Never Accept a First Offer

-- By SamanthaWishman - 17 May 2012

Negotiating Salaries

Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook, gave a now famous TED talk about female leadership today. The statistics show that while women have made tremendous strides, we continue to under-perform as true competitors at the top. As Sandberg explains, of the 190 heads of state in the world, only 9 are women; women comprise only 13% of all parliament members; and in the corporate sector, women occupy only 15-16% of top management levels, with numbers only heading in the wrong direction.

Sandberg argues that women continually underestimate their own abilities, that women are too often grateful instead of aggressive, and that women’s reluctance to assert ownership over their own success must be directly related to the small number of women leaders worldwide. This statistic was the most alarming to me as a young woman: In a study conducted over the last two years, we learn that 57% of men negotiate their first salary out of college, while only 7% of women do. Furthermore, this 7% of women negotiate for 30% less money than men.

Now, I know what you all must be thinking. Naturally, this is because women just don’t like money! I’m going to throw a few more ideas out there. From a young age, most women are taught to be complacent and agreeable, while most men are conditioned to be confrontational. After all, boys will be boys! Men continue to dominate the fields of Finance and Engineering (in quantity, not necessarily quality), while more women continue to pursue Liberal Arts degrees. I’m not downgrading a LibArts? degree, after all, I have one and am proud. However, as a result of being funneled into that sphere, we are taught to think critically and argue in intellectual forums. We do not often experience cut-throat competition, where compassion and understanding do not help you come out on top. When we hear a salary offer, we consent.

Changing Roles, Persistent Attitudes

Traditional stereotypes, and perhaps even characteristics, of women as more agreeable, more collaborative, and less assertive have persisted, even as women’s roles have changed. Today, women outpace men in the number of college and graduate school degrees received, they represent over half of the workforce, and nearly 40 percent of wives are the primary breadwinners.

Reproductive rights, sexual liberation, and women’s empowerment have changed gender dynamics inside and outside of the bedroom dramatically in our recent history. At the beginning of the 20th century, almost all American women entered marriage as virgins, but at the beginning of the 21st century, over 75 percent of women have had sex by the age of 19. And yet, today sexual assault is prevalent. One in five college women is the victim of rape or attempted rape at some point in their college careers. Often in cases of acquaintance rape, the question of guilt turns on whether or not the woman consented.

Negotiating Sex

The article “Negotiating Sex” by Michelle Anderson begins with an anecdote about Adrienne, a thirteen-year-old girl who walks walks three miles to have a late-night rendezvous with a varsity basketball player named Mike. Once she arrives at his house, she panics. As Adrienne says, “I completely left my body” (101). They have sex and she never objects. After the incident, Adrienne has traumatic flashbacks and goes to therapy where she is unable to fully overcome the damage incurred that night.

Did Adrienne consent? She did according to the No Model, in which a man may assume consent unless the woman objects. She probably also consented under the Yes Model, which requires affirmative consent through words or actions. Anderson argues that both of these models are fundamentally problematic in light of studies that have shown women experience physical paralysis and mental dissociation when they are subjected to unwanted sexual encounters and that men consistently misread body language to infer affirmative consent. Anderson argues that instead of framing the issue as a question of consent, rape law should require an affirmative duty on both partners to request “information about another person’s desires and boundaries or an expression of one’s own with an invitation to respond" (123). First a meeting of the minds, then sex.

Anderson’s Negotiation Model identifies a conceptual flaw in how we currently look at rape. The notion of consent as used in traditional rape law treats women as acted upon. When they consent, they grant permission to the man to proceed. What they are not doing is having a conversation as individuals with free agency in order to agree upon the terms of engagement. Anderson also identifies a pervasive problem in the real world: women don’t negotiate. Unwanted sexual encounters between teens or young people, like Adrienne’s, are often not negotiated.

How can we expect women to negotiate in the bedroom when they don’t even negotiate in the office? Negotiation is not a skill that has been honed by women for generations, and in some ways it is antithetical to traditional notions of femininity. However, it is necessary to the lives women lead in the modern world. Anderson’s “Negotiation” Model ultimately requires a man to inquire into what a woman wants, which sounds ideal. Unfortunately, negotiation requires asserting what one wants or doesn’t want even when the other person isn’t looking out for your best interests.