Earlier this month a new study revealed yet another dimension of the gender wage gap – how being nice can have a negative impact on your paycheck. According to the study, “Do Nice Guys—and Gals—Really Finish Last?” “agreeable” people earn less than “disagreeable” people. How does gender fit in?

The research revealed that “agreeable” men were penalized far more than “agreeable” women – the researchers, Beth A. Livingston, Cornell; Timothy A. Judge, University of Notre Dame; and Charlice Hurst, University of Western Ontario, posit that the reason is because men are expected to be aggressive, and when they behave in a manner contrary to societal expectations, they are paid less – much less, in fact. Disagreeable men made almost $10,000 more per year than their friendlier male counterparts.

On the other hand, the gap between agreeable and disagreeable women is much smaller. Disagreeable women only earn $1,828 more than agreeable women. According to the researchers, we can take this to mean that disagreeable women are punished for their counter-normative behavior.

They explain, “…because low agreeableness is at odds with norms for feminine behavior, disagreeableness will not likely be the same asset for women as it is for men.”

As Rachel Emma Silverman wrote in the Wall Street Journal, “It may not pay to be nice in the workplace.” Really?

The implications of the study are conflicting – should women aiming to earn a little more money dial up the attitude? Or is the small apparent benefit to disagreeableness negligible, considering the damage that playing to gender biases can do?

How can women use this study to be more effective at earning what they’re worth?

What does “Agreeable” Mean, Anyway?

Sensationalized articles about the research have implied that being mean pays. Well, not really.

According to the researchers, being less agreeable simply means being a better negotiator. They write:

“…on average, people low in agreeableness are basically amicable. They are just slightly more likely than people high in trait agreeableness to behave disagreeably in certain situations by, for instance, aggressively advocating for their position during conflicts (van de Vliert & Euwema, 2004).”

Being disagreeable doesn’t mean mean. It could just mean being confident or assertive in a conflict or at the negotiation table – in which case, it would make plenty of sense that “disagreeable” people make more money than “agreeable” ones.

What is disappointing is that the research shows women don’t get nearly as much of a boost for being assertive as men do. Assertive men get almost $10,000 more per year than their less assertive male peers, yet assertive women make less than $2,000 more than their “agreeable” female colleagues.

They explain:

“Men are expected to be high in agency and low in communion, while the opposite is expected of women (Eagly, 1987; Eagly & Steffen, 1984; Graziano & Eisenberg, 1997). Both men and women who act in ways that are contrary to expected behaviors in certain contexts may encounter backlash when they do not conform to stereotyped expectations.”

Confidence and Assertiveness

It’s important to remember that being “disagreeable” doesn’t mean being nasty – it means being confident, assertive, and knowing your value. In her new book, Knowing Your Value: Women, Money, and Getting What You’re Worth, Mika Brzezinski writes about the paycheck challenges faced by notable women – and how they overcame them.

In a recent interview with More, she explained her own struggle with the pay gap. She told writer Amanda Robb about her first attempts to get a raise from Phil Griffin, her boss at MSNBC:

“I went in apologizing: ‘I’m sorry, I don’t mean to take your time. But I was wondering if . . . ‘ Which of course is saying, ‘Please don’t give me a raise.’ Then I said, Feel sorry for me: ‘It costs so much to work here, between hair and makeup and clothes, and I’m just not making enough, and you need to fix all my problems.’ Playing the victim didn’t work either, because it’s not your boss’s job to worry about your problems. But feeling grateful and apologizing had been a lifelong [pattern] for me. I think it’s a very girly pattern.”

Then she said, she tried getting mad, “So I went in and said, ‘F—, Phil, what’s the deal?’ F-bombs flying. His eyes widened. We both stood up. I poked his chest. He awkwardly poked mine back, by my shoulder.” That tactic didn’t work either.

But, according to Brzezinski, what worked was, “Knowing what my value was and being ready to walk.” She knew what she was worth, asked for it, and said she’d quit if she didn’t get it. Getting tough – without getting mean – is what got her a fair paycheck.

Her story illustrates how being “agreeable” – by apologizing for asking – wasn’t the right course – but neither was the other extreme – looking for a fight. Her story, while still illustrating the disappointing pay gap that persists today, shows how being “disagreeable” doesn’t mean being a bitch. It just means standing your ground.

Kamie Zaracki, Chief Executive Offer of BetterInvesting, explained that women are growing more confident with personal investments – which is good for women themselves, as well as companies.

BetterInvesting is a volunteer-based nonprofit dedicated to providing individual investors with the tools and education they need to make smart investments. While the organization helps people organize into investment clubs, it also offers volunteer-led and staff-led educational events and, now, a robust offering of web-based courses and services. Founded in 1951, the group now boasts over 100,000 community members and is powered by over 1,300 volunteers, supported by a small home office of professional staff.

Zaracki said, “Individuals tend to be long term investors. If publicly-traded companies have a significant portion of their holdings owned by groups of individual investors, that could mean greater stability in our overall economy.”

“There’s no empirical data on this, but I would suspect that as women become more empowered as investors, and examine where their investments will do the most overall good, we will see a change in the way companies behave,” she continued. “In the long term, the market is going to reward those companies that consistently perform well. And society has a changing definition of what ‘consistently doing well’ means.”

Leaving a Legacy

Both Zaracki and BetterInvesting’s Director of Membership Development, Kathleen Norton-Schock, pointed out that the investment landscape is evolving. Changes in pension plans and entitlements mean women may not be able to live on their retirement savings alone going forward.

Zaracki noted, “Women need to take responsibility for retirement – as well as for the potentially unexpected high costs of future health care.”

