordeal to buy a car at a fair price? Why should a business situation be framed so that a man feels his manhood is jeopardized when a woman is successful? I left business for academia because I got so tired of dealing with those dynamics. This isn't about a lack of negotiating skills. It is about the price you pay when you win -- the fact that you lose by winning and you lose by losing -- and then you get blamed for losing by people like Joe S. and HungChad (what a name, what a guy).

"This isn't about a lack of negotiating skills. It is about the price you pay when you win -- the fact that you lose by winning and you lose by losing -- and then you get blamed for losing by people like Joe S. and HungChad (what a name, what a guy)." - Lucy

Actually, Lucy, it's about both. The original article referes to studies of what happens to people - both men and women - who negotiate. But much of the discussion above is centered around using this data as an excuse for not negotiating. I think this is a mistake that men and women literally can not afford to make. That is simply my opinion and I think that the conversation would be better moved forward if those of you who disagree would offer novel suggestions for the problem - because, honestly, I just don't see taking whatever salary is offered as a viable decision.

As an aside, I think it's a pretty sad state when offering completely reasonable negotiation advice is interpreted as "blamed for losing." I don't think my posts took that tone at all. Perhaps you are much better at negotiating than most, so you have taken the comments personally as somehow insulting your skills. I don't know you, so who am I to say - I certainly did not mean to offend you.

And, referring to your tongue and cheek "what a guy," thanks! I think if you put away that huge chip on your shoulder and just went back and forth on the merits of the discussion, you would like me just fine.

Does anyone have a link to the article?

It may be that the incremental risk involved in negotiating is statistically significant, but not sufficiently large to affect how someone should behave.

Imagine that you have three job openings. Each has the same base salary. You need at least one offer.

Imagine that you have a base 50% chance of getting hired.

Imagine that but negotiating you can increase your salary by 7% (from the article).

But, imagine that if you are female and you negotiate you decrease your chance of getting a particular offer to 45% (a 10% decrease).

Under these assumptions your chance of having a job offer if you don't negotiate is 87.5%

Your chance of having a job offer if you do negotiate is 83%.

But considering that you can expect to get 7% more if you negotiate, negotiation still makes sense.

Another issue:
The downside of negotiation arises from people categorizing the applicant as unusually difficult.

But when people categorize female (or male) behavior they do not use an absolute scale as a reference. There is no objective "bitch" index.

People base their expectations of appropriate female behavior on the behavior of other women.

Encouraging women to aggressively advocate for their own interests results in a slow, broadly based reassessment of what constitutes appropriate behavior for women.

The level of assertiveness exhibited by women today would have shocked their grandmothers.

When commentators suggest that women should just give up negotiating they are suggesting the entirely wrong course of action.

As an aside, I think it's a pretty sad state when offering completely reasonable negotiation advice is interpreted as "blamed for losing."

And when you tell a rape victim that she shouldn't have been wearing that short skirt, you were only offering her fashion advice, right?

When women tell you, "I have experienced this," and you say, "Here are some sure-fire negotiation tips!" you are implying that the problem was that the women didn't negotiate right and denying that sexism had anything to do with it.

"When commentators suggest that women should just give up negotiating they are suggesting the entirely wrong course of action." - Adam

I agree 100%.

I would like to come back to a point regarding the timing of negotiation that is important. You should not be negotiating salary until you have been offered the position. Once the job has been offered the employer has already mentally dismissed the other candidates and convinced themselves that you are the person they really, really want. The decision to hire you is behind them and now they want to do what is necessary to make that happen. Therefore, you are automatically in a much stronger negotiating position. If the employer asks what you want to be paid prior to a job offer, politely state that you would prefer to wait on that discussion - that you would like to first determine that there is a good fit and that, assuming the fit is good, you are certain that a mutually beneficial compensation package can be arranged.

