While I was perusing Twitter this morning, I came across an AOL jobs piece titled Tactics That Will Help You Get a Raise (If You’re Female). I’m sure plenty of people reading this piece were hoping to get some concrete advice regarding navigating the workplace structures that contribute to the gender wage gap, but unfortunately, this article’s advice only seemed to perpetuate the problem. 
The piece contends the gender wage gap exists because women just aren’t asking for more money, silly. It points to a study that provides women with a possible “solution,” devising “clever ways for women to ask for a raise that makes them appear non-aggressive and feminine.”
Instead of encouraging women to tackle gaps in pay and benefits at their core–sexist hierarchal systems in company policies–the article offers advice for women to appear submissive and apologetic when asking for better workplace treatment.
“Blame it on someone else,” the author writes. “The researchers discovered that when women said another person at the company, like a supervisor, had told them to ask for a raise, they were more likely to get it, without losing popularity points.”
Telling women to preserve their likeability in order to get equal and fair treatment at work is a notion that is rooted in unequal ideas about whether or not it is a woman’s “place” to negotiate her treatment and pay with her boss. We rarely see men receiving similar advice. The article also encourages women to “mention how weird you feel about asking for a raise”–as if expecting fair pay is something to be apologetic and timid about.
Women don’t earn less than men because they aren’t asking, or because they’re asking the wrong way. The gender wage gap is real, and it’s not because of some inherent flaw in women. We should never blame the victim for unequal treatment at society’s hands. White women currently make 77 cents to a man’s dollar, according to the AAUW, and this discrepancy is even worse for women of color–Hispanic and Latina women earned only 61 percent of white men’s earnings in 2011. Let’s consider that a five percent difference in earnings for men and women exists even when we account for things like college major, occupation, industry, sector, hours worked, workplace flexibility, experience, educational attainment, enrollment status, GPA, institution selectivity, age, race/ethnicity, region, marital status, and number of children.
As freelance journalist Sarah Gaffe puts it, “This sort of individual negotiating strategy stuff puts all the burden on the individual worker for her lousy pay and conditions, which is always bullshit and is especially so with still-high unemployment. It’s a buyer’s market out there, which means that people who might’ve been inclined to push for a raise are going to be less likely to because they know there are twenty people angling for their job if they get fired.”
Acknowledging workplace inequality is tricky, and it needs to be addressed at its core. The technique of asking for a raise should hold no gender barrier, nor should it be influenced by gendered norms of what it is “okay” for women to ask for in society. Women shouldn’t have to become apologetic or submissive when asking for fair and equal treatment.
Here’s some better advice: Regardless of your gender, be empowered to ask for a raise or fair treatment no matter what. Point out your accomplishments and back them up with hard data that proves you’re an employee who gets things done. If you see gendered or sexist structures in your workplace, band together with other employees to address them at the highest management level possible. Contact local civil rights groups, like the ACLU or women’s organizations, for help and legal counsel if you need to. And never, ever apologize or blame someone else for demanding equal treatment.
What do you think? Was this career advice regarding the gender wage gap out of line? We’d love to hear your thoughts in a comment below!
