4 ms·

> As far as I know, people value things according to what value they obtain from them. That's not true. Very easy counterexample: negotiation. Women are genera

by johnfn 9y ago

> As far as I know, people value things according to what value they obtain from them. That's not true. Very easy counterexample: negotiation. Women are generally less inclined to negotiate then men, causing them to earn lower salaries. Does that mean that people value jobs performed by men who negotiate more than jobs performed by women who don't? Of course not - it has nothing to do with the value-add at all.

darawk 9y ago
That's not sexism, though. That's women negotiating less.
- mrkurt 9y ago
  It's not individual sexism, but it _is_ systematic sexism. Women generally don't handle negotiating the same as men. But negotiation skills aren't relevant to most jobs. So if that's a factor in how people get paid, it's _systematically_ sexist.
  - darawk 9y ago
    I disagree. Women have the same opportunity to negotiate that men do. The fact that they choose to negotiate less is on them.
    - mrkurt 9y ago
      Do you agree that negotiation skills don't matter for most jobs? And do you agree that people should be compensated based on the value they bring to a job? Because sexism or no, I think it's a tremendous problem when people get ahead for completely tangential reasons to their job performance and skills.
      - hnnsj 9y ago
        How is it sexism is sex is not a factor?
        mrkurt 9y ago
        It is a factor.
        hnnsj 9y ago
        In that case I'm missing your point. If everyone has equal opportunity to negotiate salary regardless of sex, then how does it matter whether or not salary negotiation skills should be awarded, from a gender equality perspective? Isn't that a separate issue then, not related to sexism? Unless your point is that the sexism is at a larger cultural level that fosters the average woman to be less effective at salary negotiations. In that case I completely agree.
      - darawk 9y ago
        I agree it's a problem. But it's women's problem. If they want to get ahead - start negotiating. It's not incumbent upon society to bend over backwards to facilitate every subgroup's predilections. Salary negotiation is a necessary part of the job market. It performs a useful and important function - price discovery. It is not sexist if women are maladapted to it.
- johnfn 9y ago
  It's absolutely sexism that salary negotiations favor behaviors that men are comfortable with and women are not.
  - darawk 9y ago
    No, it isn't. The world doesn't need to be designed to produce equality of outcome. Just equality of opportunity. Women may choose to negotiate less, and that's fine. They'll get paid less. If women want to choose to negotiate more, they can do that too, and be paid more. If you want to argue that it's sexist that we socialize women to negotiate less, i'm all for that, though.
    - johnfn 9y ago
      > If you want to argue that it's sexist that we socialize women to negotiate less, i'm all for that, though. If that's the road you feel comfortable walking down, I think it's fine to compromise at that point. Regardless of how it happened, the result - women not negotiating - is still the same.
      - darawk 9y ago
        Yes, but how you get there matters. If society is socializing women to negotiate less, that's society's fault and society should try to correct that. If women are simply biologically predisposed to negotiate less, that's nobody's fault and women can try to correct it if they want, or not. But it's not a social, collective problem.
  - bllguo 9y ago
    To me this is moot. At this point you're fighting against the natural inclinations of the human mind. I'd pick my battles more carefully. There are other issues related to sex that are much easier to attack, with much greater potential impact.
- glibgil 9y ago
  You just made a sexist comment. Did you mean to?
  - darawk 9y ago
    How so?
- learc83 9y ago
  To the extent that women negotiate less due to biology, it's almost definitely not purely down to biology. That means there's likely some kind of societal pressure keeping them from negotiating as much. There have been plenty of studies that show assertive women are seen as just being bitchy while assertive men are seen as strong leaders. That societal difference is sexism. Individuals don't have to be consciously sexist for implicit bias to affect women.
- UncleMeat 9y ago
  Studies have demonstrated that women who negotiate are less likely to get what they are want and are more likely to be punished for it.
bitexploder 9y ago
Doesn't this article refute that idea? If the pay gap is less than 1% for same rank/same job that means whatever is causing that 1% delta is pretty small. How much of that can you attribute to a lack of "negotiating" and is that 1% significant ? That would mean basically a woman accepted 99K where a man accepted 100K. At that scale negotiating and gap is almost non-existent. And you don't generally negotiate position and or rank. You apply for or get recommended for a job and get it or not, negotiating is usually about the dollars and cents after being in strong consideration for a position or after being given an initial offer for a position. If women /are/ discriminated against you might even argue, based on this data, they are better at negotiating than men and that could make up for them being so close in pay for same rank / same role jobs. The point is the data doesn't support it.
DonbunEf7 9y ago
You can't pick on education and then talk about negotiation; educators often are represented by unions, which means that you're talking about a completely different ball game.
prostoalex 9y ago
> Women are generally less inclined to negotiate then men This blanket statement seems sexist. Some are inclined and some are not. Besides, as soon as one leaves the world of small business, the corporations stick to salary bands attached to specific titles. The variations within the bands are usually driven by longevity with the company as well as performance reviews. It makes things easier in HR department, and creates a paper trail on compensation decisions in case someone decides to get litigious later.
- bllguo 9y ago
  Goodness, man. Stating facts is not sexist. > Some are inclined and some are not. That is what "generally" implies, yes. There is an argument that women are generally less inclined to negotiate due to the effects of sexism.
  - prostoalex 9y ago
    http://news.ufl.edu/archive/2015/04/why-everything-youve-heard-about-women-and-negotiation-might-be-wrong-.html http://news.ufl.edu/archive/2015/04/why-everything-youve-hea... "Miller and Douglas discovered that women who had experience with successful negotiation were superior negotiators to men, even when they rated themselves as only average negotiators."
    - darawk 9y ago
      What's being discussed is not skill at negotiating, but predilection for it.
      - prostoalex 9y ago
        The research points it's an acquired, not innate, skill. In the same vein, people who have never studied French are generally less inclined to join a conversation in French.
- darawk 9y ago
  Well, I was simply taking the person I was responding to at their word. I'm not aware of evidence on either side of the issue of whether women negotiate more or less, I was just granting them their supposition, because I think its irrelevant.
micahbright 9y ago
Whoa, people value things higher than or equal to what they pay for them(unless there is coercion as in the case of paying health insurance premiums in the US). In other words, price must be lower than or equal to value.

