Women Don't Ask Opportunity, Negotiation, And the Gender Gap

Chapter One Opportunity Doesn't Always Knock Heather, 34, was the pastor at a struggling urban church in the Boston area. Heather was also an officer of her denomination's local association councila group of pastors from around the region that ordains ministers, reviews clergy on disciplinary charges, and helps churches find pastors. At a meeting of the council, another pastor, a man, asked the council to extend the support it had been giving him for the past three years. Heather was unfamiliar with this man's situation and sat up to listen. It turned out that this male pastor had worked for many years at a prosperous Back Bay parish, where he'd been paid a generous salary. Three years before the meeting Heather attended, he'd decided to move to a poor urban parish that was struggling to revive itself. He hadn't wanted to give up the salary he'd made at the rich downtown church, so he'd asked the council to supplement his incometo make up the difference between what he'd been making in the wealthy parish and what he would be paid at his new church. The council controlled a small discretionary funda fund very few people knew aboutand had agreed to supplement the male pastor's income from this fund for three years. Now those three years were coming to an end, and he was asking the council to renew the subsidy. Once Heather understood what was happening, she also realized that the impoverished church this man served was comparable in most respects to her churchand the salary he wanted supplemented was similar to the one on which she'd been struggling to support her four children for seven years. Heather's response revealed a kind of fatalistic dismay: This fundI never knew of its existence. I mean, I was on the Association Council! . . . It had never been publicized. . . . There had never been any discussion about it in any meeting, there had never been any sort of sense that his time with it was up now, so that it was time for other churches to apply. . . . There is no application procedure; it's not like it's a grant that you can apply to get or something. It was really a matter of this guy being able to somehow finagle this. Heather's experience perfectly captures one of the major barriers preventing women from asking for what they need more of the time: Their perception that their circumstances are more fixed and absoluteless negotiablethan they really are. It also highlights the assumption made by many women that someone or something else is in control. This assumptionthe result of powerful social influences that go to work the day a woman is bornhas a broad impact on women's behavior. Instead of looking for ways to improve a difficult situation, women often assume that they are "stuck" with their circumstances. Instead of publicizing their accomplishments, they hope that hard work alone will earn them the recognition and rewards they deserve. Instead of expressing interest in new opportunities as they arise, they bide their time, assuming that they will be invited to participate if their participation is wanted. They think any allowable divergences from the status quo will be announced and offered to everyone. Women expect life to be fair, and despite often dramatic evidence to the contrary, many of them persist in believing that it will be. Stephanie, 32, an administrative assistant, illustrates how this belief can play out in a woman's life. Stephanie told us that she tends to think that "things will just happen and if they don't there's a reason why they don't." Because of this attitude, she was unhappy with certain aspects of her job for some time but never approached her supervisor to see if changes could be made. Finally, Stephanie received another job offer. When she announced that she was leaving, her supervisor aBabcock, Linda is the author of 'Women Don't Ask Opportunity, Negotiation, And the Gender Gap', published 2007 under ISBN 9780553383874 and ISBN 0553383876.