Wow Mnemosyne, notwithstanding the extremely poor taste of the rape analogy, I would like to once again state that I am implying that BOTH men and women tend to negotiate poorly. I honestly don't think there is any way to discuss the subject of job negotiation without you getting offended here. Nevertheless, offering negotiation advice in no way diminishes nor denies your experiences. Nor was it meant to. If you have been treated poorly in the workplace, I am very sorry for that - and that is not some offhand joke. My advice came from a good place - good luck to you in the future.

HungChad, I don't know anyone who would attempt to negotiate salary before being made a job offer. In academia, the offer comes with a salary stated. If you say, I love everything about the job except the salary amount and the response is "I'm sorry but we really have no more funding available for this position." what do you say next? I suppose you could say "Gee, I'm really sorry to hear that, can you check and make sure that is really the best you can do?" but when they say "There really is no more money," what is your next step? I'd really like to know. It seems to me your only choice at that point is to walk away from the job. What would a male master-negotiator do at that point?

Hi Lucy - Awesome! Thanks for actually commenting on the advice. Notwithstanding your unfortunately and unnecessarily snide "master-negotiator" comment at the end, I will take a stab at answering.

First, you seem to view a lot of things from your very own narrow perspective. Not everyone considering the question of negotiation is in academics and so this advice might not be tailor written for you. But I can say with absolute certainty that what you just said about not being able to negotiate in academia is just flat out wrong. How can I be so sure? Well, I am in academia and I just negotiated a salary and startup package for myself ~1 year ago. Without going into personal details, I managed to negotiate over $100,000 more in salary and startup funds (most in the startup category, but I did negotiate an 11.1% increase from the initial salary offer). The final package was better for me AND the university and everyone was/is happy. Further, I just sat on three hiring comittees last year and every single person we hired negotiated some part of their offer - some more effectively than others. One female candidate - gasp! - privately informed me that she went to the university library and investigated all the salaries of the department's current employees and then used that information to negotiate her salary higher - I am not making that up! As far as I can tell, every faculty member in the department is head-over-heels excited to have this intelligent and savvy woman join the department. I know I sure am - I hope she will be in a future position to negotiate on the department's behalf!

Basically every job has some number they give you - this is what we pay. It's up to you to consider what you do with that number. If you are further interested, feel free to email me and we can talk strategy. I am not saying that I will be correct, but I hope it never hurts to hear a few more ideas.

"HungChad, I don't know anyone who would attempt to negotiate salary before being made a job offer." - Lucy

Sorry - I should have spefically responded to this as well. I was merely responding to several others (above) who implied that you won't get offered the job if you negotiate poorly or too aggressively, etc. It is actually quite common that employers will ask what you would like to make before offering the job - quite common. All I can say is that answering that question is a detriment to your future employement and compensation.

And negotiating doesn't mean that you will always get more - some employers make their best offer up front and it is a good offer. Great for you if you find that employer. The important thing is to know what you are worth - ultimately, if you take less, that's a personal decision for which there may be any number of totally legitimate reasons.

Another point.

Almost every post here has presented this as a men versus women situation.

But women generally penalized negotiators, both male and female.

How does that fit in?

HungChad, you told us about your situation and about the woman in your university, but you didn't answer my question. What would you say or do next in the scenario I gave you? What do you say after a Dean says there is no more money? Lab space and start-up funds are not salary, so they don't figure into this discussion. Again, please tell me what a real negotiator would say or do next in the scenario I posted. As a woman, I'd really like to know what I did wrong during my own negotiations -- I was entirely unable to budge the first offer. I too looked up salaries at my university, so I was not uninformed.

What happens when men are given extra pay when they ask for it but women are refused? The article discusses situations where the women could have asked for more but did not. When you ask for more but are treated as greedy, disruptive, uncooperative (seeking more than your fair share) when you do ask for more, it is a "punishment" that teaches you to stop asking for more than is offered. In my job situation, I asked for more and was told that no more was available. I still have not heard what men do in that situation that gets them more money.