But, she said, many women wish to do more than provide for their own future or their family’s future. She explained, “I want to be able to leave a legacy to the organizations that have had a huge impact on my life. I want to make a major financial gift before I go.”

“I can’t do that with the money I put aside for retirement – I plan on using up all that money!” she said, with a laugh. She continued, “The stock market is still the place where you can make the best return over time.”

Zaracki said that women who would like to leave a legacy gift can benefit from the methodical, long-term focus of BetterInvesting’s investment philosophy. Currently, many feel skittish about investing in stocks, she said, and helping them overcome that fear through education the organization’s primary mission. “There will be blips, but at BetterInvesting we love bear markets. We think of it as high quality companies being on sale. And our members, who do thorough studies, can benefit from that!”

Norton-Schock also noted that BetterInvesting encourages members to do their own independent research on companies. To do that the organization provides research and educational tools, including its online Stock Selection analysis tool, its biweekly FirstCut newsletters, and its online Mutual Fund Analysis tools.

Zaracki said, “This is a hallmark of our organization – people who love to share what they know. We have a strong culture of learning and sharing what we learn.”

Generations of Women Investors

Zaracki said that BetterInvesting provides many ways for women to get involved. For example, she described one female member – a “military wife” who had lived in quite a few locations over the years. “When she discovered BetterInvesting, her club members did not have a lot of money. She and her club members each began investing about five dollars a month – which she has built into quite a substantial portfolio.”

She continued, “She’s now a board member, and has quite a passion about helping women get control of their financial futures, as well as the financial futures of their families.”

Norton-Schock described another investor – a 23 year old woman who got involved with BetterInvesting as a 14 year old. “She is so involved in the community that now, as she is pursuing her master’s degree, she is going around speaking to college and high school students about the benefits of investing and joining our association to learn.”

She added, “She’s built a six-figure portfolio. At her age, I find that amazing!”

Zaracki explained, “BetterInvesting is all about helping people become more informed investors – and this is going to drive the future.”

When was the last time you negotiated a raise? If it’s been a while (or perhaps, if your answer was ‘never’), chances are you could be making more. According to Matt Wallaert, lead scientist at GetRaised, “The research shows that women don’t ask for raises as often as men do, and when they do, they’re not as successful at it.”

Carol Frohlinger, co-author of Her Place at the Table: A Woman’s Guide to Negotiating Five Key Challenges to Leadership Success, agreed. She said, “The challenge for women is that not only are we reluctant to ask because of socialization, but the reality is that both men and women expect women to negotiate differently than men. So when we ask, we get push-back, or we heard about someone else who asked and it didn’t go well, so we don’t try.”

But that’s no reason to be discouraged – research and planning can help you ask for and get more.

GetRaised, for instance, shows women how much they could be making, based on its extensive database of market-based compensation research, and then provides women with a tool to help frame the negotiation conversation. According to Wallaert, tens of thousands women have now used GetRaised – and 75% of the women who have used it have gotten a raise. On average, the site’s users receive a raise of about $6,000.

This is about confidence. The success of GetRaised’s users shows women just aren’t asking. It’s time for women to start negotiating with the confidence that they can get more.

The Guys Behind GetRaised

“We hate that people consider this a women’s issue. Women’s issues get carved out and treated like their own special thing. This is a business issue. And it’s a family issue. It’s a societal issue,” said Wallaert. The team behind GetRaised believes passionately that women deserve to be paid fairly – which is why they run the website as a passion project (users pay $20 to use the service, and the money is returned if they don’t get a raise).

Dave Clarke, Communications Strategist for GetRaised, explained how the idea came to fruition. He and Wallaert were working with Avi Karnani at a personal finance website that was acquired by LendingTree a few years ago. In looking at their users’ data, they noticed that women were significantly better at saving than men. But they still didn’t have as much money. The glaring reality of the wage gap was sitting right in their spreadsheets.

The three, along with some other members of the team, banded together to form a new tech company, Churnless, of which GetRaised is a project.

Wallaert said that the main challenge they face is getting women to realize the extent of the problem in the first place. No one seems to think it’s that bad, or that it’s affecting them personally. So the first part of the GetRaised system is enable users to learn what they’re missing out on.

To figure out how much individuals who used GetRaised should be making, the team used compensation data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, open job postings, and other sources and created a system that was self learning, and could adjust to the location of the user. Women can log on, and see the average salary range for their industry, position, and location.

Gender, Confidence, and Money

The second part of GetRaised provides a tool for women to ask for a raise – a letter detailing the value you bring to the company, and creates an outline for you to explain the reasons you feel you have earned a raise.

Frohlinger’s advice for negotiation is similar. “The best thing you can do is do your research. Pinpoint the range of salary compensation – and I encourage people to think more broadly than just compensation. And then know your benchmarks – your experience, the industry you’re in, your location. That way you feel comfortable that you’re not asking for something that isn’t reasonable.”

Wallaert, a behavioral scientist, said, “Let’s face it. There are differences in the ways genders communicate. Traditionally, business is predisposed to respond better to the way men communicate. Women are socialized to behave a certain way, and then penalized when they behave that way. It’s frustrating.”

The GetRaised letter enables women to change the tone, he explained – and makes the business case for the raise. “It becomes a framing point for the discussion. It explains your value to the company.”

And, according to Wallaert, it works. “We have a seventy-five percent success rate. It’s blown all of our predictions out of the water,” he said. “It’s a hard letter to say no to.”

In addition to serving as a tool to organize your request, the letter may actually be more of a confidence booster than anything – showing you the value you bring to the company just as much as it is designed to show your boss. Frohlinger said, “The bottom line is if you don’t think you’re worth it, no one else will. It’s all in your state of mind.”

Why You Need to Ask for More – Now

Because many companies are still reeling from the effects of the global recession, you may feel uncomfortable asking for more when money is tight.

