As pay gap persists, women urged to bridge assertiveness gap

WASHINGTON

Susan Heavey found herself in an unusual position one night two weeks ago, in a group of four dozen people, almost all women, who took turns boasting about their career accomplishments at a "brag party."

"Women don't learn enough about how to be assertive," said Heavey, 25, an editor for the Reuters international news service. So she paired herself with a stranger and started talking, trying to sell herself to her partner in 45 seconds. It was clear from the nervous laughter that the exercise made many participants uncomfortable.

"If you don't learn to brag and self-promote, you will stall or derail your career," organizer Peggy Klaus, author of "Brag! The Art of Tooting Your Own Horn Without Blowing It," told the group. She urged them to pump themselves up like athletes preparing for a big game.

"It's even more important for women to do it. Women put their heads down and expect other people will recognize what they do," Klaus said.

Waiting for that recognition often doesn't work, studies show. Forty years after the Equal Pay Act passed, women are still paid less than men. In 2000, women earned 73 cents for each dollar earned by men, according to the Census Bureau. Meanwhile, women are more likely to be financially responsible for more people, including children and aging parents, experts say.

The gap is wider at the top: Sixteen percent of men earn $75,000 or more; only 6 percent of women do.

"The gap isn't decreasing very quickly at all," said Barbara Gault, director of research at the Institute for Women's Policy Research here. "At the current rate, we don't expect parity very soon."

Debate continues over reasons for the pay gap, but several recent studies are adding some new perspectives.

Lisa Barron, an assistant professor at the University of California at Irvine's Graduate School of Business, studied 38 MBAs entering the job market who were interviewed for a position they were told paid $61,000 a year. Barron found that 71 percent of the male candidates believed they were better than the other candidates, told hiring managers so and asked for more money.

Screening process

Seventy percent of the women believed themselves equal to the other candidates, hoped to prove themselves on the job and were willing to accept the salary that was offered.

"Men are winning in the screening process, even if they are not better in the job itself," said Uri Gneezy, an assistant professor at the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business, the author of two other recent studies on the differences between how men and women compete.

In a study that appears in August issue of the Quarterly Journal of Economics, Gneezy and other researchers found that women and men have different attitudes about competing and winning. In one test, male and female students were asked to solve maze problems on a computer and were paid 50 cents for each one they completed. In a second test, the students were placed in groups and told that only one person, the one who solved the most mazes, would earn $3.

The women completed the same number of mazes as before the competitive factor was added, researchers found. But the chance of victory spurred men on, leading them to perform 50 percent better than they had when they were competing only against themselves. Consequently, they earned more, the researchers found.

In another study, Gneezy and Aldo Rustichini of the University of Minnesota timed male and female students running, first by themselves and then in pairs.

The boys ran faster if they ran against other boys, and even faster if they ran against girls, they found. Girls ran the same speed either running alone or with a competitor of either sex.

Sex discrimination is still part of the equation, officials say. In a statement last month, for example, U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission chairwoman Cari Dominguez said the agency continues to see cases of "blatant pay discrimination between men and women doing equal work."

Ruling in support of the Family and Medical Leave Act in May, Chief Justice William Rehnquist wrote for a Supreme Court majority that government protections were still required to "dismantle persisting gender-based barriers" to women in the workplace.

Career choices a factor

Women's occupational choices explain part of the discrepancy, experts say. Teachers, for example, in an occupation dominated by women, are paid less than engineers, who are mostly male. And women are more likely to step on and off the career ladder, particularly when their children are young or their parents get old. With family responsibilities in mind, they are more apt to take jobs that are less lucrative in exchange for working fewer hours, traveling less or doing work that seems more emotionally rewarding.

Women are still rare in the top of America's corporate structure, where salaries are highest. There are now seven women who are chief executives of Fortune 500 companies, up from two in 1995. They account for 15.7 percent of top corporate slots, according to Sheila Wellington, president of Catalyst, a nonprofit research group that specializes in studying women in corporate America.

Women appear to handicap themselves from the beginning with low expectations at the start of their careers, Wellington said: "A wage gap early in the career continues to widen and widen until retirement. The impact doesn't diminish. It keeps compounding."

Cincinnati-based financial consultant Suzan Kotler said this affects women's standard of living and prospects for retirement. Many of her female clients fear thrusting themselves into the competitive arena, with the self-promotion it requires, she said. When they reach their sixties and seventies, they find they don't have enough money to retire.

"It's very sad," she said."They're desperate. They have to work."

Those who do become proficient at self-promotion run social risks, Gault said: "Consistent assertiveness in a woman rankles people."

Some attendees at the recent brag party said they hated being compelled to reel off their career highlights.

"I didn't feel prepared," said Nancy Graham, 38, who works at Executive Update magazine. "I felt like it's me -- I should know."

In contrast, during another exercise, many participants bubbled profusely in describing the accomplishments of someone else."There's no stigma attached, only virtue, in singing someone else's praises," participant Mary Ellen Lerner said."It's blameless."

All were encouraged to develop a spiel about themselves, which Klaus calls a "bragalogue," and to learn to deliver it enthusiastically.

"It's beneficial to learn how to articulate your strengths," participant Heavey said."To learn how to sell yourself is key. So many other people are looking for jobs. To know your assets can be the difference between moving ahead and not moving ahead."

She paused.

"Men don't seem to have that problem."