This post really hit home today for me after I had my yearly annual review with my boss. She’s about 10 years my senior and we have different personalities. My review went as expected (99.9% positive), but she made note of my “subconcious” tendency to not let people with slower communication styles finish speaking. She wanted me to know this so I would not give a false impression of myself that I was being rude and not listening to people, since she knows I would never purposefully do this. I work hard to be a team player and communication is the key part of my role here.

Since I know I should always work on listening more (I’m most definitely a fast thinker/talker, sometimes too quick-witted for my own good), I said thank you for letting me know this. She explained then that a few of our colleagues had mentioned this to her, not just her observation. So I was bit floored at this and felt bad, vowing to myself to work on this.

Later I read your post and I instantly wondered if the colleagues who had mentioned this to her were female or male. Prior to this job, I worked in a male-dominated office and my fellow female coworkers were also quite strong-willed. My social life is also one where I have stronger relationships with men or strong-willed women. Was I really interrupting so badly? Or is it just that I have a more “male” communication style and am working with women with “female” communication styles?

I’ll also admit to often thinking of my boss as being more nag than she needs to be, worrying over things of less concern. I know this though and have adapted my work and communication style to fit hers better (as evidenced by overall high approval on the review).

Anyway, just thought I would share this. I look forward to more posts. And updates on Baby Girl’s job. :) Your blog lets me see how hard work pays off.

Wow. Interesting information. But, here is my issue with what my friend’s co-worker said: he and his wife choose for her to stay home with their children. That’s cool. But why did he assume that it is my friend’s obligation to promote his career, even in advance of her own, because of his choice? That is what made me almost fall off my chair and point out the “crazy.”

I have also witnessed this same sense of entitlement from some parents in the workplace, (I can’t travel because of my kids…I can’t do this project because of my kids, etc.) It infuriates me because it makes it seem that you can not do your job (and do it well) if you have children. The implied assumption is those in the office who do not have children are somehow obligated to pick up the slack. Why? If I were childfree, this would make me mad as hell, frankly. Why should the childfree be expected to compromise their work-life balance for the work-life balance of people who have children?

Business exists to make money/increase value, etc. I have seen way too people (mostly women, I must say) shoot themselves in the foot because they advocate for change with reasons that having nothing to do with promoting the stated business objectives of their employers. When I wanted to work part-time, I did not build my case on my personal reasons, (I never even mentioned them),…I built it on the needs of my employer for a part-time position to fulfill a specific function that was very lacking in our department. It took a year of negotiation and some luck, but I was able to pull it off. For several years I worked part-time with excellent reviews, a promotion, etc. I recently returned to work full-time (with the same employer and another promotion) in a better position than I would have been if I had continued to work full-time.

I am also interested in the causality implied by over-time and advancement. The numbers are what they are, but I am more interested in the reasons/expectations behind them. For example, there are several organizations where the culture prizes working overtime as a sign of getting more things done, which I would argue is not necessarily the case. I have seen too many people (including some of my former employees) work “all these extra hours” mainly because they did not really work during the time they were being paid to do so.

I also don’t think that “motherhood” is economically devalued in (American) society as much as active, engaged parenting (which in many ways forces a more robust work-life balance). That can and should be done by both parents (mother/father, mother/mother, father/father, whatever), if available. I think it will go a long way to help things if we stop labeling what is really parenting as “motherhood”, as if fathers don’t exist and/or don’t have the skills for active, engaged parenting. It is insulting to both mothers and fathers of all stripes and makes it just another so-called “women’s issue” as opposed to the family/societal issue that it is, in fact. Whew! – taking a breath-sorry Ma for blogging in your comments. Back to work now, lunchtime is over.LOL

That’s actually an interesting point that your friend’s coworker brought up. Men are still more likely to be the sole bread-winner and thus they have a strong need to earn more money. That means they may work longer hours, be more competitive, be more assertive about raises, etc.

Dana,

You said, “They’ve controlled for those factors. So… what’s the real reason?”

I think that’s actually wrong! All you have to do to see that is look at one such report, such as this one. It very clearly says “Source: U.S. Census Bureau”. Do you honestly think the US Census Bureau has controlled for the factors you mentioned? Their job is just to provide raw data. If you can find a reputable report that has controlled for those factors and still shows a 25%+ wage difference, please share.

The Census data is about the median *earnings* (take home pay) of full-time workers (not necessarily salaried)… there’s an important distinction between take home pay and BASE pay, I’m sure you’ll agree! For instance, this study in the UK found that the difference in weekly earnings was 21% but the difference in hourly wage was only 12%.

If you do a search for “overtime by gender” you will quickly find that men work significantly more overtime (on average) than women. For instance, this NIH report on dentists stated, “Multivariate regression analyses found that controlling for other factors, Women dentists worked on average 4.8 fewer hours per week than men”. So 4.8 hours fewer out of a 40 hour week… that’s 12%! If you have men working 12% more than women, that probably translates into raises being an extra 12% as well, and so on. As anybody who reads personal finance blogs knows, the magic of compounding means that eventually, women who miss out on that 12% are going to have *significantly* lower earnings after 20 years relative to men.

Just as a thought exercise, though, let’s look at what happens. If a women gets a 5% annual raise and a man gets a 5.6% raise (12% higher), then after 20 years the man is making (1.056^20 – 1.05^20) = 32% more than the woman. That has to be averaged, of course, since the man only makes that much more towards the end of his career.

Honestly, I did not cherry-pick these numbers for the sake of argument. I just did a google search for “overtime by gender” and looked at a few results on the first page. It is important to note that some pages suggested that perhaps women are not given the *opportunity* to work overtime as much as men. I didn’t bother researching that claim more (you could keep digging all day as various issues come up) but it could definitely be a valid criticism.

Anyway, all of that aside, I think that we as a society need to come up with a way to economically reward motherhood. If a woman takes a just a few years off, she will make significantly less money over the course of her life (again due to the compounding of raises and career advancement). In addition, she has the immediate burden of losing her income. That is a huge economic disadvantage, whereas she is providing the rest of society with economic advantages (her children).

It also leads to too many high-achieving women not having children at all, as evidenced by the cited childlessness rate of female CEOs. I don’t know how much you believe in nature vs. nurture but that is a lot of good genes that are never passed on, whereas the high-achieving men seem to have no problem passing on their genes.

Both are serious long-term problems that need to be addressed by society.

This is a very interesting topic. I think there is a lot to it. One thing I have been told repeatedly in my career is that I am “very smart/good at what I do” (don’t know WHY the men always sound so surprised when they say it) and that I am intimidating (I have gotten this from more women supervisors than I can tell you about in this comment).

So, some men seemed surprise that I am good at my job (which entails dealing with a lot of men in positions of relative power) and some women find me intimidating. So, around both men and women I have had to adapt my style to combat whatever baggage they are bringing to the table.

Re: unequal pay…it is amazing to me how pervasive these attitudes still are today. I have a friend whose co-worker said that she should help him succeed in his job more than he helps her (even though he makes more money) because he is the sole bread winner and her husband works…I almost fell off my chair…not because he thought it, but because he had the nerve to say it to her, like she was going to agree with the “crazy” coming out of his mouth.