Women Don't Ask Read online

  her own interests on the job, she persists in feeling that when an indus-

  try is moving ahead and pay levels are increasing, valuable employees

  shouldn’t be forced to ask for their salaries to be adjusted accordingly.

  “My own feeling,” she said, “was and still is that [if you’re doing superior

  work] you should be identified, and your salary should be identified by

  what the market will bear. I think it’s up to the people that you work

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  for, whether it’s H.R. or your management, to identify that and keep

  current with what’s in the industry.”

  In contrast, men seem to be socialized—both on the playing field

  and in the workplace—according to a scrappier paradigm. Part of doing

  your best, they learn, is being aggressive in pursuit of what you want.

  Ben, 42, president of a financial management company, said his parents

  drummed into him as a kid that the most important thing was to do

  his best. When he first started out in business, he thought that would

  be enough. He assumed that his good work would bring him all the

  advantages and opportunities he deserved. But in the competitive world

  in which he moved, he quickly realized that he couldn’t wait for people

  to recognize his ability. He had to “hustle,” sell himself, collar the atten-

  tion of clients he desired, advertise his achievements and good ideas,

  and ask for the plum assignments and advantageous postings he knew

  would propel him forward. Initially, like many women, he dreaded ask-

  ing for what he wanted because he feared rejection. But he forced him-

  self to do it, and he quickly learned that it was less difficult than it

  seemed; in fact, he discovered that most people were grateful to know

  what he wanted. His bosses, colleagues, and clients regarded knowledge

  of his desires as useful and important information. They often couldn’t

  give him what he wanted, but when the resources were available and

  they agreed that his requests made good business sense, they tried to

  accommodate him. Women’s greater reluctance to ask for what they

  want often prevents them from learning this lesson—or means that they

  learn it more slowly.

  Following Rules

  Girls who are raised to believe that external forces control their lives

  may also be more reluctant than boys (who are taught that they control

  their own fates) to question rules—and by extension situations—that

  are not of their own making. The developmental psychologists Jan Car-

  penter and Aletha Huston have shown that adults encourage boys and

  girls to play together in different ways.22 Although no one has yet identi-

  fied all the causes for this phenomenon, girls tend to engage in more

  “structured” play activities while boys gravitate toward “unstructured”

  forms of play. In structured activities, children follow rules and guide-

  lines set by adults; in unstructured play they act more independently,

  develop their own rules, attempt to lead, and behave more aggres-

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  sively.23 Girls’ more structured forms of play teach them compliance

  behavior and accustom them to doing what they’re told rather than

  deciding for themselves what they want to do. Boys’ more unstructured

  forms of play teach them the opposite—to make their own rules and

  assert themselves more.

  Curious about whether these differences in the ways children play

  are simply natural expressions of their gender or whether the types of

  play prompt the behavior differences, Carpenter and Huston, with

  Wilma Holt, another psychologist, designed an experiment to try to

  find out. For the experiment, they randomly assigned groups of pre-

  schoolers, both boys and girls, to structured or unstructured play activi-

  ties. They observed that the kids’ behavior changed with the activity

  and was not determined by their gender.24 This tells us that children’s

  forms of play determine how they behave. So if adults are guiding girls

  toward more structured activities, they’re actually training them to fol-

  low externally imposed rules, let others control their circumstances,

  and assert themselves less. They’re teaching them to accept the status

  quo and go along with it, rather than question it. If they’re directing

  boys toward more unstructured play, they’re helping them become

  good at different things, such as exercising independence and acting as

  leaders. They’re also allowing boys to learn that taking control of a

  situation and trying to adjust it to suit their needs or wishes can be a

  good strategy. They’re teaching them that they don’t have to accept the

  limits of every situation—that alternatives often exist.

  Practicing these different types of behavior as children leads girls and

  boys to behave differently as adults. Geri, 36, the director of a day care

  center and preschool, said, “Men, for some reason, are more trained

  from an early age to express themselves. . . . As a girl I was not encour-

  aged to ask for things. And I was not encouraged to speak up.” Geri

  was trained in compliance behavior—she was taught that control over

  her life was retained by someone else and it was not appropriate for her

  to ask for something other than what she was given. As an adult, Geri

  still feels reluctant to push for what she wants or to make her own needs

  a priority.