Wallaert said, “We’ve certainly heard from our users that they haven’t had raises in a long time, and that their companies have asked them to tighten their belt.”

He continued, “Since we’re new, we can’t give you pre-recession figures, but I do think people are starting to be more concerned about getting their compensation adjusted to ‘make up’ for the delay.”

Frohlinger said now might actually be the perfect time to negotiate for more. “Because many companies are still resource constrained, you may be able to negotiate for more now.”

She explained, “The way things have been going, sometimes you could be doing the work of three people. It could be a real problem if you make a different decision. Obviously you still need to be reasonable, but your manager might be more inclined to listen to your request.”

“The Career Cost of Family,” a study written late last year by Harvard economics professors Claudia Goldin and Lawrence F. Katz, found that women with MBAs suffer the largest percentage “mommy penalty,” while those with medical degrees suffer the lowest proportionate loss. Findings were based on a survey of Harvard College graduates from 1969 to 1992, a study of MBAs from the University of Chicago, and a nationwide survey of various professions.

The study’s most crucial findings revealed that female MBAs who take 18 months off from their career to have children earn 41 percent less than male MBAs. Female Ph.D.’s earn 33 percent less than male Ph.D.s for taking the same amount of time off, while female lawyers earn 29 percent less than male lawyers, and female MDs earn 16 percent less than male doctors.

Finding Flexibility Elsewhere

The mommy penalty is something that highly educated women have had to contend with for a very long time. A 41 percent pay decrease is excessive by many standards, but what’s almost more surprising is the fact that women are now choosing their careers – and opting out of opportunities – based on which may offer the most flexibility.

In their study, Professors Goldin and Katz wrote that “in general, women appear to be moving in the direction of choosing professions and specialties within professions that are consistent with their greater desire for workplace flexibility.” For example, Goldin and Katz found that women have flooded into the veterinary and pharmacology fields, both of which feature more scheduling flexibility and shorter working hours.

“Whereas women were less than 10 percent of all graduating veterinarians in 1970, they are almost 80 percent in the most recent years,” the professors wrote. “Pharmacy graduates are also around 60 percent female now but were 30 percent in the mid-1970s.”

Tonya Olpin, Executive Director of the National Association of Women MBAs (NAWMBA), does not think it’s wise for women to solely base their choice of career on flexibility. “While in school, women should decide what they want to do and what they want to be. It’s a tough decision and if they want a family, the idea of flexibility will obviously come into play,” Olpin said.

Olpin, who was first the National Student Director of NAWMBA, is unsure of how aware the members of her organization are concerning the huge mommy penalty those on traditional MBA tracks will face if they choose to have children.

“I think women in our organization have heard of the ‘mommy penalty,’ but we discuss it in more of a roundabout way,” Olpin said. “For example, one of our panels may include a talk on work/life balance and how women are expected to get everything done. What I’ve found through our organization is that women are incredibly good at multitasking, but they need a support system in place to make it happen.”

Will Millennials Face the Same Fate?

Yasmin Abraham, a 29-year-old MBA student, obtained her undergraduate degree in molecular biology and biochemistry and after graduation she rose through the technology sector’s ranks quickly. Much of her work focused on business development, marketing, and communications, but she had no formal business background to rely on, so she decided to go back to school and obtain her MBA.

“I was at a senior level in the organization, but I was missing the ‘tool belt’ of knowledge that could help me in the boardroom. I believe an MBA will give me that,” Abraham said.

Abraham intends on having a family immediately after she graduates and does not view her plans for motherhood as a hindrance to equal pay or job security. Many millennials don’t want to be on the traditional MBA track and the eighty-hour work weeks that were commonplace for female MBAs of earlier generations are simply not in the cards for them. Instead, young women like Abraham view their MBA as a way to make the kind of money they wouldn’t have otherwise. Essentially, obtaining the degree is like investing in their future. Not only does it boost their job prospects, but it opens up new opportunities and will also lead to substantially higher salaries. On average, those who obtain MBAs can expect to earn 50 percent more than they were earning before.

“I needed to set myself up so that I could afford to work from home and afford not to work 50 hours a week,” Abraham said. “I knew how wonderful it was to have my mum home and I wanted to have the same commitment to my own family. The increased salary was not what attracted me to an MBA It was the option of less work and more time at home that really spoke to me.”

Can MBA Women Have it All?

As uncomfortable a question as it is, it must be asked: Is it fair for women to expect to make as much as their colleagues – both male and female – after taking 18 months off? Olpin says it is, but she also strongly believes that women should do whatever they can in those 18 months to keep their skill set alive.

“A lot of things can change in 18 months, especially in technology,” Olpin said. “While away, women can bolster their resumes by volunteering at other organizations and staying on top of industry news. Women need to take it on their own shoulders to learn more while they’re staying home with their children.”

Mandee Heller Adler has a Harvard MBA and left the intense world of investment banking when her daughter was born. After leaving, she started her own company, International College Counselors, and though she understands the plight of working mothers, she also believes that their priorities shift once they have children and their compensation reflects this shift.

“I believe a lot of the reason why MBA moms earn less is because they want to work less,” Adler said. “I’ve tried to hire MBA moms like myself and their number one priority is flexibility. I think that this model works best in less competitive fields where the pay is simply less and is not ideal for service businesses with high client interaction, which typically hire MBAs.”

Abraham, the 29-year-old student hoping to obtain her MBA and then start a family, may be on to something. According to Adler, the “traditional MBA track” is changing. When she graduated in the 1990s, the thing to do was enter investment banking or management consulting, two notoriously demanding fields. “Things are changing now,” Adler said. “More students are opting for positions with hedge funds or traditional corporations and the balance we’re all after seems more attainable that way.”

