Sara Laschever, co-author of the book “Women Don’t Ask,” says it is not about something women do badly.
“Advocacy is a gender norm for women,” she said at a recent Leading Women of Southeastern New England event. “We make great negotiators for our children, our family members, our friends, our clients. … It’s really when it comes to asking things for ourselves we run into trouble.”
The problem is that women tend to think of the negotiating process as scary or unpleasant, Laschever said, whereas men tend to think of the process as fun. For women, negotiating is like going to the dentist; for men, it’s like winning a baseball game.
And that could be why women continue to lag behind men when it comes to earning wages, Laschever said. Women earn 77 cents to each dollar that men earn.
But salary is just one if the things for which women tend not to negotiate.
“There are lots of other things that women do not negotiate for,” Laschever said. “They don’t ask to be assigned to prestige projects or to be put on high-visibility teams. … They don’t ask to work with people from whom they can learn what they specifically are interested in learning. They don’t ask to be promoted when they feel ready.”
Because men are more likely to ask for those things, they tend to advance more rapidly up the ladders of companies and organizations, she said.
“Women are much more likely to accept what they’re offered, make the best of it and wait to be recognized for their hard work and their accomplishments,” she said.
But there are ways to change the predicament. One way is to simply tell women it is OK to ask, Laschever said, because it doesn’t occur to most women that asking is something they can and should do. And she attributes that to the way women are raised differently than men.
“I think this is a socially constructed problem,” she said.
Laschever also encouraged the women attending the event to practice negotiating through role play until they feel comfortable with the exercise. She encouraged them to identify the sources of their bargaining power and to think of everything as negotiable.
The Leading Women event was sponsored by The Washington Trust Co. and Partridge Snow & Hahn. It was the first in a series called “A Taste of Wine, Wealth and Financial Empowerment.” Wines from women-owned wineries were served at the event. •