by johnfn 9y ago

darawk 9y ago

That's not sexism, though. That's women negotiating less.

mrkurt 9y ago
It's not individual sexism, but it _is_ systematic sexism. Women generally don't handle negotiating the same as men. But negotiation skills aren't relevant to most jobs. So if that's a factor in how people get paid, it's _systematically_ sexist.
- darawk 9y ago
  I disagree. Women have the same opportunity to negotiate that men do. The fact that they choose to negotiate less is on them.
  - mrkurt 9y ago
    Do you agree that negotiation skills don't matter for most jobs? And do you agree that people should be compensated based on the value they bring to a job? Because sexism or no, I think it's a tremendous problem when people get ahead for completely tangential reasons to their job performance and skills.
    - hnnsj 9y ago
      How is it sexism is sex is not a factor?
      - mrkurt 9y ago
        It is a factor.
        hnnsj 9y ago
        In that case I'm missing your point. If everyone has equal opportunity to negotiate salary regardless of sex, then how does it matter whether or not salary negotiation skills should be awarded, from a gender equality perspective? Isn't that a separate issue then, not related to sexism? Unless your point is that the sexism is at a larger cultural level that fosters the average woman to be less effective at salary negotiations. In that case I completely agree.
    - darawk 9y ago
      I agree it's a problem. But it's women's problem. If they want to get ahead - start negotiating. It's not incumbent upon society to bend over backwards to facilitate every subgroup's predilections. Salary negotiation is a necessary part of the job market. It performs a useful and important function - price discovery. It is not sexist if women are maladapted to it.
johnfn 9y ago
It's absolutely sexism that salary negotiations favor behaviors that men are comfortable with and women are not.
- darawk 9y ago
  No, it isn't. The world doesn't need to be designed to produce equality of outcome. Just equality of opportunity. Women may choose to negotiate less, and that's fine. They'll get paid less. If women want to choose to negotiate more, they can do that too, and be paid more. If you want to argue that it's sexist that we socialize women to negotiate less, i'm all for that, though.
  - johnfn 9y ago
    > If you want to argue that it's sexist that we socialize women to negotiate less, i'm all for that, though. If that's the road you feel comfortable walking down, I think it's fine to compromise at that point. Regardless of how it happened, the result - women not negotiating - is still the same.
    - darawk 9y ago
      Yes, but how you get there matters. If society is socializing women to negotiate less, that's society's fault and society should try to correct that. If women are simply biologically predisposed to negotiate less, that's nobody's fault and women can try to correct it if they want, or not. But it's not a social, collective problem.
- bllguo 9y ago
  To me this is moot. At this point you're fighting against the natural inclinations of the human mind. I'd pick my battles more carefully. There are other issues related to sex that are much easier to attack, with much greater potential impact.
glibgil 9y ago
You just made a sexist comment. Did you mean to?
- darawk 9y ago
  How so?
learc83 9y ago
To the extent that women negotiate less due to biology, it's almost definitely not purely down to biology. That means there's likely some kind of societal pressure keeping them from negotiating as much. There have been plenty of studies that show assertive women are seen as just being bitchy while assertive men are seen as strong leaders. That societal difference is sexism. Individuals don't have to be consciously sexist for implicit bias to affect women.
UncleMeat 9y ago
Studies have demonstrated that women who negotiate are less likely to get what they are want and are more likely to be punished for it.