You can train women to be more assertive, as the article suggests, but why not also train businesses to offer fair compensation to people with equal qualifications and competence, regardless of gender? At fault is a system that thinks it is fair to underpay someone if they don't complain about it. That's the same lack of ethics that thinks it is OK to sell defective products or cheat customers if they don't complain about it.

Wow, thanks Mneo for rape godwinning the thread. Yes, speaking of the values of negotiation classes is just like blaming a rape victim.

Ya, I took several negotiations classes from an actual real life Ph.d. member of the Harvard Negotiations Project. Not once did this Ph.d tell me about being careful to give advice about negotiations because it was like blaming a rape victim.

Actually she told me everything that HungChad did. Also about recognizing the importance of attempting to make negotiation a win-win for everyone, which maybe perhaps why some people get buyer's remorse after what they have perceived as some wrongly emasculating or bitchy negotiation session.

As I have said, I found negotiations a wonderful class that everyone should take. I find knowing it helps create win-win situations, and helps in negotiating the world without having to rely on the politics of "I have been victimized!", and even to help in blogs so that I can comment without having to call other people "rape blamers."

But I am glad Mnemo that I now recognize in HungChad a rape blamer.

Seriously Mnemo, I think you need a timeout.

And a class in negotiations.

http://www.pon.harvard.edu/

The 23 percent figure is meaningless in terms of determining if there is a wage gap between equal workers.

Apparently, the 11 percent figure is meaningless to you since you're trying to pretend that only the 23 percent figure exists.

Very nice Mnemo! Amanda Marcotte could not have twisted my words any better!

Actually, I was responding it Idiot/Savant upthread you apparently didn't understand the difference between the raw 23% stat and the controlled for childbirth 11%.

I think an 11% wage gap is worth investigating, but it's not 23% and us reality based progressives should realize that and stick to the data. 23% is the commonly reported, and incorrect number and makes this out to be much much worse than it is.

Lucy,

There are several ways to work around the "there is no more money."

1) You do have to find out what market value for your position is. And then you use the actual data in your discussions. If you are at a public university, it is common that the information of each professor is published, which I find shocking, but fun. And then you can say that everyone else in your department is making 160,000 and you should be too. You can also use various salary surveys, though I personally find most of those too broad as they all tell me I am overpaid, feh, what do they know.

2) Feel out other faculty members. Is there really a budget problem in your department or at your school? Were they able to negotiate? If the norm is that no one negotiates for salary but everyone loves their department, you can feel okay with yourself leaving what you perceive as extra money on the table.

3) Turn the salary money into something else. HungChad got an 11% raise but also got 100,000 into startup costs. You can do the same. I am okay with the salary you have offered, but I would like to know I have support in starting up my lab. Can you also offer me $100,000 in startup costs -- that would benefit all of us.

4) Turn helping you into helping everyone. That is, the person you are negotiating with has his/her boss and doesn't want to just give money away. So do their job for them and give them real explanations of why helping you is good for everyone.

5) If your research tells you that profs have successfully negotiated then ask for sometime to think the offer over. Decide how much you can risk. Determine your BATNA. If you are really need the higher salary or feel you can get one, and feel justified in doing so (you have more papers, more degrees, more awards, more grants) than go back and ask. (If you can play one offer with another do so. "I need to wait a week before deciding as I am waiting for my other offers to come in. (Best said if you have other offers you are waiting for.))

Take a course in negotiation! Take one each year, because the shit is hard!

Anyway, shame on you HungChad!

Yeah Lucy, you are right - I didn't specifically answer your question.

