... because they don't negotiate for higher salaries! This is the lesson I took away from reading your comments.

And I who thought it was because there is still some serious sexism left in the system. But no, it's actually because of the women! It's their fault for not asking more. And what do the same readers suggest to the letter-writer? To stay put and keep her mouth shut. So, even though she could potentially remedy the situation by negotiating, she should not negotiate in this case. I'm confused.

Regretfully, I too think that that's in her immediate interest not to complain, but the very fact that it's in her interest to shut up makes for a very sad world.

This discussion is making me borderline angry for two other reasons: I too was an intern a few years ago and earned $1 less per hour than a complete airhead of a male student (the significant upside was that he was gone at the end of the summer and I was offered a part-time job that lasted me through college).

The second reason is that one of my professors (I'm a grad student now) made some rather dismissive comments today about women's need for recognition outside of the home and was unable to understand why women can't just be "the boss" at home. In fact, he said many are even "tyrants or absolute monarchs" in their household, implying that women, since they do enjoy "power" somewhere, shouldn't absolutely need to ask for more of it.

Yeah. This happened today, May 16, 2008, at a major university.

It's a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation. If you demand equality, you are a harping bitch and can be fired for breaking company policy (if they've got one like "don't discuss wages"). If you don't then you are a weak willed woman who doesn't deserve equality.

There is the old saying that a woman has to do twice as much as a man to be thought of as half as good. Sometimes this is true. When I was in college (1970's) I was given intentionally bad advising. With the "help" I received setting my first semester schedule, I could not have finished my 4 year degree in less than 6, and then would not have had the recommended courses in many areas.

However, my philosophy about work has become "it's their loss." I know what I'm worth, and I'll get it, or they won't get me. Luckily, I'm not in a position where I need a new job, like if I'd been unemployed for a few months. However, in that situation, I'd probably take something short term like in fast food or retail, where wages are mostly standardized regardless of age, race, gender, etc.

Many white males tell me that there is no longer any discrimination against minorities, either. Just because someone hasn't seen discrimination (against a group they are not part of) is not evidence that it doesn't exist. Men tend to be more aware of the existence of sexism, since most men have wives, girlfriends, sisters, mothers, or daughters.

In principle, I'm against requiring employers to hire someone just because they are female or black or 50 years old or whatever. However, in principle, I am also in favor of considering someone's qualifications in hiring or raises or promotions, and not their exterior trappings. If people consistently did this, Affirmative Action wouldn't be needed.

NeutrinoCatcher:

... because they don't negotiate for higher salaries! And I who thought it was because there is still some serious sexism left in the system.

There certainly is sexism in the system. But I don't think sexism accounts for the fact that the ratio of the average woman's salary to the average man's salary for the same job/experience has stalled. It's illegal for an employer to discriminate based on gender. Does that mean it doesn't happen? Of course not! But a systematic system of discrimination will land a company in hot water.

How many seriously sexist people under the age of 50 have you actually met? I've met very few, and most of the ones I have encountered weren't able to get employment beyond glorified pot washing, and so weren't part of any systematic discrepancies. In fact, it's so unusual that I very much remember my encounters with sexist individuals (including a physics professor who felt women shouldn't be physicists since we could only be mediocre and thus were taking funding/positions away from guys who could be great).

So what if the reason that women are on average getting paid less is a result of women acting differently than men rather than strictly based on gender? If we ignore this and continue to scream, "Sexism!", the situation won't change if the problem is due in large part to salary negotiation issues. Salary negotiations simply aren't going to go away, and so unless this is addressed the discrepancy will always be there.

NeutrinoCatcher:

But no, it's actually because of the women! It's their fault for not asking more.

I think that summarizing people's statements as, "it's their fault!" is much harsher than what anyone indicated. If statistically a person who negotiates is paid more and statistically men are more likely to negotiate, it isn't a woman's fault if she doesn't negotiate, but it's something she should consider.

NeutrinoCatcher:

The second reason is that one of my professors (I'm a grad student now) made some rather dismissive comments today ...

And how many professors made comments such as this the day before? And the day before that? For the most part, I've found professors tend not to be sexist to the point where they bend over backwards trying to not be sexist. The ones I have run into who aren't this way are generally older or were raised in a culture that is more dismissive of women (such as the guy from my example above).

So what sort of neutrinos do you catch?

ArchaeologyChick:

It's a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation. If you demand equality, you are a harping bitch and can be fired for breaking company policy (if they've got one like "don't discuss wages"). If you don't then you are a weak willed woman who doesn't deserve equality.

I think this is at the heart of the issue of women getting lower salaries, or at least close to it. I read a study that says women don't tend to negotiate for higher salaries in a job interview as much as men do (unfortunately I forgot where I read this). But it's also the case that a woman can't seem to assert herself in the workplace without being seen as a bitch. Women have to walk a wire if they want to advocate for themselves the way that most men can easily do without seeming pushy.

On that note, I believe sexism still exists, but mostly not in the outright "women belong in the kitchen and the bedroom" fashion. It tends to be more insidious than that - i.e., a man asserting himself is fine, but when a woman does it, she's a bitch - especially among men who honestly believe they are too smart to be sexist.

BookBeast:

On that note, I believe sexism still exists, but mostly not in the outright "women belong in the kitchen and the bedroom" fashion. It tends to be more insidious than that - i.e., a man asserting himself is fine, but when a woman does it, she's a bitch - especially among men who honestly believe they are too smart to be sexist.

