A common complaint among working women, particularly in very male-dominated industries is: Would I make more as a man?
BACKGROUND
- Age: Late 20s
- Industry: Consulting – Male-dominated
- Role: Consultant (Freelance)
- Years of Experience: 5
- Country: Canada — No specific place; I’ve been all over the U.S. and mostly in Eastern Canada
- Salary: If I held a job at a company, I’d earn $90,000 – $110,000 as a salary but my income varies as a freelancer.
COULD I MAKE MORE AS A WOMAN?
I had a chance to experience this. Once.
When I was in college, my brother told me: “If you go into high finance like becoming an investment banker, you could make a killing because they need more women in their offices, and you could probably negotiate something quite substantial.”
He wasn’t so far off — all the women in my cohort who applied to become an investment banker received first rounds of interviews and job offers across the board. A lot of guys were grumbling (and rightly so!) that So-and-So got one of the most coveted job interviews just because she was female.
I’d like to think that she was the right person for the job (male OR female), but I do agree that being female definitely helped her get her foot into the door for the interviews, rather than keeping her out of them, and I must say, she negotiated quite a nice salary and bonus.
I have to say, I was intrigued at first because of the sparkly lure of seemingly easy cash (it’s just math!), but I wasn’t so sure that I wanted to be an industry “making a killing” just because I was a woman.
Besides, I’m sure I would have been miserable.
I’m not cut out for a high pressure, dog-eat-dog kind of industry, and I wasn’t so keen on being forced to wear expensive clothes and shoes all day like some of my friends were. I’m not saying I want to go to work dressed in jeans and a beer-logoed t-shirt but being constricted into a suit every single day would not be my ‘thing’.
Also, I wouldn’t have fared very well because I also wouldn’t have wanted to put in even more time than 80-100 hours a week the way some guys would have wanted to, and work “harder than anyone else alive” to get those positions.
If it wouldn’t have been a right fit, I probably would have left the whole business early on after clearing my debt.
Barring my lack of willingness to give up my life and work like a dog for 40 years before having a heart attack, I think being a woman in the industry is a nice trophy for partners to have on their company profile “Look! We’re EQUAL OPPORTUNITY employers!“, but my gut feeling is that I would’ve probably never made it to the upper echelons of that industry, just because I’d be wearing a skirt suit.
Old Boys Club and all that.
ON MAKING THE SAME WAGE AS A WOMAN
Source: Mint
This image was originally from Mint.com’s Blog, not my own infographic (hence the “Source” link).
Mint has since fixed the image to read:
Source: Mint
The funny thing is that I ended up in an industry just as male-dominated as investment banking.
Although the hours can become as long as in investment banking, the work is more interesting to me and much more suited to my skills and personality.
Full disclaimer: In consulting, if you work for a company, you generally don’t get compensated for overtime, even if it gets hairy at 100 hours a week.
If you work as a freelancer, you charge by the hour, so overtime has to be negotiated with the client, but you do get paid for the extra hours you work, because sometimes they give you tasks that are unrealistic to finish in the time allotted.
I do however, get the distinct feeling that I’d be better off as a guy who is freelancing in this industry, such as the time one company grilled me on being a young girl and already ‘on my own’.
The guy would not, and could not believe that I would have the audacity to charge as much as a man with less experience.
The AUDACITY! (His exact words)
It was pretty rough, and I told him somewhat hotly that it was a question of demand and supply and that was and is what I charge.
I know now that he was just using it as a tactic to SHAME me for being a young woman, by getting me to agree and lower my rate.
How did the story end?
I ended up getting a callback from him and he agreed to my original price but nothing came of it (the recession hit and they delayed the project).
It made me realize that people were going to get down low and dirty to get you to lower your rate even by $1 an hour.
($1/hour = $2000/year by the way.)
The funny thing is that even though I went into another vein of business, I’m making just about as much as someone my age would in investment banking, just without the long hours and the stress. (Not millions of dollars, by the way.)
I see it as a win-win situation.
Of course, this is mostly because I’m able to freelance in my industry (I’m very lucky in this regard).
If you think about it, if you earn a super high salary but you work 80 hours, you can just divide that salary in half to get a feel for what it’d be like to work a so-called ‘normal’ job with normal hours and a ‘normal’ salary.
My investment banking friends don’t get this calculation.
