New research shines a harsh light on women’s earnings among the highest-paid executives of S&P 500 companies today, underscoring the gender gap that continues to plague women at all levels of the U.S. workforce. The top female executives in the country may be incredibly well-paid, lavished with town cars, stock options and perks galore, but pay parity is sadly not among them.
According to
It’s been well-documented that from entry level gigs to management roles (and even in entrepreneurship where women are writing their own checks!) female workers consistently under earn men. The current stat across industries is roughly 77 cents to the dollar, or a gap of 23%, and the reasoning runs the gamut from poor negotiating skills (shame on us, women) to blatant misogyny (shame on you, outdated workplace policy) to the uncomfortable notion that women just don’t work as hard as men, what with all that baby having and parent-teacher-conference-attending going on.
It’s depressing to watch the pay gap persist even in the highest reaches of corporate power. It’s even more disappointing though, to see Hymowitz and Daurat turning away from the much-needed policy changes in addressing the issue and continuing with several popular themes of finger-wagging at women. They look to a scarcity of women at the top (the drop-out storyline), women’s discomfort with salary negotiations (it’s your fault, ladies), and the notion that women consistently undervalue themselves economically—often looking for opportunity advancements rather than financial compensation in moving up the corporate ladder.
I consider Hymowitz a role model—she was an early editor of mine when she was at Forbes building what would become the successful ForbesWoman brand. And together we tackled many of these issues, reading through research and writing content for women to help them through tough negotiations, dealing with personal worth and even combating corporate stereotyping.
But somewhere in my continued interest in the issues surrounding the gender pay gap, I’ve grown tired of placing the burden of blame so solidly on women. That we must network more, negotiate more aggressively, find a sponsor and a mentor while doing our jobs harder better and faster than our male colleagues and—oh—leaning in has become tiresome and ineffective.
Take this quote from M.J. Tocci, the director of the Heinz Negotiation Academy for Women at Carnegie Mellon on equal pay and women used to conclude the piece: “Women who accept less than what men get for the same jobs,” she tells Bloomberg, “Are lowering the bar for the women who come after them.”
I don’t believe pointing fingers at ourselves is getting women anywhere.
While I wish they’d used this data as a call for policy change, what Hymowitz and Daurat do a brilliant job of in the lengthy Bloomberg piece is telling by showing—case after case of female CEOS under-earning for their industries. For that I’m grateful. These numbers should be put out there more forcefully and furiously. In fact, that’s where I see the only possible solution to the gender paygap issue at all: salary transparency. Not only among the executives of public companies forced to do so in filings, but at all levels—something that would certainly confront a major taboo of the working world, but in doing so could finally make fairness a reality.
And it’s never been a more pressing time, with the pay gap actually widening between 2011 and 2012 (I can only keep my fingers crossed for 2013, but my breath is the furthest thing from held). A report by the Workplace Gender Equality Agency said that the annual gender salary gap had risen from $2000 a year in 2011 to $5000 last year, and with the continued stalling of the Paycheck Fairness Act, things aren’t looking up any time soon.