I think there's an unspoken thought, also, that the man is still the primary breadwinner - whether he's there or not.

Back when WWII ended, women were lucky to hold on to their Rosie the Riveter jobs and not have them given to returning GIs because the GIs had "families to support".

This line of thinking carries over to today, where if a woman is married, there's the unspoken assumption that her husband makes equal if not more than her (is the breadwinner). If the woman is not married, there is the unspoken assumption that (especially if she has kids) she's getting a nice fat spousal/child support check every month so in either case, she doesn't need it as much as the man does. The idea that the woman could be the sole support of a family is still a new idea to many.

As an employer of a predominantly male crew, I have learned that no matter how sweetly you present a request, you will be called the b-word or be accused of having PMS. That's all the ammo they got? I'm bulletproof by now, baby.

Are we talking the average woman in America, or the average woman in America who is working the equivalent job with equivalent experience? If the latter, it's because of sexism and ability to negotiate, and perhaps fear of walking out on one job lest the next not be as good or as stable.

If we are discussing the average woman in the United States vs. the average male in the US, it's apples and oranges. Until recently, men tended to be much more highly educated than women. Men still tend to congregate in one group of professions, and women in another. Women are much more likely to be in the service industry, which tends to pay much lower. Also, women are more like to work part time, or to take a career break to tend to family, children, parents, or others.

Those two statistics can't reasonably be compared. However, in the same field, doing comparable work, with similar experience and education, and adjusting for geographic pay differences and race, the gap is much narrower than once it was. I read the other day that men in this county have lost something like 300,000 jobs in the past few years, while women have gained something like twice that. Why? Women tend to work in the service industry, and all the non-service jobs are scurrying offshore. With an aging population, there are plenty of service jobs to go around.

I totally agree with this. I was not completely aware of how widespread underground sexism is until

(1) I became pregnant and had a difficult pregnancy which affected some aspects of my work. My heretofore ‘enlightened’ male colleagues – all of them with PhDs in history and the like – suddenly turned into SOBs. Comments about my boobs, comments about how I was wasting space by ‘taking’ a job from a man, how I should not be excused from lifting heavy boxes over my head because I chose to get pregnant, comments about the number of times I went to the bathroom... It was endless, every day, nastiness.

(2) My husband got a promotion at work and began telling me of the ‘little’ comments he heard TPTB make about women, the constant references to women’s body parts, the constant references to assertive, strong women = b itches, and so on. This is NOW that this is happening. Every single day in an historical society (not a mechanics’ shop), which is more than 70% women – but ALL the high-level positions are held by men. Coincidence? Not likely.

Women don't negotiate like men because we've been trained not to.

"Their study, which was coauthored by Carnegie Mellon researcher Lei Lai, found that men and women get very different responses when they initiate negotiations. Although it may well be true that women often hurt themselves by not trying to negotiate, this study found that women's reluctance was based on an entirely reasonable and accurate view of how they were likely to be treated if they did. Both men and women were more likely to subtly penalize women who asked for more -- the perception was that women who asked for more were "less nice".*

"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.""

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sorry, expired link. try this one.

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Little girls are taught that it's not polite not to let someone else take the biggest piece of cake and little boys are taught that if a little girl takes the biggest piece of cake she's not polite. They say things like, "he's a growing boy!" but if a little girl takes it, she's not ladylike, a pig.

Like all of the world's problems, this is clearly the mother's fault. ;)

We are not teaching our daughters to stand up and demand the piece of cake they are entitled to and we are not teaching our sons that girls are equally as entitled to big pieces of cake and it doesn't matter that they are smaller and it may appear that they don't need as much cake.

"I wanna be the girl with the most cake."

prostitution and fashion modelling. That's it.

mermaid33:

Back when WWII ended, women were lucky to hold on to their Rosie the Riveter jobs and not have them given to returning GIs because the GIs had "families to support".

Here's another bit of the Rosie the Riveter story. There was a perception that the women who took factory jobs in the 40's were all supported by their husbands (at home or serving abroad) and worked out of a sense of patriotism, or for "pin money." The truth is that the women taking those jobs were already joint or sole breadwinners in their families who had previously been working in the service industry: manufacturing paid a lot better than being a waitress. During the war there were actually a lot of service positions that went unfilled because all the women were going for factory jobs!

And, as you implied, we do not see what happens to the iconic Rosie the Riveter after the boys come home from the war.

mermaid33:

This line of thinking carries over to today, where if a woman is married, there's the unspoken assumption that her husband makes equal if not more than her (is the breadwinner). If the woman is not married, there is the unspoken assumption that (especially if she has kids) she's getting a nice fat spousal/child support check every month so in either case, she doesn't need it as much as the man does. The idea that the woman could be the sole support of a family is still a new idea to many.

In my family my mom makes more than my dad (she's a doctor, he's a reporter), although she has said she makes less than a man with her equivalent responsibilities and her experience. I don't know the exact numbers because neither Mom nor Dad will tell me when asked point-blank.

My mom made quite a bit more than my dad, they had similar jobs, however, both teachers at high schools. My mother had her Ph.D., whereas my father only had his masters. It was always funny to see waiters, mechanics, etc. hand off the bill to my dad, then he would make it a point to transfer it, in front of them, to my mother.

I'm in a similar situation now, I make a bit more than my fiance, and he's gotten into the habit of just pointing to me when the check comes. People still occassionally look surprised.