Tales from the Battlefield

Jennifer Folsom obtained a finance degree and an MBA from Georgetown University and currently works at a startup called Momentum Resources, a boutique staffing firm specializing in the recruitment of highly-qualified individuals who want challenging part-time, full-time, or flexible work opportunities. She encounters numerous MBA moms and while many have tales to tell about getting mommy tracked or experiencing the mommy penalty, none are as interesting as Folsom’s story.

Folsom was set to give birth to her twin sons after graduation, but her boys were born a month and a half early. An extended hospital stay did not hinder the mom from graduating on time, but as a result of her twins’ premature birth, she was irrevocably off the finance track and never returned to the investment banking world as she’d planned. She considers this her first “salary hit.” Four months later she entered management consulting in the federal sector. The job came with a major salary concession, the second hit on her post MBA compensation level.

“After being mommy-tracked for four years with minimal career progression and minimum compensation increases, I quit without a plan; my third major MBA compensation hit,” Folsom said.

According to Folsom, MBAs are for over-achievers, hard chargers, and men and women who want to lead the business community. For women with these personality types, being relegated to the mommy track can be incredibly frustrating. Folsom, who obviously loves her twin boys, was recently hit with a realization: “Kids are not convenient” and until things change for women on a large scale, having children will drastically change the course of their careers.

“I recently visited my closest friend from business school who now lives overseas,” Folsom said. “He’s spent the last decade climbing the ranks of international management for a Fortune 100 global brand. In the past 10 years I’ve put down roots in the best public school district I could find. At graduation he was single; I was married with two newborn babies. We took very different paths; not better or worse, not right or wrong, just very different routes that have resulted in vastly different compensation levels.”

Last fall, Technisource released its Women & Men in Information Technology Survey, which revealed the many discrepancies in how men and women in the IT industry view the challenges being faced by women.

One of the most interesting findings revealed that nearly half of the men surveyed strongly believed that female IT workers were equally compensated for their work as their male counterparts, while only 22 percent of women surveyed felt the same.

A Lack of Female Talent

The information technology industry has long been considered a male-dominated field, so much in fact that even women currently in the industry view it as “mainly a male career path,” as reported by 42 percent of the women surveyed in Technisource’s findings. Currently, women hold more than half of all professional occupations in the U.S., but only 25 percent of women hold computing-related occupations.

Like many other industries, IT does have a pay gap, though it’s actually smaller than those in other industries. According to Catherine Ashcraft, the National Center for Women & Information Technology IT’s senior research scientist, a recent study revealed that the gap almost completely disappears when controlling for age, job title, and experience.

The big obstacle in IT is simply getting females interested in the field. According to the NCWIT, girls represented just 18 percent of Advanced Placement computer science (CS) exam-takers in 2009, which is the lowest female representation of any AP exam. Also in 2009, women earned only 18 percent of all CS degrees, down 19 percent from 1985.

Very few organizations are working as hard as NCWIT to get more women in the industry. Through their support of their alliance members – whose programs include outreach, retention, curriculum reform, research, leadership, and image programs – NCWIT’s work connects the entire pipeline, from K-12 and higher education to industry and academic careers. NCWIT’s national infrastructure also conducts workshops, research, releases publications, and performs evaluations as a way of providing the tools and support necessary to increase girls’ and women’s participation in the industry.

What’s so frustrating about the lack of women in the IT industry is that the industry has so much to offer women. According to Ashcraft, there are countless reasons why young women should consider a technical career.

“Evidence suggests that when promoted and advanced, women tend to fare better in terms of pay than other industries. The bad news; however, is that the evidence also suggests that unconscious biases and other factors are preventing them from being promoted at the rates they should be. What must always be highlighted is that these are well-paying jobs, some of the best paying jobs you can get with a four-year degree,” Ashcraft said.

“Technology jobs are among the fastest growing professions, so it’s more likely that you will have a variety of options when it comes to employment. Also, flexibility is often a problem for women, but many of these jobs are more flexible than other kinds of jobs in the workforce. It’s also important to note that computing isn’t about sitting alone at a computer all day, which is a common misconception. There are many opportunities in technology to work with others and to invent technology that can contribute to the good of society.”

Missing Mentors and Mounting Responsibilities

Some of Technisource’s findings reveal a disconnect between what women in IT want/need and what the industry has actually provided them. For example, it was found that equal percentages of men and women (43 percent) in IT cite “relationship building and professional network” as one of the most crucial aspects to their success over the next five years, though a whopping 67 percent of women surveyed haven’t had a mentor. Women surveyed also cited being challenged as the most important factor to their “IT career satisfaction,” though only 14 percent reported being “very satisfied” with their career.

“Family responsibilities still typically fall on women, so if accessing mentors and developing networks must be done on their own time and more formal opportunities aren’t built into the company structure, it makes the whole process very difficult,” Ashcraft said. “Research also suggests that women aren’t being challenged enough or given opportunities to utilize their creativity and potential and that women are pushed into execution roles rather than having access to more creative/innovative roles.”

As author of several reports on women in the IT workforce, Ashcraft’s own study Who Invents IT? An Analysis of Women’s Participation in IT Patenting found that women only account for about 4.7 percent of all U.S. invented IT patents. It was also discovered that mixed-sex teams produced patents that were more highly cited. “So it’s important to recognize that when women face difficulties in accessing creative roles, it’s not just discouraging for the women; it’s also bad for the company, for innovation, and for the bottom line,” Ashcraft said.