  Is There Anything We Can Do?

  Some obvious changes can help women recognize more opportunities

  in their circumstances and take greater control of their fate. Parents can

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  give their female children chores that emphasize independence, guide

  them toward unstructured rather than structured play, resist the urge

  to overprotect them, and demonstrate in their own lives that women as

  well as men earn and spend money, fix things, and exercise other essen-

  tial forms of control over their own and their families’ lives.

  In the workplace, people who mentor women can encourage women

  not to accept the status quo. They can teach them that the world is

  more “negotiable” than it often seems, and they can demonstrate that

  seeking out opportunities to improve their circumstances can be an

  effective and often necessary strategy for getting ahead. Managers who

  supervise both men and women can take a more active approach to

  ensuring that their employees are all treated fairly, enjoy the same ad-

  vantages, and have access to the same opportunities. They can do this

  by paying attention to what men and women ask for and by extending

  the same benefits to female employees that male employees request.

  Otherwise, even if they’re committed to treating men and women equi-

  tably, the men they supervise will probably end up with more resources

  simply because they ask for more. This is especially important when

  women are a minority in the work force, as Linda’s experience when

  she was the director of her school’s Ph.D. program illustrates.

  Linda, with the best intentions in the world, believed that helping
/>
  students was a central part of her job. Whenever one of them came to

  her with a request, she did her best to grant it. She didn’t realize that

  the men were asking more than the women because she wasn’t tracking

  the gender of people who came to her with requests. And since women

  made up only 30 percent of the students at her school, the fact that

  fewer women were making requests didn’t stand out. As a result, Linda

  presided over an inequitable distribution of resources, with men getting

  more than their fair share of opportunities. This led to several unin-

  tended consequences. First, while they were in school the male students

  earned more money than the females because teachers get paid more

  than teaching assistants. Second, when they completed their studies the

  men looked like better candidates on the job market (and probably got

  better jobs) because they had real classroom experience and the women

  did not. These differences paved the way for even greater disparities—

  both in income and professional opportunities—as these early disad-

  vantages accumulated over the course of her students’ careers.

  We know that every time one person asks for a promotion, managers

  can’t promote everyone else they supervise. Each time one person asks

  for a raise, managers can’t raise everybody else’s salary too. But we’re

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  convinced that whenever a man asks for and receives some significant

  reward or opportunity, a really good manager will consider doing the

  same for his or her female employees with the same qualifications. And

  the best managers will investigate whether any of the women they su-

  pervise have skills and experience that aren’t being fully used because

  those women haven’t asked to do more. This can achieve several im-

  portant goals: It can compensate for women’s reluctance to ask, reward

  deserving employees (thereby building loyalty), and boost efficiency

  and productivity by making the most of the organization’s “human re-

  sources.” Susannah, the political strategist, waited two years before ask-

  ing for a promotion. Not only did she lose out, but her employer lost

  out because that job went unfilled for such a long time. In her case, a

  truly astute manager might have spotted the opportunity to reward a

  talented and committed employee while producing benefits for the or-

  ganization at the same time—a classic “win/win” situation.

  In addition, people often ask for smaller things, such as flexible

  schedules or tuition stipends or computer upgrades or even just better

  titles—and many of these things cost relatively little. Granting this type

  of request in a consciously equitable manner can increase productivity

  by building loyalty to the organization. It can also save turnover costs

  by encouraging people to stay in a place where they feel that they are

  treated fairly and their contributions are recognized.

  From Turnip to Oyster

  Women can also change from “turnips” into “oysters”—they can learn

  how important it is to go after what they want. Susannah told us:

  Over time I’ve learned that actually asking for what you want is the

  first big step. I sat for a long time in that one job thinking that people

  would see that I deserved more and just give it to me because they

  saw it when actually you really have to . . . make yourself known and

  ask for it bluntly—and repeatedly—at times. That was a very difficult

  lesson and I think I’m still learning that lesson, but it does work. I

  think it’s like [political] message work. . . . You have to tell people

  [what you want] three times for them to hear it.

  Christine, too, has realized that whether she likes it or not she needs

  to speak up on her own behalf. She said: “Nobody’s a mind reader.

