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Nothing ventured, nothing gained
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Well, we did it. We graduated. We made it through all the lectures and papers and midterms and finals and we’re ready to take on the big, bad world. In which there are no jobs.
Shit.
For my graduating class, the great class of 2009, graduation was a bittersweet moment – more bittersweet than graduation, with its unique mix of “goodbye, college” and “hello, real world,” usually is. As we threw our caps in the air and listened to inspiring speeches about the adventures that awaited us in the bright, promising future, many of us felt a sense of uncertainty - and even a dash of fear - because our futures didn't seem all that bright and promising. A lot of us didn’t even know what the immediate future held for us. Unlike our friends in the classes of 2007 and 2008, we were graduating during an incredibly challenging job market, and despite our best efforts, many of us hadn’t managed to find jobs.
A month later, those of us who were lucky enough to be employed are done thanking the universe for our good fortune, and we’re ready to get to work. Some of us are working at non-profits, others in IT, and still others – the very brave ones – are working in finance. Like the endless parade of graduation speakers told us, we are facing a new set of challenges. For us women, those challenges are daunting indeed.
Women earn less than men – about 23% less. Women are promoted less often, and less far, than men – only 29 Fortune 1000 companies are headed by women. That’s 50% of the population represented at a rate of 2.9%. As women, these are realities we bump up against every day. Sometimes it feels like there’s nothing we can do to change those realities – after all, how can just one person stand up to statistics like that?
Luckily, while these disparities are the result of a complex matrix of factors, there are several things that women, as individuals, can do to better their chances of being treated – or at least paid and promoted – equally in the workplace.
Writing about the gender pay gap in their book Women Don’t Ask (which ought to be required reading for any new graduate, male or female), Linda Babcock and Sara Laschever explain how through socialization, girls and women learn to be less assertive about their own needs and desires, and that in the workplace, failing to speak up about what they want or need often translates into lost opportunities, not to mention lost income. Starting at a young age, girls are taught that rules are hard and fast, whereas boys are taught that “they don’t have to accept the limits of every situation – that alternatives often exist.” In other words, where girls learn to wait quietly for praise and promotion, boys are taught that the world is negotiable, and that if they want something, they should ask for it.
In adulthood, these lessons cost women big money. In one study conducted at Carnegie Mellon’s Tepper School of Business, only 7% of women negotiated on their starting salary, compared to 57% of men. This translated into a 7.6% pay gap, or about $4000 a year.
When it comes to asking for promotions, women are similarly reluctant to speak up, and it’s no surprise. While men are taught that “if you don’t ask, you don’t get,” women are taught that “nice girls don’t ask.” Women who expect to be chastised for speaking up often see those expectations met; as Babcock and Laschever write, women who assert their desires for a raise, a promotion, or simply a change in their working arrangement are sometimes called “pushy” or “bitchy” or “difficult to work with… Experiencing this treatment themselves or seeing other women treated this way, many women struggle with an intense anxiety when considering asking for something they want.” As a result of this anxiety, women often don’t ask at all, and if they do, they don’t ask as well as a men, who are unhampered by such anxiety, might ask.
So here’s the thing. You might be feeling mighty lucky to have a job at all right now. You might have fought it out through four rounds of interviews, two sets of Myers-Briggs tests and a global financial maelstrom to secure that job. But you must negotiate on your starting salary. You have to be willing to stand your ground. You need to grit your teeth, ignore the voice inside you that says, “I probably don’t deserve more money” or, “They’ll promote me when the time is right” and just ask. The guy next to you is going to ask, and he’s probably going to get what he wants. There’s no good reason why you can’t do the same. He’s not worried about coming off as ambitious or self-important or greedy, and there’s no good reason why you should either.
Just ask. You’ve got nothing to lose and so much to gain.
By defying the idea that “nice girls don’t ask,” you’ll not only asserting some control over your own career; you’ll also be making it that much easier for the next woman to speak up and ask for what she knows she deserves. You might not get the raise you want, or the promotion, or the really comfy ergonomic chair. But you will get the thrill of breaking a barrier that holds women back and the pleasure of clearing the path for those who come after you. And that’s the stuff that graduation speeches are made of.
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