OK - Your question of what to do if they say no more money is available? There's only really one thing to do - decide whether or not you want/need the job with their current offer. If your research suggests the offer is good, take it. If you know the offer sucks and they aren't budging, walk away unless you have no choice. Certainly, if you are able to walk away they might improve the deal. I would have walked away from the first offer I got in my current position - it was just too low. I made that completely clear in a letter I wrote responding to the original offer. I was polite and simply explained the truth - which was that the offer was below what other people were getting based on my research and that it was a serious obstacle to my recruitment. I was very careful to place all of my arguments in a larger context - i.e., it is my understanding that the department is going to be recruiting cutting edge people over the next few years and this is one of the reasons I am attracted, but I don't think these salaries will get those people to come..... I didn't just make that stuff up, either - I said it because I meant it. But you can't always walk away and I understand that in my specific example I was lucky to have that advantage (although my position wasn't so strong as I make it seem - I did not have another offer. I was simply unwilling to take the first poor offer). The underlying assumptions change depending on your situation and bargaining points - if "you" have certain special skills, are in high demand, have multiple simultaneous offers, etc., you obviously have more bargaining room than without those things.

Second - yes, a big part of my negotiating was startup and not salary, but I did get my salary up by more than 10% from the first offer. Come on Lucy - give me some cred for standing my ground! And I should say that I was specifically advised by several new male faculty members that there was no room for increases in the salary line. Nevertheless, I asked and was rewarded.

Third - I never suggested that you did anything wrong as a woman or a negotiator. I think we are playing too much in the very dangerous area of personal examples - I have no reason either way to think your current salary (or mine) has anything to do with gender. It seems that you may be suggesting this and I hope this isn't true. I don't disagree for a second that sexism exists in the workplace. I agree with everything in your last paragraph above. Nevertheless, to my understanding, there is no reasonable alternative to negotiating.

Ya, I took several negotiations classes from an actual real life Ph.d. member of the Harvard Negotiations Project. Not once did this Ph.d tell me about being careful to give advice about negotiations because it was like blaming a rape victim.

Did the PhD mention the whole "women are punished if they negotiate" problem that's the subject of discussion here? If not, it's not exactly relevant, is it?

Again for the slow: when multiple women say, "I get punished by my boss if I negotiate my salary the same way that the men in my office do" and your response is, "Well, clearly the problem is that you're a poor negotiator," you are actively making the problem worse by insisting that a widespread societal problem is merely a personal problem.

Interestingly, Chad, you didn't address my other point: you seem to think that an 11 percent difference is no big deal. If you found out that you were making 11 percent less than everyone else in your position at the company, would you be fine with that?

And given that the majority of women in the United States will both work full-time and have children, that 23 percent figure should be pretty worrisome. Of course, what do you care, it's only your wife who would have to deal with it. Having your wife make less money than her experience and resume says that she should couldn't possibly have an overall effect on the resources of the whole family. I'm sure it wouldn't make any difference in being able to buy a house, for instance.

Oh, and thanks for once again reducing a problem that 50 percent of the population has to deal with as a mere "special interest."

"At fault is a system that thinks it is fair to underpay someone if they don't complain about it. That's the same lack of ethics that thinks it is OK to sell defective products or cheat customers if they don't complain about it." - Lucy

OK, I lied. I don't agree with everything you said in your last paragraph - sort of agree with the general jist and direction, but not the specifics. This analogy is pretty weak. Of course people should be treated as equally as possible, but how precisely do you propose that takes place? As you suggest, teaching employers to set up fair methods of evaluating potential employees is certainly a great start. Nevertheless, you get around the fact that no two people have identical qualifications for a position. The potential employee must take some of the responsibility for explaining what makes them speacial and why they should make as much OR more than other employees. That's part of the negotiation.

Mnemosyne - you've just quoted yourself with this:

""Well, clearly the problem is that you're a poor negotiator." Nobody said that and I, for one, was clear to point out that I did not mean to say that. You actually have a very bad habit of using quotes for stuff that nobody says.

I agree with you that this is a widespread societal problem which should not be taken lightly. For the last time, I did not mean to diminish the initial point of the article that women are treated unfairly. I can see that you wanted the thread to stay on that more narrow topic - nothing wrong with that, but you don't have to be so suggestive of evil intent in those who are just trying to offer some advice.