They kind of look at me pitifully when we meet up for reunion dinners, because they think I’m making “nothing” compared to what they’re pulling in per year. And in some months, they’re right. I make $0, I don’t drive a fancy car, own a home, and I don’t go on designer shopping sprees.
So yeah, in their eyes, I’m a complete loser in the salary game.
Still, you have to look at the big picture. I love having free time, being able to earn a year’s worth of living expenses in a month or two, and being my own boss.
So I just smile and say I like having the extra time off and I don’t need much to live on to be comfortable and happy, and I really mean it even if they think I’m trying to put on a brave front.
SADLY, THIS GUY WAS NOT THE ONLY HARD “NEGOTIATOR”
He was without a doubt an ass (who then later on tried to hit on me and ask me out to dinner), but I had plenty of companies in those following months that used the same tactics to try and negotiate me down in my rate.
In fact, EVERY company has tried to do that to me — screw me out of even $2.50/hour (Which translates into $5000/year), although no other brokers tried to hit on me, but they were surprised when they met me in person, although for what reason, I am not sure of, but I’m fairly sure it’s because they never expected someone like me.
It may not seem like a big deal to go down $1 or $2.50 an hour, but if you can drop even $2.50/hour without just cause, you can drop $20/hour (Which is $40,000/year).
Then they just think you’re easy bait to wrestle down to a lower price.
My answers ranged anywhere from “Take it out of YOUR cut of my rate! I’m the one doing the job here“, to “My rate is final. I am not negotiating any longer, call me if you still want to hire me.”
In all of those instances, they were fighting harder and putting on more pressure than usual because they thought that since I was young, I was immediately inexperienced in negotiations and stupid enough to lower the rate if they pushed hard enough.
More importantly they also thought that since I was a woman, I would also be softer and easier to push to give in.
I now make it a point to keep in mind that they think I’m an easy target.
After all, the best time to negotiate (or in this scenario, NOT negotiate) is when you have the upper hand.
The funny thing is that some companies acknowledge their rueful defeat.
One guy had passed me off to his manager to try and get that guy to move me down $20 in my rate, and when I refused and they gave in, he got back on the phone with me and said: “You’ve got a real good poker face.”
I told him I sucked at playing cards, but I knew what I was worth to the client.
Without a doubt, the industry I am in would prefer if I was a guy. They’d love it.
They don’t think that women can do this job, and this is proven to me day-in and day-out when I hear other male colleagues’ experiences with negotiation.
It’s kind of pathetic.
They never get grilled, and their rates are NEVER questioned above more than a: “It seems a bit high, are you willing to negotiate.” It’s not even a question of whether or not I have more or less experience either, some have more than me, but I am not far off from them in my own experience — perhaps just a year or two apart, although I’ve consistently worked more and (luckily) scored better projects.
IT ALL BOILS DOWN TO THIS
If I was a guy, I wouldn’t have to fight as hard to earn the same wage per hour in the same industry, doing the same job with the same experience.
I’d still have to fight, yes, but I wouldn’t have to take being personally attacked for being young and being a woman.
Now when I negotiate, I have to turn into this hardass caricature of myself and pull out all the stops when it comes to fending off their indirect jabs at my age and sex.
And trust me, they’re very good at making sure they don’t say something that could be construed as being illegal.
The bad news is having to gear up for a fight each time, I still get that adrenaline rush.
The good news is that more often than not, I always get the job at the rate I want and every discussion is a new lesson in negotiations.
And the even better news? I don’t need to do anything to ‘climb’ the ranks than to just keep working hard, doing a stellar job and earn my years of experience.
So?
Women, do you think you’d make more as a man?
Men, do you think you’ve experienced something drastically different in your careers, perhaps dealing with reverse discrimination?
“If I were a Boy” Carnival
This post is part of a series of bloggers sharing their candid experiences or observations about women in the workplace which is not at all meant to be a male-bashing expedition whatsoever.
Please head over to these other wonderful bloggers and read about their experiences.
- Jacq of Single Mom Rich Mom — Accounting, 40s
- Fabulously Broke in the City — Consulting, 20s
- Stacking Pennies — Engineering, 20s
- Musings of an Abstract Aucklander — Publishing, 20s
- Little Miss Moneybags — Publishing — 20s
- Dog Ate my Finances
- Young and Thrifty — Public Sector, 20s
- Paranoid Asteroid
- Insomniac Lab Rat — Science, 20s
Just a girl trying to find a balance between being a Shopaholic and a Saver.
