6 ms·

I have a serious question and please don't crucify me but can this partly be because women aren't as confrontational as men and won't argue for a higher salary

I have a serious question and please don't crucify me but can this partly be because women aren't as confrontational as men and won't argue for a higher salary when hired (since we know thats when you get your good base salary)? I remember when my girlfriend got hired at her current tech company and I begged her to make sure they put her stock and bonuses in writing but she refused because she didn't want to piss the company off and lets say the deal went bad for her. Obviously this is an anecdote about one situation but I wonder could this be one of the reasons? Companies want to pay you as little as possible to get your talent, it is up to you to negotiate for a better salary and if that isn't happening then I'm not sure what you do? I believe for equal pay for equal work totally but I'm wondering if one of the reasons we don't see that is the salary negotiation process. Please share your thoughts.

unimpressive 11y ago
You're certainly not the first person to think of this, you need to be careful with that though or you get wage suppression and price fixing for work: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/reddit-ceo-ellen-pao-bans-salary-negotiations/ http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/reddit-ceo-ellen-pao-ban...
- geofft 11y ago
  There are other solutions for this, of course. Collective bargaining comes to mind: if I negotiate a 10% increase in wages just because I'm good at negotiating (not because I'm objectively a 1.1x programmer in a way my union agrees with), it's a 10% increase for everyone.
  - RodericDay 11y ago
    There's also another solution: salary transparency. If you believe in markets, you'd agree that a critical element of them working properly is an abundance of information.
- nullrouted 11y ago
  Umm...why do I need to be careful of the thought? I questioned if it was a reason for the disparity, not that I agreed with it. Secondly, your article seems to mention Ellen agreed with my question
  - unimpressive 11y ago
    Yes, and Ellen responded by banning salary negotiation. Which seems to me like a thinly veiled way of strong arming people into being paid sub par wages for their work.
geofft 11y ago
Yes, definitely. This is a common hypothesis, and it gets some study. See, for instance, http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Women_Don't_Ask http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Women_Don't_Ask http://geekfeminism.org/2011/06/17/quick-hit-one-reason-women-make-less-money/ http://geekfeminism.org/2011/06/17/quick-hit-one-reason-wome... http://fdiv.net/2012/01/20/pseudo-science-and-pseudo-feminism-women-dont-ask http://fdiv.net/2012/01/20/pseudo-science-and-pseudo-feminis... There is both the possible cause of women being socially conditioned (or biologically wired, or whatever causes this) to be less confrontational, and the possible cause of women finding it riskier / being in worse negotiating positions for structural-inequality reasons.
- pygy_ 11y ago
  It's part biology, part conditioning. On average, men tend to take more risks than women (a testosterone thing, hence the "having balls" expression). In anonymous settings, when there's no risk of physical harm (video games) woman are as agressive as men. If the gender is revealed/emphasized, a difference appears. The same goes for math tests.
  - RodericDay 11y ago
    I don't think this hypothesis explains why ie: black men, unfairly stereotyped as aggressive & etc, earn lower salaries than white men. I would say it's maybe a tiny bit biology, a tiny bit conditioning, and a large part racist/sexist/etc politics of exclusion.
    - pygy_ 11y ago
      I never said these were the only reasons, and I didn't mention race at all. @geofft was wondering whether the "intrinsic" differences were due to biology or social conditioning. The answer is: both. Of course there are extrinsic factors as well. "Politics" implies a deliberate, concerted behavior, which may exist, but this kind of bias is often subconscious, and present regardless of the gender/race of the evaluator.
      - 11y ago
interpol_p 11y ago
The more interesting thing to me is not just that the base salaries were different, but that her personal bonuses were denied by her manager while her male coworker's bonuses were awarded — despite both of them being involved with the creation and distribution of the spreadsheet. Regarding negotiation, I don't think companies really benefit from doing it. If they offer as much as they are willing to pay for your talent up-front, then you can adopt a take it or leave it attitude. The company will gain the benefit of increasing pay equality. Having pay equality is a step towards increasing diversity, and increased diversity will produce better products and companies.
- jdmichal 11y ago
  > The more interesting thing to me is not just that the base salaries were different, but that her personal bonuses were denied by her manager while her male coworker's bonuses were awarded — despite both of them being involved with the creation and distribution of the spreadsheet. There's nothing that says they had the same manager. They may have, in which case this is very suspect. Or they could have had different managers who were reacting differently to the situation.
  - interpol_p 11y ago
    That's true, it's too little data to draw any useful conclusion from.
  - rustynails 11y ago
    The bonuses are awarded at the boss' discretion. If s/he didn't like her, there would be a bias against her. It's no different in social circles, discussion forums, etc. it's not necessarily performance or knowledge that gets the kudos. So, it's very likely she was being overlooked because the boss didn't like of respect her. I am making no comment or judgement on her.
- toephu2 11y ago
  > and increased diversity will produce better products and companies really? do you have proof for that? I'm all for diversity and everything, but hiring just to fill racial quotas or gender quotas is NOT the solution to building a successful company.
tajen 11y ago
I'm not confrontational. But I'm a man. Does that mean we'll do something artificial to help women and leave my salary untouched?
- icebraining 11y ago
  "Artificial"? I didn't realize nature had salaries.
  - svisser 11y ago
    Artificial - as opposed to letting things take its natural course.
    - icebraining 11y ago
      That's my point - there is no "natural" course to setting salaries. There is only the current course and potential new ones, but neither are "natural".
bradjohnson 11y ago
I think it really sucks that you have to say stuff like "Please don't crucify me" to preface a completely valid question because it has to do with women. Why are these conversations so prone to vitriol if you don't blindly nod in approval with the "feminist" perspective? And in saying this, ironically, I expect that I will in fact be "crucified."
- woah 11y ago
  Won't someone please save you!
- notfoss 11y ago
  It's a community thing, I guess. Meaning, it depends on which community (online community in this context) you are interacting in. Such a thing wouldn't be so risky to say on 4chan or even Slashdot.
  - bradjohnson 11y ago
    And I think it divides the community and makes discussion of these topics difficult if not impossible. I don't really like communities where certain well thought out, even completely innocuous or carefully worded opinions are discarded automatically and treated with ridicule just because of some dogmatic allegiance to whatever topic. I get that it's the internet and people tend to be perpetually angry and combative about stuff, but other topics that don't regard feminism are much easier to discuss. Maybe I should just try to avoid all of the gender or race topics on HN because it seems like questioning anything just leads to flame wars.
9872 11y ago
Unless you are in sales or some other position where negotiation skills are part of your job performance, they should not affect your pay.