IT’s Glass Ceiling (and Dirty Little Secret)

Only 20 percent of women surveyed by Technisource believed there is no glass ceiling in the IT industry, but NCWIT research suggests that mid-level women who’ve been in the industry between 10 and 20 years are the most likely to leave. Many of the reasons have already been discussed: a lack of mentors and professional networks, a lack of opportunities to be creative, a lack of support for competing responsibilities, etc. Another reason isn’t discussed as often, it’s sort of IT’s dirty little secret: hidden biases in advancement.

In NCWIT’s report Women in IT: The Facts, Ashcraft outlined many unconscious biases faced by women in the IT industry. For example, research showed that the same resume or profile is judged significantly higher when a man’s name is attached to it rather than a woman’s.

According to the senior research scientist, the first step to tackling this problem is making it known. “Addressing these biases is really important because they result in all kinds of subtle, everyday problems that add up over time and cause people to leave.”

“I call this the mom bomb,” said Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney, chair of the Joint Economic Committee, who commissioned the report. “When men become fathers their pay goes up and when women become moms their pay goes down.”

The report revealed that working moms are not only making less than their male colleagues, but they’re also making less than their childless female colleagues. This has been deemed “the motherhood penalty” and it’s something we’ve covered extensively here at The Glass Hammer. But according to new The Glass Ceiling Report, the problem doesn’t appear to be getting any better.

The Numbers – Mom Bomb in Action

Here are the numbers: In a comparison of the years 2000 and 2007, women comprised 49 percent of non-managerial workers in both years, but their representation in management rose slightly from 39 percent to 40 percent. The Glass Ceiling Report and other reports like it give us a clear view into the hardships women face, while providing little insight as to why the numbers remain so low.

All we really know is that marriage and children can be a career roadblock, but only for women. In 2007, 74 percent of men in management were married, compared to 59 percent of women. Fifty-seven percent of the men had no dependent children, with 63 percent of women having no dependent children. Twenty-seven percent of the men had at least two children, while only 20 percent of women did.

So, as of 2007, females make up just 40 percent of managers and earn 81 cents for every dollar a man earns and working moms have seen no pay improvement whatsoever. The report did reveal a silver lining: women are actively shrinking the pay gap. In 2000, females made up 39 percent of managers and earned just 79 cents for every dollar a male colleague made doing similar work.

But, women with children under the age of 18 made no progress – and continue to make just 79 cents for every dollar men earn.

But Why Does the Gap Persist?

What’s been difficult to pinpoint is exactly why working mothers are being paid less.

Maloney believes it is a combination of discrimination and cultural bias, but according to the Cornell study Getting a Job: Is There a Motherhood Penalty, working mothers aren’t just getting paid less; they’re also being perceived differently. The study’s experiments found that mothers were penalized on a host of measures, including perceived competence and recommended starting salary.

Men were not penalized for, and sometimes benefited from, being a parent. The study actually showed that employers discriminate against mothers, but not against fathers. According to Robert Drago, Research Director at the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, these differences are a reflection of an even bigger problem.

Bias Avoidance Strategies

In his blog for The Huffington Post, Drago explained the dangers of bias avoidance strategies.

“Here’s how it works: If you think your co-workers or bosses view care-giving commitments as a negative, then you will either avoid these commitments entirely or hide them when you have them. When men take on care-giving responsibilities, that’s fine; it is automatically assumed that family will not interfere with work. On the other hand, when women take on care-giving roles, they are no longer taken seriously; instead, they are ‘just moms’,” Drago said.

“Bias avoidance behaviors are rooted in the harsh reality that women still perform more housework and provide more childcare than men. However, young men are doing more housework and are more involved in childcare today than ever, yet the outdated workplace expectations that induce bias avoidance remain.”

Our country’s response to how working women are being treated has admittedly been less than ideal, but Drago believes small steps are being made in the way of progress. For example, many leading employers have recognized the economic danger of forcing women to engage in bias avoidance strategies. “We lose the productivity of many of our most talented citizens when they ‘choose’ to make family commitments,” Drago said. These employers are striving to be family-responsive and are making it their goal to retain talented women, regardless of their care-giving commitments.

Does Motherhood Have to Mean Sacrificing a Career?

For women like Melissa Hoistion, the idea of getting paid less than male or childless female colleagues may eventually begin to seem appealing. This is because after removing herself from the workforce to have her daughter, Hoistion and many women like her struggle to even get back the career they had before having children.

At the age of 28, Hoistion had just become an account executive at a mid-level firm when she got married and had a baby soon after. She experienced a particularly difficult pregnancy and was put on bed rest for a majority of it, so she decided to leave the firm and take two years off: one for her pregnancy and the other to be present for the first year of her first child’s life. The problems began when she tried to rejoin the workforce.

“When I wanted to come back, I couldn’t find a job. Everyone else in my field with my skill level was advancing when I was taking time off,” Hoistion said. “I was no longer familiar with new media and people had moved and I no longer had any connections. Everyone said that I needed to start over from the bottom and it was difficult going back to being an assistant, but in order to put food on the table you do what you have to.”

Hoistion worked “at the bottom” for about a year before deciding to freelance. She said freelancing actually turned out to be good for her, because it enabled her to spend time with her daughter, but seeing former colleagues who were her age and working at director and VP levels was difficult.

Later on, Hoistion obtained a job at another firm, but she was recently let go due to the recession and is currently doing freelance work part-time. Having her first child was one of the most beautiful times of her life, she said, but it was also marked by struggle, financial insecurity, and uncertainty that still lingers today. Though Hoistion is able to rationalize why so many employers treat their female employees the way they do, it doesn’t alleviate the frustration and aggravation she feels.

