Linda Babcock, writing in the New York Times, reports some common sense:
While hiring two people with similar credentials, a woman and a man, I made each the same salary offer. The woman accepted the offer without negotiating. The man bargained hard, and I had to raise his offer by about 10 percent before he would agree to it.
In between these two events, I watched similar situations play out among my students and friends. Time and again, I saw women accept the status quo, take what they were offered and wait for someone else to decide what they deserved. Men asked for what they wanted and usually got what they asked for.
I have similar experiences. Back in Boston, I once interviewed for a marketing position at a New England hospital. Although the job did not pan out, I had successfully negotiated a salary that was 40 percent higher than the initial offer. (And the wage was still much lower than the median salary for such a position.)
A female friend of mine held a similar job at the same hospital. She rarely negotiated her salary or bonuses, and she did not say a word when a co-worker once essentially convinced the boss to give my friend’s bonus to her. Another woman I know accepted a salary at her company without negotiating at all because she was simply glad to obtain a job.
Of course, the plural of anecdote is not data. But common sense dictates that there is a trend here. Women do not receive lower pay in general because they face systematic discrimination — if that were the case, companies would be hiring only women who were equally qualified and thereby save a lot of money on salaries. After all, a company’s sole purpose is to create as much profit as possible.
Men are generally conditioned — whether through nature or nurture — to embrace conflict. We don’t mind a fight. Women, however, are generally conditioned to avoid conflict and create harmony. They dislike overt or explicit conflict, and this tendancy manifests itself in the workplace as an acceptance of whatever is offered. (When women fight with each other, it is not with fists — it is with passive-aggressive subtlety.)
Of course, there are exceptions to these rules about men and women, but these qualities are true a majority of the time. The typical workplace rewards people who are aggressive go-getters, but it seems that a majority of women do not have that quality. Women who receive lower salaries should not claim discrimination — they need to adapt to a new environment instead.
