6 ms·

This phenomenon was studied in a book called Women Don't Ask. http://www.womendontask.com/ http://www.womendontask.com/ 'When Linda Babcock asked why so many

by bravura 15y ago

This phenomenon was studied in a book called Women Don't Ask. http://www.womendontask.com/ http://www.womendontask.com/ 'When Linda Babcock asked why so many male graduate students were teaching their own courses and most female students were assigned as assistants, her dean said: "More men ask. The women just don't ask."' Incidentally, for a while, the authors would give a free copy of this book to women who would ask for one.

thomasgerbe 15y ago
"More men ask. The women just don't ask." I wonder why women do not ask more. Especially with something like dating. It happens but far less regularly than the other way around. I wonder if that leap of faith contributes to men being more comfortable to negotiate/ask for higher income.
- suivix 15y ago
  Testosterone, maybe? (I'm not trying to be snarky)
  - bh42222 15y ago
    Could be. But as an evolutionary psychology fan myself this is one area where I would expect social conditioning to play a very large role.
    - HedgeMage 15y ago
      It's definitely a function of social conditioning -- how else would it vary so much based on the community in which one is raised? When it comes to salary negotiations, most lower-SEC (socio-economic class) country women I know will counter their first offer. Getting more than the initial offer makes them feel respected; they want to see that the employer wants them enough to make a concession. Most higher-SEC urban and suburban women I know won't ask -- they'll take or turn down the initial offer, but they tell me that asking for more money would make them look whiny and high-maintenance. Growing up in the country, being able to haggle was a badge of honor. One haggles (or at least asks about discounts/freebies) everywhere from garage sales to car dealerships to the local fabric store. I cannot tell you how many times as a child I heard my mother, grandmother, and aunts say "it never hurts to ask". It's considered mostly a woman thing there -- I get funny looks from the men for teaching my 8yo son to haggle, but my male friends ask me to come shopping with them to handle negotiations. The women I know from the techie world (all from higher-SEC and more urban backgrounds than I) may look for advertised sales, but haggling or asking for discounts not offered is seen as showing weakness/looking poor. When I go ahead and haggle around them, they say things like "I cannot believe you just said that!" or "You are embarrassing me, we don't need a discount that badly, we can afford this." As adults, we seem to translate that consumer experience to how we approach salary negotiations. Both groups pursue the strategy that they were raised to believe shows confidence and strength. My advice: if you want your daughter (or son) to negotiate a higher salary as an adult, teach her (or him) to haggle young. That garage sale where she/he asks "If I buy all twelve of these books [marked 50 cents each], would you sell the lot for five dollars?" will eventually become "Would you consider 70k/year?" (in response to an offer for 55).
caw 15y ago
A professor of mine one asked the class: "How would you like to live your life 10% better?" Everyone was like "yeah, of course" The professor's friend would always ask for discounts, everywhere he went. He would normally get a discount of about 10%. This was simply because he asked. His theory was that if he could get a discount, why not ask? It doesn't hurt anyone and you just have to get past the social stigma of "haggling." So the professor's challenge for us until next class was to ask for a discount, or more simply "is that your best price?" Some of the results: A friend of mine got a free appetizer at a restaurant he frequents At least 3 people found out that Taco Bell has a student discount program One person used this in his salary negotiation (literally "is that your best offer?") and instantly got a 5K bump. He was going to take the job anyway, but got $5k more without any hassle.
- patio11 15y ago
  If you had called the office supply chain where I previously worked and I was being very strictly attentive to policy "Is that your best price?" would not have been the magic words but probably would have gotten you the accommodation I'm about to describe from 99% of our CSRs. Basically, we sell the same stuff via a variety of channels, and the catalog you have in front of you (if you're a regular customer) is systematically above the prices available to other customers like, e.g., schools districts, small businesses in California, people responding to our fall circular, etc etc. The actual software mechanism for this was a three character catalog code, which would cause the system to reprice everything when it was changed. If you were ordering from CAT (the big published book that 98% of orders came from, and you said the magic words -- canonically, "Can you do anything about lowering the price?" -- I would tell you that we had a competitive bidding process and, if you'd give me one second, the computer would come up with our best competitive bid for your business deletes CAT, writes BID ahh, I see we can knock 10% off the order) There was actually a Bids group, but you'd have to be ordering office paper by the truckload (literally -- some people do) to be worth their attention. The folks in charge of things had long since decided that it was cheaper to just give 10% to anyone who asked than to involve the folks in Bids on $400 accounts or lose business because a law firm secretary decided to do price shopping prior to placing her order. Of particular note: there is literally nothing you can say, starting from "You're placing an order in CAT", that would cause you to pay more money than the CAT prices. Savvy purchasing managers understand this, which is why purchasing departments almost without fail spent the extra 5 seconds asking for a discount.