“Employers don’t want people who take time off; it’s not efficient. The people who work the hardest with the fewest days off are the ones who advance the fastest. As a working mother, you can’t stay at work until 8 p.m., when most day care centers close by 6 or 6:30 p.m. As an employer, if you have to choose between someone who is a mom and will need a certain amount of leeway and someone who isn’t going to need that, you go with the one who will work the longer hours. It stinks, but there isn’t much you can do about it,” Hoistion said. “I definitely feel like I was punished for taking time off to have my daughter and it’s really sad, but women are punished for having children. I think this is part of the reason why many are now waiting so long to have children; they see that once you have a child, you get left behind in your career.”

Hoistion’s daughter is now eight-years-old and though choosing to have a child presented many obstacles, the Freehold, New Jersey mother wouldn’t change a thing. For women on the career track who are thinking of having a child, Hoistion does have some excellent advice. She recommends working something out with your employer before you have your child, that way you have a job – and a paycheck – to come back to. Even if it means working from home or only working part-time, she believes, it’s better than nothing. “In the end, if you are going to do it, just be prepared to make sacrifices,” Hoistion said.

The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) recently released the results of its annual study [PDF], which gathers information on the types of benefits employers offer their employees. It was found that most benefits remained stable this past year, though many benefit offerings are down from five years ago. It was also discovered benefits for working parents took some unexpected turns.

One of the hardest hit areas was flextime, with only 49 percent of employers offering flextime in 2010, down from 57 percent in 2006. Paid family leave also took a major hit, with just 24 percent of companies currently offering it, compared to 32 percent in 2006. The findings, which are based on a survey of 534 human resources professionals, aren’t very surprising. During rough economic patches it is not uncommon to see medical benefits reduced or 401(k) matching eliminated. What is perplexing, however, is sorting through the numbers and not being able to detect any rhyme or reason as to why certain benefits stay, while others go.

For example, 7 percent of HR respondents said they plan to reduce or eliminate paid-maternity leave policies within the next 12 months, while paid paternity leave is offered by 17 percent of companies today vs. 13 percent in 2006. The figures are also similar for paid maternity leave and 16 percent of firms now offer adoption leave. So, how do companies juggle different family friendly benefits during a tough economy? And more specifically, why would they decide to cut flex time while increasing maternity/paternity paid time off? How are these tradeoffs considered?

The Rhyme and Reason Behind Benefits

According to Elizabeth Acee, who specializes in labor and employment law as partner at the New Haven-based firm LeClairRyan, in rough economic times almost all family friendly benefits are at risk because it is during these times that companies are forced to make difficult decisions in order to avoid layoffs. So, if abandoning flex scheduling, cutting post-childbirth disability pay, retirement benefits, and raising health-insurance costs enables a company to manage an economic crisis without downsizing- it’s exactly what they’ll do.

There is good news for parents concerned about losing crucial benefits: the numbers offered by SHRM and similar surveys often lack context, meaning employers aren’t out to do away with everything parents hold near and dear. For example, according to the SHRM study, approximately half of companies surveyed offer flextime. While that number decreased from 57 percent in 2006 to 49 percent in 2010 (equaling an 8 percent decrease), there was also an 8 percent increase in telecommuting. In other words, flextime may have decreased because it was simply replaced by practices made more accessible through advancements in technology, like telecommuting. So you see, it’s not all gloom and doom and according to Acee, it’s actually reason to be optimistic.

“I think it’s promising that we have seen an increase in benefits such as paid maternity, paternity, and adoption leave,” Acee said. “Hopefully, it’s demonstrative of a corporate awareness that workplace flexibility and health and wellness initiatives can be an excellent recruitment and retention tool.”

Though family-friendly benefits and policies – such as paid parental leave, paid sick days, health insurance, dental insurance, flexible work arrangements, job training, etc. — are costly to employers in the short term, it’s become increasingly clear that these very benefits increase the productivity of employees and drastically reduce employee absenteeism and job turnover. Essentially, they become incredibly valuable in the long term.

A majority of companies conduct an investigation before cutting or reducing benefits in order to determine where the costs are coming from. The benefits that are costliest to the organization are the first to be cut and unfortunately, these often include family-friendly benefits. For example, if a company finds itself looking at double-digit health-cost increases and it cannot afford to absorb the cost increase, the company may decide to reduce the health-insurance reimbursement rates offered to employees. By changing the reimbursement for a medical procedure from 100 to 70 percent, a company can experience dramatic savings without entirely cutting out a benefit.

How Much is Too Much?

It’s understood that employees sometimes have to weather the storm together with their employer, but how much is too much? According to Acee, there should be a careful balance between pushing too much of the cost of expensive family-friendly benefits onto employees (which is likely to hurt workplace morale, retention and recruitment) and doing too little, causing the overall bottom line, and job security to suffer.

Acee contends that the best thing an employer can do when cutting or reducing benefits is to communicate changes early, clearly and thoroughly, and in some instances, to share with their employees why the changes are being made. “Many companies will begin talking with employees about the health-care strategy as far as a year in advance,” Acee said. “Companies will also sometimes seek input from employees well in advance of making decisions about benefit changes. The best thing an employee can do is to participate in these discussions and communicate with their employer about how and why these changes would create a significant- and adverse- impact.”

Though it may often seem like corporate America is not family-friendly, Acee believes that corporate culture is beginning to recognize that there is a natural tension between certain corporate goals and work-life balance or family goals. “On some level, companies are perceived to be less family-friendly because they need more from their employees,” Acee said. “That being said, there are certainly studies that show that adding and/or maintaining family-friendly benefits actually eases employees’ stress and increases employee productivity and loyalty.” Hopefully, this is a realization that will spread far and wide in the corporate world, enabling parents to keep the benefits that help their family while also allowing them to be better employees.

“Women’s one-word association with wealth is security,” said Linda Descano, President and COO at Women & Co., a division of Citi.

