I was talking with a friend on a gorgeous, cool spring evening about three years ago when we discussed why he always seemed to land jobs with better pay and benefits than I ever got.
“Julia,” he said, “it’s been proven that when it comes to negotiating, men and women think differently. When women get an offer, they think it’s the final word. When men get an offer, that’s just the first of many.” He reminded me that when women say no, they consider it final. But men pester and pester until they get their way. We laughed, remembering his courtship with his wife and how she turned him down and turned him down until one day she didn’t.
“Women feel threatened,” I told him, “by the thought that if they say no, the other person will walk away and they’ll have lost everything.” But that’s a false perception, he said. There are times when yes, you can push too far and demand too much. But not in the opening stages of salary negotiations. I thought: What they all say is true. Men are trained or wired to negotiate. Women aren’t. It’s a confidence thing. Men see themselves as having a lot to offer, so why wouldn’t someone take them up on it? Women always see themselves as lacking, so they’re ‘lucky’ to get whatever job they land. The employer that got them is never ‘lucky.’
“You’ve got so much,” my friend said. “Writing for the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal; an editor at a paper like the Washington Times. That means a lot to people. You’ve got major evangelical credentials. You’ve got five books under your belt and two more on the way. There are very few people out there like you and you’d be giving up a lot of that to move from Washington to (a certain city). Let them know they need to make that move worthwhile to you.”
My friend was right and the things I negotiated for were things I ended up tremendously benefiting from. Women, especially in the Christian subculture, are taught be modest and not puff themselves up. That’s poison when it comes to job negotiations. Not long ago, I was talking with a Christian university about a job possibility when I found myself talking with a top official about the pay, which was abysmal. I tried to mask my dismay at what I was being quoted but my less-than-enthusiastic response worked against me. I went from being the top candidate to getting knocked out of contention entirely. Would they have found fault with a man who responded as I did? I doubt it. But even my parents – who usually are for me grabbing opportunities as soon as they arise – counseled against my working for this university. “They’re trying to see how low they can get you,” my dad said and he was right.
There is a lot out there such as this Forbes piece on why women negotiate badly. Back to the subject of this blog, I think the Christian subculture teaches people to accept the less and the least. Which is good when it comes to dealing with people but bad when it comes to jobs or life situations. When I was single with no kids, people kept on telling me to accept my lot. Here’s for looking for better things in life.
Single Christians Adopting 