Comments on: Disputing, Rationalizing, and Explaining Claims and Statistics of Unequal Pay

By: Serena Freewomyn

Serena Freewomyn — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 00:17:47 +0000

Nina, good point about negotiating. Arizona State University released a study 2 years ago about the gender differences in negotiations for higher wages.

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By: Rik

Rik — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 19:42:45 +0000

If business owners can, as a practice, pay women less than men, wouldn't it be a reasonable business practice to hire only women? Why would a company hire one man? Business is all about returning value to stockholders. If firing all the men employed by a company would increase profits, why hasn't that happened long ago?

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By: Nina

Nina — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 13:47:46 +0000

Paula: I agree with Warren Farrell that it's "the choices they [women] make that determine their earnings..." I also believe some of it has to do with the amount of time women spend in the workforce and the "breaks" they take for childrearing, etc. For me personally, I've never felt or learned that I was making less than my male counterparts and in some instances (since I'm in sales and earn commission), I know I've been paid more. I remember at one of my first jobs selling software, my boss at the time, erroneously emailed a spreadsheet with the base salaries of his entire sales team (way to go slick... Mgmt 101!). There was a variance of $50,000 from the lowest base to the highest base. We were relatively all about the same age and with the same amount of experience. But what I noticed is that the people that I perceived as "more aggressive" and the "go-getters" had the higher base salary independent of their gender. I think a lot had to do with the individual's skill at negotiating their package at the time of employment. After finding out that I was at the middle of my peer pack, I wised up and have never been shy about asking for a higher base salary or overall package. It was a valuable lesson early on in my career.

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By: Serena Freewomyn

Serena Freewomyn — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 00:57:47 +0000

Great article, Paula. I'm also a big WNBA fan and I get so upset when I think about the disparity in pay levels for women players. Even at the college level, the money isn't the same. For example, to attend a women's game at AZ State, the tickets cost $3. For men's games the tickets are $10. The ASU women's team has been in the Elite 8 and Sweet 16, the men's team hasn't. How is this fair? People can play with the statistics all they like, but the numbers don't lie. Women make less than men because we still live in a patriarchal society. Period, end of story.

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