I cleared $60,000 in 18 months earning $65,000 gross/year.
Now I am self-employed, and you can read more about 
I think its great that you’re a woman in a male-dominated industry, you get to shatter their stereotypes and it makes you unique. Even though we live in the 21st century, a lot of people are still traditional. The good thing these days is that you no longer have to be forced into something like women did in the 1500s. People can have their opinions, but women in industrialized countries can do whatever they want.
I think many women avoid male-dominated industries because of the struggles you just described. Initially I didn’t want to go into a male-dominated industry. My bf has also said that if I went into a male dominated field I could have an advantage. Now I’m an accounting major with an interest in graphic/web design, both which are historically male dominated. lol.
I think that’s starting to change though as women are choosing those careers more, I still think its sad that women have to fight even though more women nowadays go to college than men.
I think if your interests lie in a male-dominated industry, then going into one will be a challenge but a great one to learn from.
People always told me and other girls going into areas like Engineering or even Construction: But you’re too PRETTY to be in there?
The looks we gave back were a lot of “WTF? What does my face have to do with my brain?”
But I see that it’s true.. the stereotype i mean. It’s harder to be taken seriously.
I didn’t know graphic/web design was male-oriented. I guess it’s “IT” like, right? I had a company doing graphic/web design when I was younger and no one batted an eye… sort of.
Yep. They did a survey awhile back
http://www.alistapart.com/d/2007surveyresults/2007surveyresults.pdf
on page 7, 82.8% of designers were male and only 16% female.
The problem is that you have to be very good and I hate to say this but designers are really a dime a dozen. Many people want creative careers. If a person wants any hope of making a regular income even as a freelance designer they have to be amazing otherwise its pointless to try to make a living at it, have good social skills, know how to network, and have business skills, etc.
I think many people go into it because its interesting even though they’re not going to make physician figures with it. I’m focusing on my education right now and worrying about the career later, a lot of people go into fields unrelated to their degree, so who knows? 🙂
I see all of it as a side job, really. Designing, blogging, freelance writing. I can’t imagine myself wanting to do it full-time (other people are so much better than I am), but I do like it as a hobby.
I totally would make more as a man. I worked in banking and education fields and had male counterparts with less experience and knowledge making more than I did only because of their gender. I did negotiate my pay, however the hiring managers offered me less to begin with based on my gender, and although I was able to negotiate more than they offered I still ended up on a lower spectrum than a male would have. it SUCKS, and it is something we still have to deal with in our modern world…. sadly.
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That\’s interesting that you\’d earn more as a man in banking, when Meg from World of Wealth is a private banker and says she makes more. I love these different perspectives!!!
Having read this post, I say kudo's to you for knowing your worth and sticking to your guns.
I'm in the Waste Industry – still an old boy's club. I'm currently fighting a battle within my own company as I do the equivalent of 4 people's jobs but get paid far less than the men that only do one. There is little difference between what each of the men do, but without me doing my job everyday they wouldn't be able to do theirs. The raise I'm getting in January is being given to me "in an effect to equate the salaries of the valuable employees". the trouble is I wouldn't be getting this at all, if it wasn't for a project I'm still working on with an outside contractor (and family related to 2 of the 3 owners) and she hadn't sat with me for a week to see how little "you can have this week to work on the project and we'll cover your other duties" actually means.
I deal with being female in this industry minute by minute – from the leering and comments of suppliers, to the surprise at my age and experience, to my physical attributes by the men I work with. The last laugh is that regardless of the attempts to get me to back down or back off on regulations, pricing, rules etc, they all inevitably call back for help on other things as they've understood the value of what I provide.
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That\’s absolutely fantastic. I get slammed on being young and a woman to boot, so I know how it feels.
I totally with you on the calculation… my friends in corporate law/consulting / banking are working a LOT of hours. I mean, 80 could be the average. When you work out the hourly there, you really are just making the same hourly as a lot of us in regular, 40 hr week jobs. (The way I see it is that if I really want that much money, I can simply take on another full time job, rather than do the whole banking thing.)
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*high five*
This is why I\’m such a huge fan of hourly calculations. Gross per hour, net per hour, disposable income per hour.
These are all things that matter when you consider that your time is limited but your life may be sucked into some black hole of hell just because of a job.