Did the PhD mention the whole "women are punished if they negotiate" problem that's the subject of discussion here? If not, it's not exactly relevant, is it?

Well she (and harvard's pon) teach negotiations classes from a standpoint of win-win, not win-lose.

But if you want to negate what the experts in negotiations are saying their research finds because of the experiences of people who haven't been taught how to do it, I say go for it!

I did a study too, most people say landing a plane is hard. I asked a few pilots and they said "nah, not really."

And given that the majority of women in the United States will both work full-time and have children, that 23 percent figure should be pretty worrisome. Of course, what do you care, it's only your wife who would have to deal with it. Having your wife make less money than her experience and resume says that she should couldn't possibly have an overall effect on the resources of the whole family.

Note to really really slow Mnemosyne (who is gearing up to become Amanda 2008), when their resume and job experience is taken into consideration, the gap is only 11%. Why do you keep saying it is 23%?

Why do you insist that people that leave the workplace for years should be given not just their old pay when they get back, but actual promotions and pay raises to make them the equal of men and women that did work those years?

How do you propose that happen?

Also, you have some balls telling me how my wife and I feel about this or towards each other. Please stay out of my bedroom you voyeuristic marxist.

Nevertheless, you get around the fact that no two people have identical qualifications for a position. The potential employee must take some of the responsibility for explaining what makes them speacial and why they should make as much OR more than other employees. That's part of the negotiation.

Here's the thing, Chad:

It used to be that there were very few women in large orchestras and symphonies. The claim was always that the men just happened to be better musicians, oh well, that's the way it goes.

Then orchestras started doing "blind" auditions where the person auditioning was hidden behind a screen so they could judge the musician solely by the music. And, hey presto, all of a sudden a lot more women started getting hired, because the listeners were having to judge them solely on their qualifications.

Now, did a large number of women just happen to become great musicians in the course of one year, the year between the last in-person audition and the first blind audition? Or was there maybe -- just maybe -- another factor involved when the auditioners couldn't use gender, even unconsciously, in their decision?

That's the problem. When you have candidates who are equally qualified, other factors come into play. Like it or not, those factors are most often race and gender, not negotiating skill. And if being a tough negotiator is going to actually count against you and in favor of the other candidate when they're making the decision, you'll be even more likely to lose the job.

That's what you keep forgetting here: women are penalized for negotiating, while men are rewarded. Insisting that the problem is the person doing the negotiating and not the person doing the hiring is, yep, blaming the victim, like it or not.

I did a study too, most people say landing a plane is hard. I asked a few pilots and they said "nah, not really."

From the article:

"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."

But the problem is that women negotiate badly, not sexism. Uh-huh.

Note to really really slow Mnemosyne (who is gearing up to become Amanda 2008), when their resume and job experience is taken into consideration, the gap is only 11%. Why do you keep saying it is 23%?

Because I keep mentioning that, y'know, most women have kids at some point in their life? In fact, so do most men, and yet somehow they escape being penalized for it.

Though I have to say, I'm very flattered that you think I come anywhere close to Amanda Marcotte's writing skills. That's the best compliment I've gotten all day.

Why do you insist that people that leave the workplace for years should be given not just their old pay when they get back, but actual promotions and pay raises to make them the equal of men and women that did work those years?

If we were only talking about women who left the marketplace for, say, 6 years to be a stay-at-home parent and then re-entered, that would be one thing.

But we're not. We're also talking about women who barely got 12 weeks of family leave and returned to work immediately. They also get penalized. I guess in your world, taking 3 months off five or ten years ago should translate into a lifetime of lower salaries and fewer promotions, right?

