Carol Frohlinger calls it the Thin Pink Line.
“There is a very narrow band of acceptable behaviour for women in the workplace,” says the New York-based co-author of Her Place at the Table and principal of Negotiating Women Inc., a consulting firm for the advancement of women. “If you go too far, you are not assertive, but aggressive, and if you go too far on the other side, you could be considered too collaborative, too weak.”
For many women, this behavioural corset – fashioned from “psychological, sociological, anthropological and illogical” factors, Ms. Frohlinger says – hits them where it really hurts: their paycheque. They don't ask for the raise or the promotion, especially in these times, when many people, including men, are so grateful to have a job that they accept whatever terms their employers stipulate.
Interestingly, the very traits that are often identified as women's strengths – their interest in sustaining positive relationships, ability to work well in a team and to build consensus – can be their biggest liabilities when it comes to getting what they want in their careers and what they deserve in their bank accounts.
“Women often avoid negotiating because they are worried that a disagreement about the meat of a negotiation actually represents conflict,” says Sara Laschever, co-author of last year's Ask for It: How Women Can Use the Power of Negotiation to Get What They Really Want .
The gender divide in how man and women approach negotiations and their attitudes about the worth of their work is the latest frontier in the effort to achieve pay equity in the workplace, experts say. While there have been fluctuations in the pay difference between men and women in the last 10 years, there has been no lasting shift in one direction. From 1997 to 2008, the difference between the median hourly wage rate for men and women across all industries has remained an average of $3, according to Statistics Canada. This country, like the United States, is in a gender wage rut.
A number of factors contribute to the complexity of the problem. Some of the old feminist bugaboos – the glass ceiling, the old boys network – are alive and well, says Barbara Stanny, coach, speaker and author of several books on women and money, including Overcoming Underearning: Overcome Your Money Fears and Earn What You Deserve. But there are also many psychological barriers and pervasive societal stereotypes that make it more tricky for women to actively advocate for themselves. “It's part of our collective conscience: Nice girls don't talk about money,” she says.
And contrary to the popular assumption that the problem lies only with the boomer generation – who may have unconsciously modelled the demure, “nice girl” behaviour of their housewife mothers – younger women, many of whom grew up with working mothers, often exhibit the same tendencies, report the experts.
“We women devalue ourselves,” says Ms. Stanny. “We give away our time, our knowledge and our expertise for free or bargain prices because we don't think we're worth more. There's this little voice in our head, ‘Who do you think you are?'… And we are notoriously co-dependent. We often put everybody else's needs before our own, even those of our boss.”
It begins early in life. “Despite all the advancement that we believe we have made and despite the huge cohort of women who have entered the work force, we still raise children in the same way,” points out Ms. Laschever.