  And, as bad as it sounds, you’re the only one who’s going to look out

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  for you in a business-type atmosphere. So if you don’t speak up, you

  only have yourself to blame if something goes wrong.”

  Kim, 43, a radio news anchor in a large Southwestern city, described

  her gradual realization that there’s much more you can get for yourself

  in life just by asking:

  It never occurred to me that you could, for instance, ask a credit card

  company for a lower interest rate, you know. Or, if there’s a late fee,

  if you’re a good customer, you can ask them to waive the late fee

  because you usually pay your bills on time—that people will extend

  some kind of a courtesy to you. And it only occurred to me after I

  had read that somebody had done it, or heard about somebody who

  had done it. Somebody told me once that you can negotiate the price

  of any hotel room, anywhere. Number one, I never even thought of

  that. Number two, I wouldn’t necessarily do it, but if I needed to, it

  sure is good to know that this is how the game is played outside of

  my little world.

  The other good news is that gender differences around perceptions

  of negotiability may be changing. On the “recognition of opportunity”

  scale (the turnip/oyster scale), the scores of women in their twenties

  were about the same as those of men in their twenties. Women in their

  thirties, forties, fifties, and sixties, in contrast, scored lower than men

  of the same age. This suggests that younger adults of both sexes seem

  to recognize to an equal degree the importance of taking an active ap-

  proach to promoting change.25 Several factors may explain this finding.

  One theory posits that increased awareness of gender inequities has led

  parents, schools, and the media to treat children in a more gender-

  neutral fashion than they did in the past. Another explanation may be

  that women are making real gains in our society even though they still

  lag behind men in terms of status and power. Greater representation of

  women at the higher levels of an organization has been shown to help

  entering women advance and prosper. In this context, the success of

  older women may be teaching younger women important lessons about

  the existence of opportunities in apparently static situations—and

  about the importance of pursuing those opportunities.26 If this contin-

  ues to happen, women will not only begin to control their own lives

  and the workings of the world far more than they have in the past, they

  will also be seen to be in control to a far greater degree than ever before.

  As a result, children growing up today and young adults starting out in

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  the world will internalize gender schemas that differ significantly from

  those of a few decades back.

  The least heartening interpretation of the similar scores earned by

  men and women in their twenties is that young men and women have

  always had similar attitudes about the existence of opportunity in their

  lives (this has never been measured before), but as they age men and

  women learn different things about opportunity. In other words, it’s

  poss
ible that men become more “oysterlike”—more prone to see oppor-

  tunity everywhere—as they grow older because in fact the world of

  opportunity opens up more easily to men than to women. While men

  advance in power, social status, and prestige, women may experience

  far fewer situations that teach them how much of life is amenable to

  change. As a result, women’s scores on the “turnip-to-oyster” scale may

  remain essentially unchanged while men’s increase.

  But even if the scores of women and men in their twenties do not

  tell of a shift already underway, there is hope in the rapidity with which

  women seem able to change their “turniplike” attitudes once they recog-

  nize them. In the process of writing this book, we met dozens of women

  who described having a “light-bulb” experience when they heard about

  our ideas. For the first time, they said, they recognized the reasons for

  their behavior and the price they paid for not asking for what they

  wanted more of the time. We heard many stories of women making

  changes that they previously thought were out of reach. We even heard

  stories like this from women we hadn’t met. Judi, 58, is a psychologist

  and the mother of one of Linda’s male Ph.D. students, whose name is

  Josh. One day Josh told Linda that his mother wanted to thank her. It

  turned out that Judi was working part-time for a start-up company.

  She’d had some ideas about new areas the company could pursue and

  when she explained her ideas to her boss, he told her to get started on

  them right away. But Judi wasn’t working enough hours to pursue these

  new areas and still complete her other job responsibilities. She confided

  in her son that she wished she could work more hours so that she could

  do a good job on both. Josh suggested that she ask her boss if this was

  possible. Judi’s first response was that she couldn’t do this—it would

  feel awkward and not right and might even damage her relationship

  with her boss. Josh explained Linda’s research and encouraged his

  mother to try. When she did, her boss was thrilled that she wanted to

  work more hours and said, “I’m glad you asked!”

  Asking for what you want doesn’t always guarantee you’ll get it, of

  course. As we will show, our culture often discourages women from

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