Ladypreneurs: Women Winning at Work

Read this book!
Women Don’t Ask: Negotiation and the Gender Divide

Interesting Statistics

It’s Necessary for Women to Negotiate Now More Than Ever Before

• Between May 2001 and May 2002, 39 percent of the American workforce changed jobs.
• In 2000, 76.8 percent of women aged 25 to 54 worked outside the home.
• The divorce rate hovers at 50 percent.
• Union membership is down 33 percent since 1983.
• Women’s earnings relative to men’s have stagnated at 73.2 percent.
• The percentage of births to single mothers (out of all mothers) has risen from 10 percent in 1970 to 33 percent today.

Women Don’t Like to Negotiate

• In surveys, 2.5 times more women than men said they feel “a great deal of apprehension” about negotiating.
• Men initiate negotiations about four times as often as women.
• When asked to pick metaphors for the process of negotiating, men picked “winning a ballgame” and a “wrestling match,” while women picked “going to the dentist.”
• Women will pay as much as $1,353 to avoid negotiating the price of a car, which may help explain why 63 percent of Saturn car buyers are women.
• Women are more pessimistic about the how much is available when they do negotiate and so they typically ask for and get less when they do negotiate—on average, 30 percent less than men.
• 20 percent of adult women (22 million people) say they never negotiate at all, even though they often recognize negotiation as appropriate and even necessary.

Women Suffer When They Don’t Negotiate

• By not negotiating a first salary, an individual stands to lose more than $500,000 by age 60—and men are more than four times as likely as women to negotiate a first salary.
• In one study, eight times as many men as women graduating with master’s degrees from Carnegie Mellon negotiated their salaries. The men who negotiated were able to increase their starting salaries by an average of 7.4 percent, or about $4,000. In the same study, men’s starting salaries were about $4,000 higher than the women’s on average, suggesting that the gender gap between men and women might have been closed if more of the women had negotiated their starting salaries.
• Another study calculated that women who consistently negotiate their salary increases earn at least $1 million more during their careers than women who don’t.
• In 2001 in the U.S. women held only 2.5 percent of the top jobs at American companies and only 10.9 percent of the board of directors’ seats at Fortune 1000 companies.
• Women own about 40 percent of all businesses in the U.S. but receive only 2.3 percent of the available equity capital needed for growth. Male-owned companies receive the other 97.7. percent.

Women Have Lower Expectations and Lack Knowledge of their Worth

• Many women are so grateful to be offered a job that they accept what they are offered and don’t negotiate their salaries.
• Women often don’t know the market value of their work: Women report salary expectations between 3 and 32 percent lower than those of men for the same jobs; men expect to earn 13 percent more than women during their first year of full-time work and 32 percent more at their career peaks.

Go buy & read this book!!
Women Don’t Ask: Negotiation and the Gender Divide

Exciting news, m’ladyfriends… this Ladypreneurs Tumblr was featured in Glamour Mag!

A simple step by step guide to derailing awkward conversations by dismissing and trivializing your opposition’s perspective and experience.

Just some of the many issues you can apply it to:

• sexism
• racism 
• classism
• homophobia
• fatphobia

Ha… amazing! Some real gems in here. Enjoy! 

Ryan Gosling gets it.  I get him. We should get together and talk about it. ;)

via Change the Ratio

Rockstar Female Makers! YES!!

Aww yaaa, NY! 

Wow, I LOVE this. It’s so awesome to see more being published around supporting your fellow woman. Here here! Let’s raise each other up, ladies.

Big thanks to @missrogue for passing along this one.

Ladies: Set out to be a strong role model and leader in your field; inspire young women entrepreneurs in the process! 

Ashley Judd is my hero! This article is spot on and highlights how vitriol and slander focused on appearance only engenders competition and fear between women. 

Hugs & high fives, Ashley! You’re an inspiration to all women, and I for one am incredibly grateful you’ve taken the time to speak up and let ‘em have it. 

The White House Council on Women and Girls

“Today, more than ever before, women are playing a central role in the American economy. Women now make up nearly 50% of our workforce, are a growing number of breadwinners in their families, and are the majority of students in our colleges and graduate schools. American women own 30% of small businesses, which generate  $1.2 trillion a year in sales. Since 1962, women’s participation in the labor market has risen by 20 percentage points while the United States’ Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has more than quadrupled. And according to a report by McKinsey, if the United States raised female labor participation rates to the average participation rate of the top 10 states, our economy would add 5.1 million women workers, the equivalent of a 3-4% increase in GDP.

Consequently,  when women still face barriers  to  participation in the workplace and marketplace, that is not just a “women’s issue.” When women still make just 77 cents for every dollar men make, or have to pay more for their health care than men, that hurts entire families who cannot afford to lose part of their income each month. When a job does not offer adequate family leave or sick  leave, that also hurts men who need to help care for a new baby or an ailing parent. When women entrepreneurs continue to have a harder time accessing the capital they need to start and sustain their businesses, create new jobs, and sell new products, that hurts our entire economy. And when approximately two million women fall victim to domestic violence each year, that  costs our nation $8 billion annually in lost productivity and health care expenses and results in the loss of 8 million paid days of work a year. 

The statistics are very clear:  The success of American women is critical for the success of American families and the American economy. And in order for our nation to keep moving forward, women must be able to help provide for their families and contribute fully to our economy.”

Big thanks to Rachel Sklar for sharing this & being involved! 

“A lack of diversity is not simply a problem of “optics.” In the modern world, it does look odd not to have it, but does diversity make a difference in real economic terms? Does it actually affect the bottom line? To my mind the answer is a resounding yes. We do not need diversity for diversity’s sake, but because diversity on the board contributes to the profitability of the business. Diversity of thought, experience, knowledge, understanding, perspective and age means that a board is more capable of seeing and understanding risks and coming up with robust solutions to address them. Businesses led by diverse boards that reflect the whole breadth of their stakeholders and their business environment will be more successful businesses. They are more in touch with their customers’ demands, their investors’ expectations, their staffs’ concerns, and they have a forum in the boardroom where these different perspectives come together and successful business strategies can be devised.”

Congratulations to my friend Tara Sophia Mohr for being on New Day, sharing her gospel about Playing Big! 

I definitely do #3 way too often, making a disclaimer for what I’m about to say. I’ve been working on it! Which ones could you use to work on?

As a data geek & designer, I love the info graphic.

Another great one from Cindy Gallop. She points out a few particularly notable quotes:

“At every level, more women were rated by their peers, their bosses, their direct reports, and their other associates as better overall leaders than their male counterparts — and the higher the level, the wider that gap grows.”

and near the end…

“As to the constant state of unease we hear women leaders express — clearly, chauvinism or discrimination is an enigma that organizations (and the business culture) should work hard to prevent. However, that said, think of the benefits every leader in every organization would gain from a mind-set that they simply can’t afford to make a mistake.”