Women Don't Ask

Glass Ceilings

Women earn less pay than men. They get promoted less frequently and they are offered jobs that are less prestigious, less powerful, and less remunerative. They hit glass ceilings that men go right through. Why? Not necessarily because the game is overtly rigged against them, though in some ways it may be. Women do less well than men throughout their careers because they fail to negotiate effectively at the beginning of their careers.

Women don’t like to compete, and negotiation is competitive. Women who attempt to push for their own interests incur social disapproval and, because women fear social disapproval, they hold back. Because they hold back, they end up settling for less than they could get. The effect of these early failures compounds over time. A woman who accepts a pay rate 10% less than that of a man, because she fails to negotiate effectively on her first job, will pay for that failure all of her career because subsequent pay increases are based on that initial salary. The power of compounding can turn a sum as small as a $1,000 into a very significant amount of money during a 20 or 30 year span.

This handicap in the negotiation game...