Actually, we're not really worth it.

[Triffiddealer]

Listening to Women's Hour today (yes, get full marks for feminist bingo), I was intrigued by the chat regarding women in IT - which then evolved to women applying for jobs in general. Basic conclusions:

If women do not feel they meet 90% of job spec, they won't apply for the job - many men will apply if they only meet 40 - 50%

If you advertise a job at 50K per year, women don't apply. If you lower the salary, they will.

Now, I appreciate this was based on the views of the participants of Women's Hour and not a statistically valid survey - but the comments resonate with me.

Assuming this is the case (women are less confident in their abilities and less able to demand the appropriate salary than men), what do we actually do about it?

No solutions here, but recognize the 'men have mortgages' scenario. I had a boss who had the choice between a male colleague and myself for a contract extension (of years). I had been there longer and was more experienced. He extended the bloke because he had a wife and baby to support.

He actually explained this to a mutual colleague, who was so horrified she offered to back me if I wanted to take legal advice. I figured I didn't want to work there anyway if that was the ethos.

I'm now being called as a witness in someone else's gender discrimination tribunal.

'chimp paradox' makes me want to run for the hills.

Personally speaking, however, I'm not even getting to the interview stage, so I'm going to reassess my cv in light of this thread.

I'm pretty sure that I've read somewhere that the trope about women earning less because they don't ask for raises is a pernicious myth, which is not true. (Could it have been Delusions of Gender?), but that there are other reasons for pay disparity.

I was talking to a ski instructor a few years ago and he told me that with most of the women he taught, he felt his job was to bring their confidence up to their ability and with the men it was to bring their ability up to their confidence

I recognise this both with myself and with other women I manage/have managed. I don't know why, I don't think it's just biology or just culture though.

I think there are 2 other things going on in work environments though - firstly, in my experience women are more risk averse, and don't push themselves forward/ask for bigger salaries as much. It's frustrated me with my staff when the more competent woman just wont put herself forward, so I have to give a role/task to a man.

The second thing I have noticed is that men learn new skills by pushing outside boundaries long before they have mastered an area, whereas women like to master everything in a boundary before moving onto the next thing. For most tasks that makes the man more useful, sooner as quite often being 2/3 competent at a wider range is more useful than 90% of a smaller skillset.

I'd bet both of those have an evolutionary element but I doubt it's inbred insecurity, I'd bet it's all to do with keeping small children alive.

I don't know how best to fix this but I do think that women who wen to single sex schools seem to be more confident.

The men may apply for the jobs they're under-qualified for, but the more interesting question is whether they get them. Or whether the appointment is of someone who actually meets the job spec.

I hate these sorts of gender-stereotypes: they always think I'm a man. I'm not.

I'm pretty sure that I've read somewhere that the trope about women earning less because they don't ask for raises is a pernicious myth, which is not true. (Could it have been Delusions of Gender?), but that there are other reasons for pay disparity

In my experience the men who work for me are way more likely to push for more money/signs of status earlier.

I think that it is important to act in an assertive way with regard to salary and career negotiations - people will often use how much you appear to think you are worth as a way of judging how much you are worth, which probably isn't very accurate, but does mean that it is important to behave assertively.

Another example of this - I was once in a situation where my manager tried to give me a lower paid role at work, and when challenged about this said that another (female) colleague didnt mind, but maybe that was because her husband earned enough to support her! I am now her line manager

I think there is a lot of truth in this. I do earn more than 50k but would never have dreamt of applying for my current job had my DH not pushed me to do so. Likewise for one of my previous roles. On both occasions, I felt I was punching above my weight, but he clearly had more belief in my abilities than I did myself.

My Dad always told me "never apply for a job you can do - apply for one you can't"

Bertie you said "I know I'd be terrified to haggle a salary up in case they thought it was cheeky and decided not to offer me the job!"

And in many cases, you would be right. Studies show that yes, if you negotiate, you are likely to get a better salary and better starting salary will make quite a significant difference over a lifetime.

