I am sure that in many jobs, women are treated fairly and are paid based on their work ethic, experience, knowledge and other more specific qualifications. However, I have seen in my experiences that it is still an all too common scenario where the men are in charge and the men are the highest paid employee. I know this because I work in payroll. I see bonuses, raises and benefits (priveleges as well) dramatically unfair based on the work quality, dedication, and knowledge of the comparing positions. I have also noticed a difference in consequences and enforcement of the rules and policies. In addition, when a position opens up on the executive side, women who have been hard working, valuable employees, trying to climb for years are overlooked completely and men who haven’t worked there half the time have earned the promotions. It is sad what I have seen. But that does not make me think it is like that everywhere. I am not shocked though that more than a handful of men think this is women being bitter and opinionated. And what, that just because it does not occur everywhere, we should just grin and accept it? Be happy about it? Many women, in the corporate world especially, must see this and I think plenty of men might very easily not notice, even if it were in their face. So that’s what I think, and I am a lady thank you.
I just want to say here that the issue may not have been the new guy’s better negotiation skills, but foolish company regs that set up inequality for anyone in margin’s situation.
I worked retail while in college, and was in a junior managerial position when I was offered a promotion to store manager. I ended up turning it down once I found out that my 4 years of experience had me locked in a pay grid that only permitted a small percentage raise for such a promotion, whereas someone coming in from the outside with no prior retail experience at all could ask for (and get) more than $6,000/year more. My district manager actually advised me to quit so that I could be re-hired at a decent salary!
Well I just found out that a woman I used to work with made substantially more than me despite the fact that I was with the company longer and worked harder.
Of course, she was having an affair with the boss(who was also fired) so this may not be totally relevant.I think that, on the whole, these things tend to improve generationally. When my grandmother joined the work force as a secretary at city hall, she was expected to get coffee, run personal errands for her boss, and generally take his b.s. without comment.
When my mother became a wire splicer with Pac Bell in 1976, she had rocks thrown at her, endured constant comments that today would be considered sexual harrassment, and was flat out told by her boss “we’re starting you at $5,000 a year less than we would a man. You might want to have another baby, and I don’t have time for that. We’ll talk about it again after you’ve been here a few years.”
And while it doesn’t happen (as much) now, when I started out in nursing, any man brave enough to become a male nurse got a 25% signing bonus at a certain hospital because “some patients prefer to be cared for by men.” That may explain a few of the things we have seen, featherlou, as opposed to some of the younger posters here.
Rhum Runner, what you have stated as “proof” is not. I’m sorry, but it’s pure conjecture. So sexual discrimination is illegal. You actually believe that corporations are so squeaky clean they don’t bend the rules when it suits them? Never heard of “the old boy network?” Shocking as it may be, corporations will continue to find legal loopholes to cover up their illegalities, and couch those illegalities in language that will make it appear that what they are doing is completely above board. Sometimes they get caught can you say Enron? Sometimes they don’t. But in most major corporations, the higher up you go, the fewer women you will see.
I think you’re right about the generational thing, Maureen. I was talking with a couple of women my age, and we were laughing about our mothers’ careers - I said that in their generation, women could be secretaries, nurses, or teachers if they were going to work. My mom was a teacher, one woman’s mom was a nurse, and another’s was a secretary. Which is still kinda funny, cause you’re a nurse and I’m a secretary :D. We’ve come a long way, baby, but I think we have a way to go yet. I think the girls graduating high school and going into college this year will have a better deal than we did coming out of high school.