Recently, Women & Co. released the results of its national survey on women and personal finance, which measured women’s attitudes toward money and financial decision-making following the recent recession.

Descano said that even before the recession, women saw wealth as a means to security, and now she said, “The women surveyed think the rest of society is finally thinking like them. Their financial values have really held steadfast.”

A New Era: Financial Confidence and Responsibility

“Women are much more confident in their finances and decision-making, and focused on building their financial knowledge. They are engaged in the finances of their households and retirement is top of mind.”

According to the survey, “65% of women think talking about money socially isn’t nearly as taboo as it was pre-recession.”

Descano explained, “Women are breaking the taboo of talking about money – with their kids, friends, colleagues, family members. They feel a responsibility to help others, to share the lessons they learned during the financial crisis.”

She continued, “We are ushering in a new era of personal financial responsibility.”

The survey, conducted through Women & Co., is the second national proprietary survey they’ve conducted. The first was in 2008. Descano noted, “The survey clearly shows the impact of the economic downturn. While women are still very focused on saving, building financial security, financial independence, and talking the long term view, the main change we saw is the new focus on teaching and sharing lessons learned from the recession.”

Women & Co.’s Ten Year Anniversary

Descano said, “Women & Co. has been around for ten years – this is our tenth anniversary.” She explained, “The idea came out of a conference for senior executive women eleven years ago which showed that women are very interested in talking about money, and talking together in a way that matters.”

She continued, “We started talking to women of all walks of life about money and decisions. Women & Co. evolved out of those conversations – what women are thinking, feeling, saying, and doing about money.”

As part of the group’s ten-year anniversary, it released a new advertising campaign in publications like New York Magazine, Oprah, Self, More, Bon Appétit, Martha Stewart Living and The New York Times, as well as online banner ads on AOL, Oprah, Women’s Wear Daily, Glam, Self, YuMe, Yahoo, Wowowow and iVillage.

“What we wanted to focus on [with the ads] was the women of Women & Co.; the vibrant part of what we call the ‘She-conomy.’ Each highlights what is unique about their financial lives.”

She explained, “The ads really resonate with readers – they convey a message of empowerment and they speak to women personally. Wealth is more than about money to women – it’s a means to achieving a goal, a way of taking care of one’s self or family, a path to self actualization.”

Who are the women of Women & Co.? “Women in our community range from their 30s upwards to their 80s, and span all walks of life. They share an interest and a belief that there’s always more to learn about money.”

She continued, “That they are the effective and confident CFO of the household seems to unite them.”

Sharing Experience

In addition to the ad campaign, Descano said, Women & Co. held forums for women to share their own experience and advice. “This spring, we hosted four panels featuring speakers sharing their financial insights from the past ten years.” The events were held in New York, Chicago, San Francisco, and Long Beach.

“The rich conversations with such inspiring women show the vibrancy of our community of women helping women. They are committed to sharing insights and being open to learning.”

She continued, “We’ve come a very long way. The momentum of how women are moving themselves, their families, and the global economy forward is inspiring. It really speaks to my heart that so many are saying, ‘don’t make my mistakes.’”

“I’m getting excited about the next ten years.”

Recently, the New York Times reported on the lack of access to funding for women playing in the start-up environment of Silicon Valley. The numbers reveal just how underrepresented both professional executive women and female entrepreneurs are, citing that women account for just 6% of CEOs of the 100 top tech companies. Women create only 8% of venture capital money to fund tech companies – despite women owned businesses providing 40% of the US’s company revenues. In fact, in 2009, Techcrunch’s The Funded list included only one woman.

Why are the numbers so low? Well, it seems to be a function of critical mass (or rather the lack of it). The same dynamics keeping women out of the boardroom explain why women are not as easily funded in their businesses.

“It’s not like people are making an effort to exclude people, but I see very little diversity in the candidate pool,” says Aileen Lee, a partner at the leading venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.

The Importance of Networks

Sharon Vosmek, CEO of Astia, a non-profit that works with female entrepreneurs says,“Women tend to network with women and men tend to network with men, it plays out on the golf course, in the boardroom and its certainly playing out in high-growth entrepreneurship. “

Men control 92% of the money that seeds start-up companies, and the access to that money is then dependent on the strength of the female entrepreneur’s network.

For example, the Kaufman Foundation has completed a research study [PDF] on the effects of gender and the allocation of money in Silicon valley. The study reveals that female entrepreneurs more frequently close deals with VC firms that have female partners.

Pattern Recognition – An Excuse for Stereotyping

Network quality isn’t the only issue women face when attempting to secure funding. Stereotyping is another challenge. As Janine de Nysschen writes in a recent New York Entrepreneur Week guest blog:

Investment is in the jockey, not the horse. Stanford research and a study by the Simmons College School of Management point to VC mental filter as “a template consciously and unconsciously developed over time within an institutionalized context and based on the venture capitalist’s experience with mostly male-led venture projects, fostered by industry preferences and patterns of behavior, formed by education and networks, and guided by personal life experience.”

VCs call it pattern recognition. Or, to put it another way, as VC John Doerr from heavy-hitters KPCB does: if you’re white, under 30, a technical geek with no social life, and a Harvard or Stanford dropout, you can line up for VC money.

And of course, women often remain penalized for their family lives when seeking funding. Myra Hart writes an interesting piece in the Harvard Business Review about the experiences of Zipcar founders Robin Chase and Antje Danielson while they were seeking funding, and the VCs’ perception of family as a risk in their investment.