bitexploder 9y ago

Doesn't this article refute that idea? If the pay gap is less than 1% for same rank/same job that means whatever is causing that 1% delta is pretty small. How much of that can you attribute to a lack of "negotiating" and is that 1% significant ? That would mean basically a woman accepted 99K where a man accepted 100K. At that scale negotiating and gap is almost non-existent. And you don't generally negotiate position and or rank. You apply for or get recommended for a job and get it or not, negotiating is usually about the dollars and cents after being in strong consideration for a position or after being given an initial offer for a position. If women /are/ discriminated against you might even argue, based on this data, they are better at negotiating than men and that could make up for them being so close in pay for same rank / same role jobs. The point is the data doesn't support it.

DonbunEf7 9y ago

You can't pick on education and then talk about negotiation; educators often are represented by unions, which means that you're talking about a completely different ball game.

prostoalex 9y ago

> Women are generally less inclined to negotiate then men This blanket statement seems sexist. Some are inclined and some are not. Besides, as soon as one leaves the world of small business, the corporations stick to salary bands attached to specific titles. The variations within the bands are usually driven by longevity with the company as well as performance reviews. It makes things easier in HR department, and creates a paper trail on compensation decisions in case someone decides to get litigious later.

bllguo 9y ago
Goodness, man. Stating facts is not sexist. > Some are inclined and some are not. That is what "generally" implies, yes. There is an argument that women are generally less inclined to negotiate due to the effects of sexism.
- prostoalex 9y ago
  http://news.ufl.edu/archive/2015/04/why-everything-youve-heard-about-women-and-negotiation-might-be-wrong-.html http://news.ufl.edu/archive/2015/04/why-everything-youve-hea... "Miller and Douglas discovered that women who had experience with successful negotiation were superior negotiators to men, even when they rated themselves as only average negotiators."
  - darawk 9y ago
    What's being discussed is not skill at negotiating, but predilection for it.
    - prostoalex 9y ago
      The research points it's an acquired, not innate, skill. In the same vein, people who have never studied French are generally less inclined to join a conversation in French.
darawk 9y ago
Well, I was simply taking the person I was responding to at their word. I'm not aware of evidence on either side of the issue of whether women negotiate more or less, I was just granting them their supposition, because I think its irrelevant.

micahbright 9y ago

Whoa, people value things higher than or equal to what they pay for them(unless there is coercion as in the case of paying health insurance premiums in the US). In other words, price must be lower than or equal to value.