But this might not work if you are a woman.

Linda C. Babcock, a professor of economics at Carnegie Mellon University and Hannah Riley Bowles, who studies the psychology of organizations at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, "found that women's reluctance was based on an entirely reasonable and accurate view of how they were likely to be treated if they did. 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'."

Lovely. Damned if you do (ask), damned if you don't.

Funny my DH says when he interviews men, they are happy to sit there all arrogantly and proclaim they are "experts" in a field that they aren't. They are happy to lie and shrug and say "well, I don't know that"

When I go for an interview, if I get asked something I don't know, I walk out very embarrassed and teary. It's a massive knock to my confidence.

Hence, I will only ever apply for positions were I tick 90% of the boxes. I don't want to look a fool

And that's not a man bash. I just think women (or me!) tend to be more tough on themselves.

We're harsher on how we look or act or perceived. Men care a bit less

While it's true that women are less confident and less likely to "big themselves up" , I really don't see why we would need an evolutionary explanation for it, when there is plenty of indication that little girls (and bigger girls, and young women, and older woman) are taught to be polite and nice and not push themselves forward and not boast.

Saying that it's due to evolution makes it much harder to push for change.

"never apply for a job you can do - apply for one you can't"

That is so true.

Interestingly I was talking to my colleague (male) about this kind of thing a few weeks ago. He is the same grade as me, but older and far more highly qualified (has an MBA, got a first in his degree, has some other qualifications). He is cautious by nature and always applies for jobs he feels he can do with certainty. He recognises that he could be a far higher grade then he is and could be on a 6 figure salary if he pulled his finger out and applied for jobs which required a stretch.

I have always chanced it, thought if I met at least a portion of the job spec I could wing the rest of it. I have enough confidence in my abilities at work to know that I would be capable. This could be a personaility thing as I personally like to move jobs every few years, and like that feeling of panic when you start a new job and you don't know the people or processes and you have to learn everything quickly. I get bored when I get comfortable.

So I think there is a certain male/female conditioning thing, but also think it is personaility dependent. I work with mostly men, some are bullish and some are very cautious like the colleague mentioned.

found that women's reluctance was based on an entirely reasonable and accurate view of how they were likely to be treated if they did. 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'

I think thats a "comfort" argument, frankly. My experience is that women who have worked for me have been less likely to take extra responsibility, even when its offered to them on a plate, than men are.

like that feeling of panic when you start a new job and you don't know the people or processes and you have to learn everything quickly

I don't like that feeling. But that's probably a combination of nature and nurture - some people are naturally more risk-takey, and some groups of people are encouraged to be risk-takers.

In my yoof I never ever haggled for more money in an interview. I didn't even know it was an option and certainly wouldn't have had the confidence to do so. But then once I refused a job offer because I'd been offered another one and the first company upped the salary offer to make it worth my while.

It was the first time I realised that it does happen, and it made me a bit miffed that I could have been on less money simply because I hadn't asked for it.

I have had that happen acouple of times (where the company I was at offered me more money to stay, despite saying that they couldn't give me a payrise a few months before). I never stayed though - I had already mentally left. Plus I don't think it is good practice to stay personally.

Interesting thread :) I am actually fairly confident in my abilities and although most of my jobs have come through word of mouth rather than applying, I've always negotiated on salary and got what I thought of as a good deal. In fact, my first job outside of university I deliberately pushed myself to ask for a higher salary as I didn't want to be seen as a pushover. But I still have a nagging suspicion that I'm not as assertive as the men when it comes to asking for money.

I always think that if I could do 50-75% of the job spec I'd apply, closer to 90% then I'd think I was overqualified. You never learn anything by doing a job you can easily do! So I'm quite surprised to find that many women will only apply for a job they can do 90% of.

