gender bias

The Gender Wage Gap for Teachers and Nurses

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CNN recently reported that, among full-time workers, women earn about 78 cents to a man’s dollar, according to the latest numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. This gap is more pronounced for black women (64 cents) and Latinas (56 cents) compared to every dollar earned by a white man. One of the most surprising findings for me is that this gender pay gap persists, even in female-dominated professions like teaching and nursing. For example, women hold 70 percent of elementary and middle school teaching jobs, yet men still earn more for the same role. The CNN report goes on to explain that “male teachers earn a median of $1,096 a week, whereas women earn $956—about 87 cents to the man’s dollar.” The most shocking news about the gap for me, reported in the New York Times by Catherine Saint Louis, is that the pay gap for nurses did not narrow from 1988 to 2013—twenty-five years! I was surprised that any gender pay gap exists for nurses considering that between 90 percent and 93 percent of nurses are women. I thought that surely this was one profession where there would not be a gap. But this is not the case. Here are some facts from a study of 290,000 registered nurses:

  • Overall, male nurses make $5,100 more on average per year than female colleagues in similar positions.
  • Male cardiology nurses are paid on average $6,000 more per year.
  • Male chronic care nurses make roughly $3,800 more than women.
  • Male nurse anesthetists are paid $17,290 more per year on average.
The researchers reporting these pay gaps for nurses could only speculate about the reasons for these persistent gaps:
  • Men may be better negotiators.
  • Women may have a tougher time getting promoted.
  • Only about 20 percent of nurses who work in hospitals are unionized, which may be a factor.
  • A lingering bias may persist that a man is more of an expert because he is a man.
We need to be aware of the persistent gender gap in almost all professions in the United States. As explained by Terry O’Neill in Ms. Magazine, the gender and gender/race wage gap undermines women’s economic security, and lawmakers continue to dismiss this harsh reality. She noted that, according to the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, the gap is closing so slowly that “if we keep going at the current pace, it will be the year 2058 before women have wage parity.” If you agree with me that 2058 is too long to wait, then it’s time that we get together and demand that our lawmakers take this issue seriously and legislate for pay equity.]]>

Could Subtle Gender Bias Be Holding You Back? How to Recognize and Overcome It

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gender wage gap, which indicate that women make somewhere between 62 percent and 77 percent compared with the wages of male colleagues who do the same work (and the wage gap is much worse for women of color), but they don’t think the same could be happening to them. But gender bias can be subtle and hard to recognize. Are any of the scenarios below familiar to you? If so, gender bias may be working against you.

  • Recently a woman came to me for coaching because her boss told her that she needed to smile more to get promoted. She wanted me to help her learn to smile more, but she was bewildered about what this feedback really meant.
  • Another woman came for coaching because her supervisor gave her a mediocre performance review, calling her “indecisive” because she spent too much time “coddling” her team by asking for their input on decisions—yet her results were very strong.
  • Yet another woman recently came for coaching about how to get promoted. She had been with her large company for more than twenty-five years. She wanted to become a senior leader and had done everything her mentors suggested to prepare herself, yet in more than ten years she had been offered nothing more than lateral job changes while men all around her were moving up. When she asked why she was not moving up, she was told she lacked “executive presence” with no useful guidance about what she needed to do differently.
Each of these cases could be explained away as deficiencies that the individual women needed to fix. In fact, both my professional experience and a lot of recent research show that these women are probably being held back by common biases and assumptions present in many organizations. These biases are subtle and hard to see, but they can have a significant impact on women’s careers, self-confidence and pay level. Could subtle biases be holding you back? Here are some techniques that may help:
  • Smile more. Do we really have to smile more? Unfortunately, the answer is yes, for now. The subtle bias usually operating in this feedback has to do with the difficulty women have being perceived as both competent and likeable, discussed by Sheryl Sandberg as “the likeability factor.” To overcome this bias, educate yourself about gender bias in the workplace and keep conversations with your boss focused on your results. Document your results and remind your boss about them from time to time—while smiling. Networking with other women and having a “safe setting” where you can share experiences, feedback, and best practices is important too.
  • Exercise collaborative leadership. The ability to build and utilize teams is a strength women should feel proud of and leverage. The command/control leadership style that is rewarded in most organizations is not the only style that produces results but is often the only style that gets rewarded. Share some reading materials about gender style differences with your boss and challenge him or her to consider supporting diverse leadership styles. Start a book club with both female and male colleagues to discuss gender style and leadership style differences and work together to encourage the organization to recognize and reward a broader range of leadership styles.
  • Demonstrate executive presence. Promotion decisions based on “lack of executive presence” for women often reflect a gender bias in organizations—men are more comfortable “tooting their own horns” about their accomplishments and nominating themselves for assignments and promotions for which they may not even be qualified. Women hesitate to do the same or underplay their accomplishments, which can be interpreted as lacking executive presence. As women, we can learn to be more self-promoting. We can also agree to promote each other to senior leaders.
If we educate ourselves about gender bias, we will be more likely to recognize it when we experience it and to know whether feedback is useful or not. We also need the support of other women so that we can share best practices for dealing with subtle workplace bias. And we need the support of male colleagues who understand how subtle gender bias operates. With awareness, action, and support we can overcome these barriers that hold us back. Have you encountered subtle gender bias at work? Have you found ways to overcome it?]]>