You know, it's weird, I never actually thought about it.At my previous workplace I thought that people around me are more capable which is why I assumed they'd be making more than I. But it never occurred to me that I'd make more if I were a guy. Only thing close to that direction was "guys wouldn't look down on me as much, if I were a man". That, plus I'd get all depressed whenever I'd think about other people's salary, so I just tuned such notions out 😛
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There\’s no denying that men have an advantage now in society, and they\’re trying to get women into these fields but I think
a) women are still gun-shy in these fields and aren\’t going into them as often as they should
b) this is slowly changing
c) men need to take paternity leave to make things more equal for women, so that EVERYONE takes time off, not just ladies
d) women need to fight and negotiate, no matter how unseemly and nasty it may be
I have to restrain myself from breaking into a rant here…I’ll just say:
Yes, I know for a fact I would get paid more. I would not have to fight tooth to nail like I do to get the pay I deserve. I need your grit, woman. I have been guilty of lowering my price/fee to get the foot in the door. (I’m relatively young and a the time, I was inexperienced) But it will never happen again! *Snarl*!
I only lower my price/fee down to the bare minimum I will accept. Anything below that and they can find someone else.
Good for you for not backing down. Realizing they are using your age and sex to negotiate, and realizing that is bunk is a good way to think about it. (And your annual calculations of $1 pretty savvy too! – I had never thought of it that way).
I work in a field dominated by men, but our office has more females than males by far. I guess that's why I never have sensed the male/female gap because I've always been in situations where women were the majority. But I've always wondered how the men in our office feel. 🙂
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Well it\’s just 2000 working hours in a year as an average 🙂 Makes it easy to multiply.
It\’s bunk because I hear the same people talk to other colleagues in a very different manner, so it can\’t just be me.
That\’s great that your office is so female-dominated 🙂 I flip from client to client and I always end up with male-dominated offices 90% of the time.
Great post, this just inspired me to NEVER negotiate about my rates again. Unless they want to pay more, we can always talk about that.
I'm not sure if I make less than men; I am also a freelancer, but in the writing/translation business. People often see that as more of a woman's job, so that's convenient. However, it's also something which people think is easy, and can also be done for $5/hour by some neighbour kid etc. So when I get clients who think that, I just tell them to go to their neighbour kid. I doubled my rates in the past two, three years, and I'm finally getting more comfortable with that 😉
By the way; I always charge fixed prices. That pays a lot better for me, since I work fast. It often translates to €100+/hour. Of course, I don't have 40 billable hours per week, but still.. 🙂
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Would I make more money as a man? Right now, no, because our grad student stipends are all the same (unless you apply for an external award or something). It seems like most schools have pretty standard salaries for postdoc positions too, so I probably won't face making a different salary any time soon based on being female-as long as I don't have problems getting hired because I'm a woman.
I'm glad I don't have to negotiate my pay rate on a regular basis, but I'm sure it's a great skill to have and practice!
My recent post If I were a Boy
It\’s not so much the practice I don\’t like as it is the gearing up for a fight. And having to concede a dollar or even $0.50
Hmm can't believe that guy had the AUDACITY to hit on you afterwards! Geez!
Do you think that the people are negotiating with you just because they want to cut their costs and not solely because you are female? Have you talked to your colleagues who are in the same consulting industry as you and have they had people try and negotiate with them?
Those comments about you having a poker face are pretty sexist though. I highly doubt you would get that if you were male.
I think as a female that is somewhat attractive, you get it even worse. People expect you not to be smart because you are pretty, because they assume those are two mutually exclusive entities.
He was recently divorced and let me tell you, I was NOT interested in his leering after how rude he was. Did he not think the two would go hand in hand, even if I had a boyfriend?
He was hitting on me during the whole prep interview, telling me I was attractive, etc…
So yes, I did say in the post that I talk to people in my industry, both male and female, and they usually don\’t get grilled the way I do. The older women don\’t get grilled quite as badly, although they go down a lot sooner than the men, and the men rarely get grilled at all.
It\’s definitely that I\’m a) a woman, b) young, and c) everyone tends to be very surprised when I show up at work, because they\’re not expecting someone who looks like me.
this is really interesting and good for me to know. I'm making good money now but want to go free-lance soon. I'm sure I'll face the same thing you will.