I guess that I am confident to ask for more because

a) I was always the smartest at school, and was told so by all my teachers. Maybe I wouldn't be quite so confident if I'd only been average or just above average?

b) supportive parents - they always told me I could do anything

c) I work in a technical field, not many women to compare me against, plus many of my friends are men in similar fields so I'm influenced by them.

d) personality - I generally do my own thing without worrying too much about what other people think about me.

Joan - why wouldn't you think you are worth £50k? Don't you think you are worth having somewhere to live? Depending on where you live you could be very very lucky indeed to get a suitable place for £150k (3 x that salary).

I know you aren't thinking about your expenses, but about your "value" - that's the thing, I have heard anecdotally that men often justify their request for a pay rise by saying things like "need another bedroom" or "school fees" - whereas women, knowing the world doesn't revolve around them, will say things like "have done this for 5 years and know the sector backwards" or "have increased revenue by x%" (if they ask at all)

I find all this very disheartening. At work I had a little deputation yesterday from a group of people who asked me to help them with something with our boss, "as you manage her so well". She had sent a project back to them with a thousand comments, which they had hoped was finished and put to bed. I had a look at the comments and honestly, they were good comments; the work hadn't been done to a good enough standard. They were disappointed that I couldn't "manage" the situation into the project being approved; I realised that they don't actually believe in content, in the existence of good or bad work, and they see me getting stuff through this very stringent boss and think I am "managing" her, that all there is to work is manipulating people. Sadly (or happily for me as I am not one of life's manipulators) sometimes the content is what counts. They don't quite understand this.

BTW it's not "sometimes content counts" that disheartens me; but the number of people in the world who think they are entitled to a good career by confidence and manipulation - and who get it.

"Joan - why wouldn't you think you are worth £50k? Don't you think you are worth having somewhere to live? Depending on where you live you could be very very lucky indeed to get a suitable place for £150k (3 x that salary)."

Surely it depends on the job and level of experience what one is worth - I'm pretty good at my job, and houses cost that much in my area, but I'm not yet worth that much, because I don't have the corresponding level of responsibility yet.

Because I work for the NHS I don't really think about this at all. To earn £50K in my field I don't know what I would have to do - the most senior people in my department, with literally decades of experience and specialist expertise, don't earn that, and they are stressing that they are so highly paid that they will be made redundant because their value isn't recognised, just their cost. To think that I am worth the same as them in work terms is just not true.

I did briefly earn almost £30K in a previous NHS job and I used to lie awake at night worrying that I wasn't worth the money; at times I worked through the night to try and prove I was worth it. I'm not interested in that level of stress, even if self-inflicted.

Confidence is important for most jobs - it helps you sell or teach or negotiate. It helps you handle stress and keeps you motivated.

My dc are young, I don't notice little girls being less confident, but the women I know are certainly less confident than the men.

Leaving aside evopsych, which I think is rubbish myself, I do think I probably do what they're saying - apply for jobs when I meet 90% of the spec.

I am just quite literal-minded and initially I assumed when they said something was 'essential', they meant it! I feel incredibly cheeky filling in a form when I know I don't meet the spec. I also know that's ridiculous.

For me personally, that does definitely come from years of being told it was extremely rude and un-feminine ever be more ambitious than your record suggested you should be.

Obviously that anecdote only applies to me so far as I know, but it was pretty heavily insisted on at my school and I would like to see that attittude go.

'love is not enough' should be mandatory reading for teenage girls.

So much of this stuff we don't get told.

One of the things I am getting from these posts (and thank you so much for responding, it's been really interesting), is the value of comparison.

Joan says that earning £50K sounds ridiculous to her, because the most senior people in her department don't earn that - so she's unlikely to ask for that. Whereas for me (with a history of corporate City type jobs) £50K is really a benchmark of the minimum an experienced professional (in the City) with a responsible job would expect. I would feel extremely comfortable asking for £50K - however, I would be unlikely to ask for £70K - but a man in my position might well do so.

In companies, if salaries were published, I wonder how many women would push for higher ones? Why don't companies publish salaries? Is that the answer that we need?