Mnemosyne - the orchestra example is a good one and, unfortunately, not surprising. The question I would ask is how do we do interviews, job hiring, etc. blind? Put away your super special see the dark heart in HungChad glasses and assume I am asking that from a good place. It is abundantly clear that gender causes major biases in fair employment decisions. Other than educating employers and waiting for continued slow improvement, what suggestions do you have for helping eliminate these biases?

Other than educating employers and waiting for continued slow improvement, what suggestions do you have for helping eliminate these biases?

Doing blind resumes would probably help a fair amount of people to get in the door. I used to work at a public university in California and they had a very strict policy about the number of people you had to interview to fill a job and what percentage of those interviewees needed to be minorities. Not surprisingly, that was one of the most diverse places I've ever worked: turned out that once people could get through the door, they were often impressive enough to get hired. I think that having people submit resumes without names would probably help.

And before I head off to yoga, I should say that negotiation is a very important skill to have in the marketplace when you're a customer. The next time I buy a car, I'm bringing along my ex-sister-in-law, who's probably the toughest negotiator I've ever seen. (She practically had the Honda guy in tears with the deal she insisted on.)

The problem, again, is that having that particular skill backfires in this specific situation. Which is why I was getting very impatient with the implication that getting better at negotiating was the solution. If the very skill that you're practicing will make matters worse in that specific situation, it's not helpful to tell people to practice harder.

But we're not. We're also talking about women who barely got 12 weeks of family leave and returned to work immediately.

Citation please.

I looked for the research behind the 75-77% numbers and only came up with the statistics, not the paper.

I find it very hard to believe that this 23% gap is based solely or mainly on women that took 12 weeks off and then immediately returned to work.

Since you are so certain, I ask that you give me the citation so I can read it for myself. How much of the 23% gap is due to women that returned to work after only 12 weeks off?

From the article:

"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."

We all agree that men and women have different communication skills, right? Since the study was done with people that were not trained in negotiation (as near as I can tell) perhaps what is being measured here is not the sexism you seek everyday but a measurement of the difference and effectiveness of mens and womens communication skills in a business environment.

Another way to put it, "nagging and demanding" is not a win-win negotiation.

I also await your agreement that the women that also penalized women for negotiation just have a lot of internal misogyny in them thanks to the patriarchy.

Because I keep mentioning that, y'know, most women have kids at some point in their life? In fact, so do most men, and yet somehow they escape being penalized for it.

Having kids is a choice. You can choose to have kids or not to have kids. No one forces a women to have children.

Men are both rewarded and penalized for having children. We may stay at work while the mother takes her 12 weeks off and so earn more, but then we are penalized by being expected to be at work instead of where we would rather be which is at home, helping bring up the children. So men are penalized, we don't see as much of the child, we don't enjoy the child's first years, we don't get to parent the child, or diaper the child, or help the child through sicknesses, or play games with the child. We are expected to travel during birthdays, and attend meetings instead of school plays. If we divorce, it is expected that the child will go to the mother. If we divorce, society looks upon us as failures. If we divorce we who stayed at work against our will instead of being with the kids end up paying alimony, in part to offset the 23% decline that the mother got with her 12 week absence from work. Our suicide rates our higher. Our job injuries rates are higher. We die sooner.

So men are penalized for being men and fathers.

I don't think you write as well as Amanda, I clearly never said that. I think you twist words arguments and facts as well as Amanda, or pretty damn close.

Which is too bad, I always have hopes you'll join the reality based community instead of the identity politics community you always find to be your first home.

The problem, again, is that having that particular skill backfires in this specific situation. Which is why I was getting very impatient with the implication that getting better at negotiating was the solution. If the very skill that you're practicing will make matters worse in that specific situation, it's not helpful to tell people to practice harder.

Since the article basically states that none of the men or women in any of the author's three studies were trained in negotiation, you actually have no evidence at all of what you are saying. In fact what you could be observing is the difference in communications between men and women and how that is effective in the business world.

What does the study say about men and women that have been trained in negotiation?

