Women Don't Ask (Reading 4.1)

     Even though I found this reading quite interesting and informative, I also felt insulted as a woman for the reason why women are generally paid lower salaries than men.  I do find it surprising that most women just do not ask for things or negotiated terms.  This is something I've never thought about or even considered in my everyday life.  Now that I've read about these studies and statistics, I am going to not just assume things in the future and try to apply my newly learned negotiation skills.  I am startled to know that on average men make 7.6% more money than women.  However it makes me very angry that they use the excuse for not paying women more because women simply didn't ask for it.  Although I do believe these findings, I feel there is no excuse for any employer to pay a man more than a women of equal quality of work just because he asked for it!  Most employers do evaluations annually and would be able to see who is getting paid more and why.  It seems only ethical to me for an employer to justify these findings at this time.  To just say, I'll give the men and women both a 3% raise still is not fair.  To turn it around to say that women get paid less is because they didn't ask for it is a slap in the face.  This is no different than you seeing someone unknowingly drop money on the ground.  An ethical person that witnessed it would pick up the money and give it to the person that dropped it.  To say, I kept the money because that person didn't ask for it is not moral and it's very selfish.  This reading and these findings are in some way blaming women like they did something wrong.  I also find it shocking that mostly women conducted these studies and experiments and just accepted the results that "oh women don't ask" and never even go on to write about how this is wrong on the employer's part. Again, this is women accept what has happened or what they're told... just like accepting a job no matter what the pay is.  Just because men use negotiation more does not make them smarter or more qualified.  In fact, not negotiating could possibly mean women are better at working with what they have and making it work.  I don't see how not asking for things is necessarily a problem...???  When I worked for the telephone company for 21 years, my pay was never up for negotiation.  They were quite strict about what we were paid, so I only assumed I could never negotiate it.  It never occurred to me to even ask.  I just accepted my 1.5% annual raise with a smile.  Now that I've read this article, it makes me wonder if my male peers were getting paid more than me.  It now makes me angry to think back knowing after 250 evaluations (because we were evaluated monthly and I worked there for 21 years (12 X 21 = 252)), I never once asked for an increase in pay.  This reading has opened my eyes to such things.  As a woman, maybe I need to be more assertive when it comes to my own professional rewards.  I will keep this in mind with my upcoming graduation and career search.