As I have said before, I am a contributor to AdviseHer, and this week there are two relevant things that landed on my desk(top) these last few days.
The first is a post on Fortune magazine editor-at-large Patti Sellers' blog, Postcards, entitled "Are women lousy negotiators?" The post stipulates that women are bad at negotiating salaries for themselves and tooting their own horn.
The second is the transcribed text of the graduation speech that Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg gave at Barnard College two weeks ago. It's a fantastic speech, and I really encourage you to watch it. I want it to be playing in my bathroom every morning to get me pumped to tackle the day as I get ready.
In the speech, she talks about how the women of her generation have failed to close the achievement gap and puts the onus on this year's graduates to do so. She underlines, however, that women must close the ambition gap before we can close achievement gap.
She makes a point about how successful women who take ownership of their awesomeness have to bear both the external and the personal costs of that success, meaning that, one day, we will have choices to make between thriving in our careers, raising families, or pursuing other nontraditional goals. The thing that struck me the most about the speech is the part about women "finding balance for responsibilities they don't even have" yet.
The Postcards piece and the speech make perfect sense to me together. The fact that we 'lean back' and pre-decide for the day that we have to 'make that decision' is probably part of the reason why we as women don't negotiate for higher salaries and accept fair opening offers. Maybe the thinking is that since we might go part-time or leave the company altogether for household duties, we shouldn't unnecessarily take more money. Sheryl really hits the nail on the head there: why do we think that our work is worth less because of that? Is it the ambition gap? A disconnect between what we think we're worth and the reality of it? I'm not sure if it's something inherent in us as women that keeps us from wanting to take too big of a piece of the pie or if it has been drilled into us by society.
I did this exact thing my senior year of high school when I was trying to decide between colleges. One was Georgetown, my dream. A dream that came with a $50,000 price tag. The other was UNC, another great school that I liked, though didn't love, but one that was throwing money at me to go there. My greatest worry? That I would end up a stay-at-home mom and that all the time, effort, and money that I would have invested into getting a Georgetown education would be for nothing. I was the Ambition Gap Girl! (AGG--this will be a new thing. And it's not a compliment!)
Thank goodness for my stubbornness and for my amazing mother. She, as a stay-at-home mom herself, really talked some sense into me. As much as she had sticker shock from the Georgetown bill, she firmly lectured me on the fact that yes, one day, I will make such decisions. And yes, those decisions will be extremely difficult. But when I make that decision, I will have all the facts and experience I need to make it, and I will feel good about it no matter what. That decision, though, was not one to be made on April 30th, 2007. That day, all I had to do was pick a college. I picked Georgetown, and haven't looked back. The rest is history.
Just for good measure, my favorite part of her speech:
The first is a post on Fortune magazine editor-at-large Patti Sellers' blog, Postcards, entitled "Are women lousy negotiators?" The post stipulates that women are bad at negotiating salaries for themselves and tooting their own horn.
The second is the transcribed text of the graduation speech that Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg gave at Barnard College two weeks ago. It's a fantastic speech, and I really encourage you to watch it. I want it to be playing in my bathroom every morning to get me pumped to tackle the day as I get ready.
In the speech, she talks about how the women of her generation have failed to close the achievement gap and puts the onus on this year's graduates to do so. She underlines, however, that women must close the ambition gap before we can close achievement gap.
She makes a point about how successful women who take ownership of their awesomeness have to bear both the external and the personal costs of that success, meaning that, one day, we will have choices to make between thriving in our careers, raising families, or pursuing other nontraditional goals. The thing that struck me the most about the speech is the part about women "finding balance for responsibilities they don't even have" yet.
The Postcards piece and the speech make perfect sense to me together. The fact that we 'lean back' and pre-decide for the day that we have to 'make that decision' is probably part of the reason why we as women don't negotiate for higher salaries and accept fair opening offers. Maybe the thinking is that since we might go part-time or leave the company altogether for household duties, we shouldn't unnecessarily take more money. Sheryl really hits the nail on the head there: why do we think that our work is worth less because of that? Is it the ambition gap? A disconnect between what we think we're worth and the reality of it? I'm not sure if it's something inherent in us as women that keeps us from wanting to take too big of a piece of the pie or if it has been drilled into us by society.
I did this exact thing my senior year of high school when I was trying to decide between colleges. One was Georgetown, my dream. A dream that came with a $50,000 price tag. The other was UNC, another great school that I liked, though didn't love, but one that was throwing money at me to go there. My greatest worry? That I would end up a stay-at-home mom and that all the time, effort, and money that I would have invested into getting a Georgetown education would be for nothing. I was the Ambition Gap Girl! (AGG--this will be a new thing. And it's not a compliment!)
Thank goodness for my stubbornness and for my amazing mother. She, as a stay-at-home mom herself, really talked some sense into me. As much as she had sticker shock from the Georgetown bill, she firmly lectured me on the fact that yes, one day, I will make such decisions. And yes, those decisions will be extremely difficult. But when I make that decision, I will have all the facts and experience I need to make it, and I will feel good about it no matter what. That decision, though, was not one to be made on April 30th, 2007. That day, all I had to do was pick a college. I picked Georgetown, and haven't looked back. The rest is history.
Just for good measure, my favorite part of her speech:
"Do not lean back; lean in.
Put your foot on that gas pedal and keep it there until the day you have to make a decision,
and then make a decision.
That’s the only way, when that day comes, you’ll even have a decision to make."
Thoughts?
No comments:
Post a Comment