I hope you tough it out better than I did at the start 🙂
I think you are so badass! I am in complete awe of your negotiation skills, your willingness to strike out on your own. I love you you will argue for your own worth, because so many women feel like they can’t.
Oh thank you 🙂 Badass. Well, I don\’t consider myself a rough and tumble kind of girl, but I guess being on my own and negotiating for my own rate and not having someone else (like a company) do it for me, has made me have nerves of steel.
It\’s another reason why I save a LOT of my income, so that I can say \”No, keep your job if you don\’t want to pay me my rate\” and not have to worry about eating for the next month.
Hi FB,
This is a great series!
I work in the construction industry, and it doesn' t get much more male dominated than that. A lot of my work is in the field, and pointing out deficiencies to big, burly guys is not always easy. One thing that my job has taught me is the power of logic and standing your ground. I always try to work through each design and picture how it works, that way, when Mr. Construction explains to me that they have been doing things this way for the last hundred years, I can explain why our design works, if that is the case. 😉
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Thanks! I just added you to my blogroll & rss feed by the way. 🙂
Wow, construction! I work with factory workers sometimes, so I know the feeling. I do the same thing — I use logic to win my case most of the time.
Damn FB you're a tough lady and good for you. Its stories like this that make me want to go into fields that have a healthy mix of men and women. I think that's why many women avoid male dominated fields.
I think so too.
Many women don\’t want to fight in these fields, but I can\’t help it. I love my job and I like what I do, male-dominated or not. Any women I meet on a project are usually NOT in my area of expertise. I\’m quite rare apparently. Even recruiters are surprised when I call back and they hear a woman\’s voice. They automatically expect a man.
You made an erroneous comment. Women make 77% of what men make, not 77% less. It's subtle, but the difference between $77,000 (if the men make $100,000) and $23,000 which is a big difference.
Hi, that\’s not my infographic. Please contact Mint.com
http://www.mint.com/blog/trends/poverty-in-americ…
Oh I see they fixed it! I\’ll upload the new image.
I know I would make more as a man but I think that more importantly, I would be offered different opportunities.
I worked my way from an admin assistant to a director at my last job, over the course of 5 years. I had a number of really awkward negotiations along the way as I moved roles. I know I was always making the bottom of the salary bracket for each position, and sometimes not even in the salary bracket! I also know my male peers always made more.
What troubled me more was this; most woman start in administrative roles and never get out of them while men seem to appear at the manager level. Once you've been someone's assistant it is quite difficult to get that image out of people's mind. Men never seem to have to do this. I would often look around a managers meeting and realise I was one of two or three females in a room of twenty or more. When I was a director I would still have people asking me how to make coffee or where office supplies were. Really tough to break out of the supporting role and when you're female it seems your much more likely to have to start in one.
Great post. I really enjoy this debate!
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I really enjoyed reading about your perspective on this topic. In my personal experience I have not known whether I was hired at a lesser rate than the males within my expertise, but I do know that I've been hired at a far lesser rate than the 'average'. However, I am living in a small rural community, and worked for the local newspaper, so it would be reasonable to expect the pay rate to be much less than one would make in a bigger area, and more robust industry. (Let's face it, the internet has replaced much of what a traditional newspaper offers.)
I think you and Jacq have the key to this, though. You get what you ask/fight for. I think most women, while not pushovers, tend not to push for more compensation initially. And, we all know it's more difficult to negotiate back up later down the road. I think, maybe, part of the reason for this is that society has trained men to expect more money where women haven't. We have been trained to expect less money, and to expect to have to try to break the 'glass ceiling' in the workplace. I think it's a totally different ballgame from going in expecting a fight, and going in expecting to be treated a certain way. It's a matter of confidence.
I've been told many times that I make a great first impression. I think that's because I go in projecting confidence. Truth be told, I'm usually faking it, but it works. What do you think?
Would I make more as a man? Oh, most probably yes. But not by much these days as compared to back in the day. Many many headhunters are women though and that's who I mostly deal with so it's hard to say.
I do know that most male managers in my profession are hired at about 15-20% more than they will if they were women – because they ask for it. As a consultant, I think (I'm not sure of this) that I actually GET more jobs because the guys that hire me seem more comfortable delegating their work to a woman. 🙂
That\’s interesting that guys that hire you are more comfortable delegating to a woman. I haven\’t experienced that.. unless I fought for it and proved my worthiness.