Saturday, October 25, 2008

Target Women

Check out Sarah Haskin's hilarious Target Women videos on Current.com. She makes fun of gender-specific advertising and other things society says girls should like or be good at, including cleaning, feeding your family and chick flicks. I'm a fan of the Disney Princesses and the Number Two episodes. Check them all out by clicking here.

Thursday, October 2, 2008

Breaking the Glass Ceiling

Last month, I attended the Public Relations Society of America Northeast District Conference. It was held right here in Buffalo at the Adams Mark Hotel and the conference was a huge success, blowing past attendance numbers out of the water.

The most interesting session that I attended by far was titled, Is there a glass ceiling for women in public relations?” It was given by Brenda J. Wrigley, Ph.D., APR, Associate Professor of Public Relations, S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University. Dr. Wrigley has done extensive research on gender and diversity in public relations, but her findings extend to women in just about every field.

In most cases, women are paid less than men to do the exact same job, and the higher the position, the wider the gap. The salary difference between a man and woman hired for an executive position is much greater than an entry-level position. This chart from The Scientist demonstrates that gap for professionals in higher education. How unfair is that?

So why does this happen? Some people say it’s our own fault. Even if differences in starting salaries are minimal, those differences can have a huge impact down the road. An article in The Washington Post explained it like this...

“If a 22-year-old man and a 22-year-old woman are offered $25,000 for their first job, for example, and one of them negotiates the amount up to $30,000, then over the next 28 years, the negotiator would make $361,171 more, assuming they both got 3 percent raises each year. And this is without taking into account the fact that the negotiators don't just get better starting pay; they also win bigger raises over the course of their careers.”

Guess what my starting salary was at my first job? Less than $25,000 and I did not negotiate. Dr. Wrigley would not approve. She encourages all of her students, men and women, to never accept an initial offer, no matter how badly you want the job. She said that a company will treat you the nicest when they are trying to hire you, and if they’re not willing to play ball then, don’t expect much once you’re in. If they won’t negotiate, you probably don’t want to work there anyway. I wish someone would have told me that a long time ago.

The article goes on to say that while some may conclude that women are simply less aggressive than men, due to a combination of genetics and upbringing, that’s not the entire story. A study found that men and women get very different responses when they initiate salary negotiations. The article said, “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’.”

Put bluntly, women who ask for a higher salary are bitches. The study also found that men were always less willing to work with a woman who had attempted to negotiate than a woman who had not. They always preferred to work with a woman who stayed “mum,” but it didn’t matter to these men whether a guy had chosen to negotiate or not. [EDITOR’S NOTE: WTF?!?!?!?!]

So, if a woman makes less money than her male counterpart, but can’t ask for a higher salary or that counterpart will think she’s a bitch, what’s a girl to do? I say, bring it on jerks. I’m not condemning every male on the face of the planet and calling them all sexist pigs. Certainly, most men do not hold this view, at least most of the men that I know. But some people do think this way, to some degree, and we can’t sit back and take it anymore. You think I’m a bitch because I want equal pay? So what? I think your CRAZY. Let’s not let a little name calling stop us ladies.

We need support from our non-crazy male coworkers as well. I work closely with several guys and I don’t think they’d be less willing to work with me if I asked for a raise. I’d like to think that showing initiative and asking for a higher salary would earn respect.

The only way to change this is to take action and refuse to accept the status quo. This may mean personal sacrifice, in the form of passing up unsatisfactory job offers, but we can’t keep doing this to ourselves or things will never change. It won’t happen overnight, it might not even happen in my lifetime, but we have to get the ball rolling and take a stand. Women deserve equal pay and we can’t wait around for someone else to fix the system.