unimpressive 11y ago

You're certainly not the first person to think of this, you need to be careful with that though or you get wage suppression and price fixing for work: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/reddit-ceo-ellen-pao-bans-salary-negotiations/ http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/reddit-ceo-ellen-pao-ban...

geofft 11y ago
There are other solutions for this, of course. Collective bargaining comes to mind: if I negotiate a 10% increase in wages just because I'm good at negotiating (not because I'm objectively a 1.1x programmer in a way my union agrees with), it's a 10% increase for everyone.
- RodericDay 11y ago
  There's also another solution: salary transparency. If you believe in markets, you'd agree that a critical element of them working properly is an abundance of information.
nullrouted 11y ago
Umm...why do I need to be careful of the thought? I questioned if it was a reason for the disparity, not that I agreed with it. Secondly, your article seems to mention Ellen agreed with my question
- unimpressive 11y ago
  Yes, and Ellen responded by banning salary negotiation. Which seems to me like a thinly veiled way of strong arming people into being paid sub par wages for their work.

geofft 11y ago

Yes, definitely. This is a common hypothesis, and it gets some study. See, for instance, http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Women_Don't_Ask http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Women_Don't_Ask http://geekfeminism.org/2011/06/17/quick-hit-one-reason-women-make-less-money/ http://geekfeminism.org/2011/06/17/quick-hit-one-reason-wome... http://fdiv.net/2012/01/20/pseudo-science-and-pseudo-feminism-women-dont-ask http://fdiv.net/2012/01/20/pseudo-science-and-pseudo-feminis... There is both the possible cause of women being socially conditioned (or biologically wired, or whatever causes this) to be less confrontational, and the possible cause of women finding it riskier / being in worse negotiating positions for structural-inequality reasons.