I admit it's kind of funny to hear that women are such poor negotiators or seen badly for attempting to negotiate. Wasn't there recently a study that showed that happpiness in a marriage is directly related to how quickly the man agrees with the woman?

What I find worse is that I've been told that since women are made from sugar and spice and everything nice that I believed that when women took over, their speech dynamics were such as to eliminate all wars.

Now I find they are either poor negotiators, afraid to negotiate, or see each other poorly for it. I'm going to have to rethink my vote for Hillary.

Another way to put it, "nagging and demanding" is not a win-win negotiation.

I know that you will be surprised the day your wife leaves you, but none of the rest of us will be.

And, oh yes, the whole "but it's really MEN who are oppressed by women being able to have babies!" meme rears its head once again. I could make a bingo card just from your posts.

Men set up the corporate world. Don't come crying to me if you don't like the way it turned out -- insist on your rights. Men can take 12 weeks of unpaid leave the same way that women can.

Oh, and if you're getting the feeling that I don't take you or anything you say seriously, congratulations -- for once, you actually understood something that a woman was trying to tell you.

A side comment, which hopefully will be of help to somebody:

Many (most?) government institutions have public salary records. At the university where I work, you can ask the reference librarians, and they'll point you to a spreadsheet containing the names, position titles and salaries of every employee.

This is useful for salary negotiations.

Now I have a request for the skilled negotiators among you:

A common tactic is for prospective employers to require 'salary requirements' with job applications. Obviously, they can use this to preferentially interview those candidates who have stated lower requirements. If they find satisfactory candidates in that set, they can make job offers, offering the candidate's 'required' salary (or a bit less).

Assuming that I've received such an offer, how do I negotiate a higher salary?

Please do *not* say something along the lines of 'you shouldn't have listed a salary requirement, or should have listed some vague statement', because (I presume) the standard procedure would have been to sh*tcan my resume at the start.

Thanks!

That's fine Mnemo, I take your bingo card, sniff, and smile when I consider how feminism is dying amongst younger, smarter, more self-aware women. How do I know it's dying? I read Jessica Valenti's silly little book.

I love that Bingo Card by the way, one can easily imagine similar cards running through the hands of men upset with women voting, male soldiers upset with women soldiers serving in their ranks, white soldiers upset with black soldiers serving in their ranks, slave states upset with the arguments of free slaves.

Reading that Bingo card makes it pretty clear what side of power politics and equal rights you are on.

I love the Patriarchy Theory you cite: ALL men are responsible for how corporations and the law and society work, and ALL men are responsible for how households function, and ALL men are responsible for women's fashion, and ALL men are responsible for women's eating disorders, and ALL men are responsible for women when they call each other "bitches".

Again, I welcome our women and their arrival with their ability to better listen and communicate their dissents. As has been said, "nagging and demanding" are not considered negotiations.

Cheers, Kevin. One of the hardest things in the world is to identify that assumptions we make based on *our own* experience do not translate to other people. I've long tried to get my husband to understand that just because *he* doesn't see any discrimination and just because *he* wouldn't discriminate, doesn't mean it isn't there in my world experience. Most of us live with privileges we don't even notice; when we aren't aware of those privileges it's easy to say things like "well, *just* negotiate harder". For the record, I'm not saying that you do say "just negotiate harder." I'm saying that for many people that is the easy answer the gender pay inequity, and kudos to you for keeping your eyes open to the many reasons it might be happening.

In something like 6 hours of posting Mnemosyne successfully avoided the part of the study showing women penalizing other women for negotiating.

Mnemosyne also relentlessly and personally attacked people those who challenged her ideas.

If the white house ever needs a new press secretary we'll know where to look.

If a woman sticks to her desired salary figure and the employer lets her walk away, when it would have given the higher amount to a man, her negotiating is punishing her while his is rewarding him. We have been focused on what the job applicant does, not what the employer does. The study reported was about what the "employer" does, not the applicant.