by bravura 15y ago

thomasgerbe 15y ago

"More men ask. The women just don't ask." I wonder why women do not ask more. Especially with something like dating. It happens but far less regularly than the other way around. I wonder if that leap of faith contributes to men being more comfortable to negotiate/ask for higher income.

suivix 15y ago
Testosterone, maybe? (I'm not trying to be snarky)
- bh42222 15y ago
  Could be. But as an evolutionary psychology fan myself this is one area where I would expect social conditioning to play a very large role.
  - HedgeMage 15y ago
    It's definitely a function of social conditioning -- how else would it vary so much based on the community in which one is raised? When it comes to salary negotiations, most lower-SEC (socio-economic class) country women I know will counter their first offer. Getting more than the initial offer makes them feel respected; they want to see that the employer wants them enough to make a concession. Most higher-SEC urban and suburban women I know won't ask -- they'll take or turn down the initial offer, but they tell me that asking for more money would make them look whiny and high-maintenance. Growing up in the country, being able to haggle was a badge of honor. One haggles (or at least asks about discounts/freebies) everywhere from garage sales to car dealerships to the local fabric store. I cannot tell you how many times as a child I heard my mother, grandmother, and aunts say "it never hurts to ask". It's considered mostly a woman thing there -- I get funny looks from the men for teaching my 8yo son to haggle, but my male friends ask me to come shopping with them to handle negotiations. The women I know from the techie world (all from higher-SEC and more urban backgrounds than I) may look for advertised sales, but haggling or asking for discounts not offered is seen as showing weakness/looking poor. When I go ahead and haggle around them, they say things like "I cannot believe you just said that!" or "You are embarrassing me, we don't need a discount that badly, we can afford this." As adults, we seem to translate that consumer experience to how we approach salary negotiations. Both groups pursue the strategy that they were raised to believe shows confidence and strength. My advice: if you want your daughter (or son) to negotiate a higher salary as an adult, teach her (or him) to haggle young. That garage sale where she/he asks "If I buy all twelve of these books [marked 50 cents each], would you sell the lot for five dollars?" will eventually become "Would you consider 70k/year?" (in response to an offer for 55).

caw 15y ago

A professor of mine one asked the class: "How would you like to live your life 10% better?" Everyone was like "yeah, of course" The professor's friend would always ask for discounts, everywhere he went. He would normally get a discount of about 10%. This was simply because he asked. His theory was that if he could get a discount, why not ask? It doesn't hurt anyone and you just have to get past the social stigma of "haggling." So the professor's challenge for us until next class was to ask for a discount, or more simply "is that your best price?" Some of the results: A friend of mine got a free appetizer at a restaurant he frequents At least 3 people found out that Taco Bell has a student discount program One person used this in his salary negotiation (literally "is that your best offer?") and instantly got a 5K bump. He was going to take the job anyway, but got $5k more without any hassle.

patio11 15y ago
If you had called the office supply chain where I previously worked and I was being very strictly attentive to policy "Is that your best price?" would not have been the magic words but probably would have gotten you the accommodation I'm about to describe from 99% of our CSRs. Basically, we sell the same stuff via a variety of channels, and the catalog you have in front of you (if you're a regular customer) is systematically above the prices available to other customers like, e.g., schools districts, small businesses in California, people responding to our fall circular, etc etc. The actual software mechanism for this was a three character catalog code, which would cause the system to reprice everything when it was changed. If you were ordering from CAT (the big published book that 98% of orders came from, and you said the magic words -- canonically, "Can you do anything about lowering the price?" -- I would tell you that we had a competitive bidding process and, if you'd give me one second, the computer would come up with our best competitive bid for your business deletes CAT, writes BID ahh, I see we can knock 10% off the order) There was actually a Bids group, but you'd have to be ordering office paper by the truckload (literally -- some people do) to be worth their attention. The folks in charge of things had long since decided that it was cheaper to just give 10% to anyone who asked than to involve the folks in Bids on $400 accounts or lose business because a law firm secretary decided to do price shopping prior to placing her order. Of particular note: there is literally nothing you can say, starting from "You're placing an order in CAT", that would cause you to pay more money than the CAT prices. Savvy purchasing managers understand this, which is why purchasing departments almost without fail spent the extra 5 seconds asking for a discount.