pygy_ 11y ago
It's part biology, part conditioning. On average, men tend to take more risks than women (a testosterone thing, hence the "having balls" expression). In anonymous settings, when there's no risk of physical harm (video games) woman are as agressive as men. If the gender is revealed/emphasized, a difference appears. The same goes for math tests.
- RodericDay 11y ago
  I don't think this hypothesis explains why ie: black men, unfairly stereotyped as aggressive & etc, earn lower salaries than white men. I would say it's maybe a tiny bit biology, a tiny bit conditioning, and a large part racist/sexist/etc politics of exclusion.
  - pygy_ 11y ago
    I never said these were the only reasons, and I didn't mention race at all. @geofft was wondering whether the "intrinsic" differences were due to biology or social conditioning. The answer is: both. Of course there are extrinsic factors as well. "Politics" implies a deliberate, concerted behavior, which may exist, but this kind of bias is often subconscious, and present regardless of the gender/race of the evaluator.
    - 11y ago

interpol_p 11y ago

The more interesting thing to me is not just that the base salaries were different, but that her personal bonuses were denied by her manager while her male coworker's bonuses were awarded — despite both of them being involved with the creation and distribution of the spreadsheet. Regarding negotiation, I don't think companies really benefit from doing it. If they offer as much as they are willing to pay for your talent up-front, then you can adopt a take it or leave it attitude. The company will gain the benefit of increasing pay equality. Having pay equality is a step towards increasing diversity, and increased diversity will produce better products and companies.

jdmichal 11y ago
> The more interesting thing to me is not just that the base salaries were different, but that her personal bonuses were denied by her manager while her male coworker's bonuses were awarded — despite both of them being involved with the creation and distribution of the spreadsheet. There's nothing that says they had the same manager. They may have, in which case this is very suspect. Or they could have had different managers who were reacting differently to the situation.
- interpol_p 11y ago
  That's true, it's too little data to draw any useful conclusion from.
- rustynails 11y ago
  The bonuses are awarded at the boss' discretion. If s/he didn't like her, there would be a bias against her. It's no different in social circles, discussion forums, etc. it's not necessarily performance or knowledge that gets the kudos. So, it's very likely she was being overlooked because the boss didn't like of respect her. I am making no comment or judgement on her.
toephu2 11y ago
> and increased diversity will produce better products and companies really? do you have proof for that? I'm all for diversity and everything, but hiring just to fill racial quotas or gender quotas is NOT the solution to building a successful company.

tajen 11y ago

I'm not confrontational. But I'm a man. Does that mean we'll do something artificial to help women and leave my salary untouched?

icebraining 11y ago
"Artificial"? I didn't realize nature had salaries.
- svisser 11y ago
  Artificial - as opposed to letting things take its natural course.
  - icebraining 11y ago
    That's my point - there is no "natural" course to setting salaries. There is only the current course and potential new ones, but neither are "natural".

bradjohnson 11y ago

I think it really sucks that you have to say stuff like "Please don't crucify me" to preface a completely valid question because it has to do with women. Why are these conversations so prone to vitriol if you don't blindly nod in approval with the "feminist" perspective? And in saying this, ironically, I expect that I will in fact be "crucified."

woah 11y ago
Won't someone please save you!
notfoss 11y ago
It's a community thing, I guess. Meaning, it depends on which community (online community in this context) you are interacting in. Such a thing wouldn't be so risky to say on 4chan or even Slashdot.
- bradjohnson 11y ago
  And I think it divides the community and makes discussion of these topics difficult if not impossible. I don't really like communities where certain well thought out, even completely innocuous or carefully worded opinions are discarded automatically and treated with ridicule just because of some dogmatic allegiance to whatever topic. I get that it's the internet and people tend to be perpetually angry and combative about stuff, but other topics that don't regard feminism are much easier to discuss. Maybe I should just try to avoid all of the gender or race topics on HN because it seems like questioning anything just leads to flame wars.

9872 11y ago

Unless you are in sales or some other position where negotiation skills are part of your job performance, they should not affect your pay.