A good book to read is called “Women Don’t Ask.” It’s all about women and negotiation and such. It discusses a lot of the other issues that people listed, including female assertiveness being viewed as itchy or pushy and failure of women to negotiate salary. The book also cites a study that was done where they had a man enter a meeting late and a women enter a morning meeting late – the people in the meeting naturally assumed that the woman had child care issues, but the man’s tardiness was overlooked.

Everyone can find a slacker in the office. It’s not just women, Allan. I’m sorry the women in YOUR particular office do that, but the MALE smokers in MY office have wasted just as much time running up and down the stairs to smoke. AND I subsidize their children’s health insurance and their smoker’s premium with my single female non-smokers premium.

i’ve always read that women earn less, but i also think in general, women aren’t as technical or agressive as the men.

i think in a lot of cases i earn more than most other women b/c i try so hard and i am so agressive.

i think earnings are within control….someone just has to go for it.

Just like Jodie, our opinionated licensed psychologist here, I find financial and career success by working hard, constantly learning new skills, and taking some risks such as new employment. Anyone can move ahead in salary and responsibilities, men or women. But look at any high ranking self-made executive in a large company. They never got there by taking days off, playing on the Internet at work, wasting time talking about nothing, or disappearing from the workforce.

“I can’t believe I am paid so much to talk” – Oprah

Luckily, he is already a professor and is well paid enough to allow me to stay home with our kids.

I don’t think it is fair that women are paid less in general, but I can see the concern that managers would have with hiring women. Woman go on maternity leave, women sometimes don’t return from maternity leave, and women are more likely to need to take sick days to care for sick children. From a productivity point of view, women as a whole are less effective workers. This totally screws the women who aren’t mothers or are but are somehow able to put their career first, because the unreliability of women (compared to men) is completely child-rearing based. Women are still (generally) the primary caregivers, and are expected to put family first and work second. Men are expected to put work first, and are therefore expected to be more reliable. Pay should not reflect that, but it probably does.

That’s a problem in our society and I have no solution for that. I hope someone can figure it out!

(A) I handle my emotions extremely well at work, thank you and (B) I have worked for men who throw tiny child temper tantrums when perfectly ordinary problems occur. No one who’s emotionally unstable “deserves” a job, but please don’t assume women have more problems with this than men.

Naturally, men are more agressive than women.

Nothing natural about it. I was never taught to be meek and take my place behind men like a good girl, so I have no trouble making a case for what I deserve. And when I’m dealing with good people, I get what I deserve.

Unfortunately, assertiveness is prized in men but seen as unladylike, so I’ve lost a number of jobs because I was – and I quote from the headhunter – “too strong” or “might intimidate the other gals at the office”. So it doesn’t matter that I’m capable of asserting myself in instances where I’m dealing with people who can’t stomach the idea of a woman who doesn’t just smile prettily and say “thank you!” for whatever you hand her.

Where I work, there is no question women are paid less for the same labor that men do. And it’s an advanced technical field that’s hungry for women. I’m not talking about women who have babies: I’m talking two young kids, straight out of college, both working 80 hour weeks. The boys make more because they’re offered more. They don’t do a better job bargaining for it. They’re simply offered more.

And the perception persists that “men have families to support!” despite the number of widows and divorced women who obviously have families AND babysitters to support.

lots of great comment. there is definitely an amount of choice involve from some of the comments, and as mentioned, the demeanor some females take toward job opportunity (and it’s in my opinion certainly not a bad/good thing).

So although I’ve been working for the state for twenty years and I have a masters degree and a job that requires a masters degree, I still make only $39,000 per year, which is just a tiny bit more than a first-year teacher in my area makes.

I also don’t ask for raises or lobby the state Congress for raises–duh, like they don’t know I want a raise? However at least I am good at evaluation time about bringing up all the many things I do that my bosses might not otherwise know about.

On the other hand I do not have kids and am lucky to not have such bad PMS or any other problems that require me to take a lot of sick time. So that part of me is more stereotypically male.

However, men in general tend to occupy more dangerous positions, construction, roofing, welding, etc., hence the larger paychecks.

I swear to ya’ll, every boss 2 levels up at my current IT job is a woman … We’re talking 8 women making $100K+.

If a woman is assertive about the right way to get something done, she’ll be told to play nice and be more welcoming of everyone else’s ideas. The man would be thanked for his insight and possibly promoted.

This happens daily where I work, and there are right and wrong answers in what I do. It’s number-based; it’s not like advertising design where there are shades of grey. If you don’t get the work done correctly, you SHOULD be required to learn a new process. Instead, I get “you can’t tell people how to do things”. If you weren’t screwing up, I wouldn’t ever know how you did them. If a man had my job and had a great idea for process improvement…yep, promotion-ready.

I don’t understand why any company would voluntarily hire women. You being 40ish, no kids, working in technology is the exception to the rule. I dated a girl that would take off 2 days a month for “pains”. Another coworker left for maternity leave and the day prior to returning stated I am not coming back. Gee thanks for the notice! If a woman brings a baby into the office all productivity ceases for the afternoon as the women congregate for a two hour gabbing session. Sure women may earn less in some professions since in typical American business, they contribute less.

I think the reason I have an MA and don’t earn much at all, is that I wasn’t willing to move out of state until recently. 2.5 years of hunting here and I’m done. So now I’m willing to move, but it’s the lack of experience that’s getting me. I never would have gotten the MA if I could have traded it for full-time work somewhere five years ago!

I only got it because I thought it would help, since my skills are very specialized.