“Danielson was about six-months pregnant while they attempted to raise money. Chase had just taken a year out of the workforce to try to get her family organized and in order. Do you think those were red flags for the VCs? Though the VCs didn’t say it, they had to have been wondering, ‘If things go wrong at home, will you still be doing the work?’ Now, there are certainly men who are very involved with their families and their children, and if anything went wrong they would be there too, but that question does not come up. And I don’t mean it’s not articulated; it’s not even clicking in. VCs just don’t think about the family demands when they’re talking to men. So looking at a woman as the founder and entrepreneur, I think it is reasonable to assume a new dimension of risk—the risk being ‘What is going to be the commitment when there are strong family pulls?’”

Robin Chase was most likely forced to step down when it came to round two of financing, despite her proven competence and ability to meet performance goals. According to a Portfolio.com article, former Zipcar board member Paul Davis, a general partner at Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Seed Partners, which supplied A-round funding to Zipcar, explained “They decided she wasn’t ‘fundable’ enough.”

Fundable – a simple matter of stereotypes.

In theory, VCs should want to back women-owned businesses, especially those in the tech sector. As Cindy Padnos, founder of Illuminate Ventures, which invests in women-led start-ups, explained to the New York Times, “When you have gender diversity in an organization, you have better innovation, and I don’t know where innovation is more important than in the high-tech world.”

Mark Heesen, president of the National Venture Capital Association says, “There are more women in the world. They represent a greater share of markets and purchasing power. Being more proactive about increasing their presence in the industry just makes sense.”

There are success stories to point to now, too. For example, this past month Ning founder Gina Bianchini stepped down to work with her business partner and Netscape founder Marc Andressen – with over 2 million networks built on Ning’s platform and 40 million Ning users worldwide. The good news is that according to the identified trends, women will now have one more high profile advocate in the venture capital world. After all, Bianchini herself has been there.

Is the tide turning? Come to our event on July 8th and we will discuss why women should stay technical as a strategy to get to the Boardroom and to the VC money.

The wage gap between men and women is still running strong – 23 cents strong, according last year’s U.S. Census Bureau report. In fact, a new study conducted by Forbes leads women to believe that a little change in their actions could assist them in improving their chances at better pay. But it begs the question: is the wage gap our responsibility to fix?

According to the study, women can increase their pay by better managing their relationships with their bosses, peers, and subordinates. This conclusion was reached after surveying 315 white-collar professionals recently enrolled in the M.B.A. program at the Villanova School of Business and another undisclosed school. Information concerning the participants’ pay histories and job relationships was analyzed to look for correlations between change in pay and types of network relationships. Three specific types of networks were singled out to see which was the most influential in increasing compensation: subordinate networks (relationships with those working below an employee), peer networks, and networks with superiors.

The study was intended to offer insight to both men and women, as both sexes were also used for the findings, but little insight was actually given to women. Rather, common knowledge was simply reiterated. At The Glass Hammer we’ve discussed the importance of networking effectively at length. Forbes’ assertion that women’s corporate networks are significantly less effective than men’s wasn’t a major revelation. What was rather shocking, however, was the study’s claim that this fact alone suggests that “women have a bigger opportunity to increase their pay and close the wage gap by taking specific actions to understand and cultivate their relationships with supervisors, peers and subordinates.”

It’s important to never discount self-responsibility as well as the power that women have to be game changers. It is true that women need to learn to network more effectively; that overall, they must get better at negotiating their salary, but according to AAUW’s top policy advisor Lisa Maatz, Forbes’ study never really gets to the heart of the matter, which is that discrimination follows women wherever they go.

Playing the Numbers Game

Take this scenario, for example: An employer has valued a job at between $85,000 and $90,000. When interviewing potential employees, the employer requires that they provide their salary history. A woman then comes in to be interviewed and when asking about the salary being offered for the position, the employer instead requests the female candidate’s salary history. Currently, she is making $65,000 a year and is offered $75,000 for the job. She accepts, grateful for the $10,000 raise, unaware of the fact that she will be receiving less than the position was originally valued at; thus saving the company between $10,000 and $15,000. This situation is played out every day in corporate America. What makes it even worse is that oftentimes women are unaware that it’s happening and walk away thinking they’ve been given a raise.

“When the Forbes study implies that it’s a woman’s responsibility to fix the wage gap, it’s not quite as egregious as blaming a victim of domestic violence for the violence, but it’s similar,” Maatz said. “Forbes’ argument is problematic from the very get-go because it’s essentially asking the person without power in the situation to change what’s happening to them. In other words, you can’t ask women who are powerless to end the discrimination they’re experiencing to fix the wage gap because the problem doesn’t start with them.”

Maatz and the organization she works for are avid supporters of women negotiating their salaries and finding out how much they should be paid based on their location and occupation, but she’s quick to point out that sometimes doing so backfires. “Gender stereotypes abound and it’s not unusual for a woman attempting to negotiate her salary to be seen as ‘too aggressive’ and then not get offered the job. Also, if you ask your male co-workers how much they’re making for performing similar work, you run the risk of being retaliated against by employers.”

Keep Working toward Equal Pay

Though Forbes’ study hit the nail on the head when it identified how important effective networking can be for women, it did a disservice to women by suggesting that networking alone is enough to fix the wage gap. The Equal Pay Act was signed into law in 1963 and women have yet to experience the equal pay promised by its passing. Yes, it’s important for us to take responsibility and do whatever in our power to change our situations, but it’s also very clear that stronger legislation is necessary not only to give women a fighting chance at equal pay, but also to ensure that a woman getting paid less than a job was originally valued at is not only unacceptable, but illegal.

“The wage gap puts women in a very difficult situation: If they do nothing about their predicament, they never know their options or whether or not they could have received more money. If they do try to fix the problem, they’re retaliated against,” Maatz said. “This is why the Paycheck Fairness Act is so important. You should be able to ask if the guy next to you is making more money than you without the fear of being let go or treated differently for asking. This promise of non-retaliation in the Act really is key.”