There’s a lot of reliable research on women’s negotiating for higher pay compared to men. Women tend not to value themselves as highly as male applicants for the same positions. Hopefully that is changing, but it’s been the reality, sadly.
Err… Actually, there’s a lot of reliable research that shows that it’s not that women don’t negotiate well or value themselves, but rather that when women negotiate they are seen as pushy and bossy whereas men are seen as forthright and confident. Negotiating hurts women. It helps men. No matter what women do, they are viewed in a negative light. Essentially all work women do is a passion or a hobby or expected and if they make cold, hard decisions based on the numbers, they’re heartless and only in it for the money, while men get to be clear-headed and driven. Research shows that women not only have to back off when negotiating, they know this. Turns out we’re sort of experienced at this getting screwed thing and we know we walk a fine line.
Don’t take my word for it. Here’s what Harvard Business says about the issue of women being treated differently when negotiating.
When you look at the fields “historically dominated by women,” they’re not particularly historic - women working in career fields at all is pretty new. It’s really only in recent decades that you can call anything “female-dominated.” Sure, you took in mending or cleaned, but that was women’s work. It filled the gaps, it wasn’t seen as a job. Teaching, secretarial work, nursing, medicine. All of those were male dominated up until quite recently. It was felt that women didn’t have the brains for teaching and secretarial work and then as soon as it became dominated by women, despite the fact that they’re increasingly laborious job, it’s suddenly easy. Of course women have been teaching for a long, long time (unless you got married - time to quit and manage the household!) but it was only a woman’s job at the lowest levels - you weren’t going to Harvard to have a woman teach you about physics. Nursing and medicine were considered too much for women with all that blood and now that they’re mostly dominated by women, it’s a career about passion for humanity rather than a passion for knowledge and progress (or just cutting things with sharp objects and not getting in trouble for it).
I do not think for one second that the issue is that women in vet medicine aren’t negotiating properly or life balancing appropriately. Women vets are valuing themselves just fine. Society might be undervaluing them but let’s not mistake the two. For the record, the profession currently sucks for both men and women and I am watching both men and women talk about how they’d sort of like to leave and never come back.
