Nice Girls Don't Ask
There continues to be a few strikes against women in corporate America
. Women are not paid as highly as men are, and are not equally represented in top management. However, there may be another cause of the inequality, which has implications for women entrepreneurs. Women fail to ask for what they want.
A report in Harvard Business Review indicated that men are more likely than women to negotiate for what they want. When extrapolated to the entrepreneurial world, these findings could have a significant impact on the earning capacity of women-owned businesses if they under-price their products or services. The studies reported (Babcock, et al., October 2003) found that women were less likely than men to negotiate for themselves for several reasons:
1. Women are often taught from a young age to take care of others, rather than focus on their own interest. This is drummed into them from their parents, at school, by other kids, the media, and the broader society. Women have either absorbed this message so subconsciously that it shapes their behavior, or they are unaware that it interferes with their willingness or ability to negotiate. In other words, women have not been encouraged to ask for more.
2. Women often find themselves not rewarded when they ask. Women who assert themselves and pursue their ambitions are unfavorably labeled as being bitchy or pushy. The studies found that women often had their contributions devalued, or they were excluded from getting important information. While some of these may not have been deliberate attempts to put women down, it more typically mirrored subconscious expectations about how women should behave.
3. Fed up with such a situation, women have tended to quit, rather than leverage a better job offer to get better terms. In short, women get short-changed.
There are two ways to change this type of behavior. Firstly, by looking for mentors, women can get guidance towards the rewards of and the need to ask for what they want. Secondly, to meet their professional goals, women must have better access to the types of professional and social networks in which men learned that "life is negotiable." The HBR report noted that the studies showed women reacted positively and powerfully to such advice, and reshaped their perception to seeing the world as being friendly to negotiations. As a whole, people have different reactions to the same type of behavior in men and women. A man might be considered aggressive or principled; the same behavior in a woman would be overbearing, confrontational or strident. When we can examine the different responses, we perceive hidden barriers, and create a more congenial atmosphere in which all business owners ' both men and women ' can ask and be rewarded equally.
Copyright (c) 2010 Ask The Business Lawyer
by: Nina Kaufman
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