There is little point to learning to negotiate if it does not bring the rewards it does to men. Where is the evidence that if a woman negotiated, she would be given a higher salary? I think women are less able to walk away from jobs and employers know that, so they are more likely to play hardball with a female job applicant. They may also have sought a female applicant in order to pay them less (save more money in their budget) and thus will hire someone male if they want to pay more. That is the dynamic that is not being acknowledged in this discussion.

If women do not negotiate because they fear the offer will be rescinded or they will not be treated well on the job, I believe that is an accurate perception and may reflect the truth of the situation. The second research study reported said that women were penalized for negotiating, not that they were doing it ineptly. The first study said that women were less likely to attempt to negotiate. The second study was presented as an explanation for the findings of the first one. This isn't about sending women to negotiating school. It is about sending me to someplace where they can learn to treat people fairly.

If a woman sticks to her desired salary figure and the employer lets her walk away, when it would have given the higher amount to a man, her negotiating is punishing her while his is rewarding him. We have been focused on what the job applicant does, not what the employer does. The study reported was about what the "employer" does, not the applicant.

There is little point to learning to negotiate if it does not bring the rewards it does to men. Where is the evidence that if a woman negotiated, she would be given a higher salary? I think women are less able to walk away from jobs and employers know that, so they are more likely to play hardball with a female job applicant. They may also have sought a female applicant in order to pay them less (save more money in their budget) and thus will hire someone male if they want to pay more. That is the dynamic that is not being acknowledged in this discussion.

If women do not negotiate because they fear the offer will be rescinded or they will not be treated well on the job, I believe that is an accurate perception and may reflect the truth of the situation. The second research study reported said that women were penalized for negotiating, not that they were doing it ineptly. The first study said that women were less likely to attempt to negotiate. The second study was presented as an explanation for the findings of the first one. This isn't about sending women to negotiating school. It is about sending men to someplace where they can learn to treat people fairly.

If a woman sticks to her desired salary figure and the employer lets her walk away, when it would have given the higher amount to a man, her negotiating is punishing her while his is rewarding him. We have been focused on what the job applicant does, not what the employer does. The study reported was about what the "employer" does, not the applicant.

There is little point to learning to negotiate if it does not bring the rewards it does to men. Where is the evidence that if a woman negotiated, she would be given a higher salary? I think women are less able to walk away from jobs and employers know that, so they are more likely to play hardball with a female job applicant. They may also have sought a female applicant in order to pay them less (save more money in their budget) and thus will hire someone male if they want to pay more. That is the dynamic that is not being acknowledged in this discussion.

If women do not negotiate because they fear the offer will be rescinded or they will not be treated well on the job, I believe that is an accurate perception and may reflect the truth of the situation. The second research study reported said that women were penalized for negotiating, not that they were doing it ineptly. The first study said that women were less likely to attempt to negotiate. The second study was presented as an explanation for the findings of the first one. This isn't about sending women to negotiating school. It is about sending men to someplace where they can learn to treat people fairly.

Lucy,
You lose your bet. My wife will face down a boss when the situation demands.
In response to a number of these posts--Sheesh, there are a lot of feminists who seem to be afraid of powerful women!

Joe S., doesn't your wife have her own email account? Can't she speak for herself? I wish men understood how silly they sound when they speak for their wives like this, as if their wives were appendages of their own mouths and brains, shared their opinions, had no thoughts of their own. It doesn't strengthen any argument when you report what you think your wife might think, do or feel, for her. Sheesh back at you.

I apologize for the repeat posting above.

And sheesh back at you, Lucy. She doesn't do blogs. And, for what it is worth, when I told her of the post yesterday, she laughed at the report. It just didn't comport with her life.

I'm aware that I sound silly to you. Anything I can say that would attack your world-view of feminine disempowerment would sound silly to you.

I think Erin's point above is the one that resolves much of the back and forth in this sometimes heated discussion. We all lo