Women Don't Ask
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it seems normal to them that they should continue to do so—and make
whatever sacrifices, professional or otherwise, that this may require.
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They don’t question this requirement, even though women’s lives have
changed markedly since that norm was established.
Women’s lives have changed, but our thinking has not. Virginia Va-
lian puts it succinctly: “The usual solutions proffered to solve ‘women’s’
problem are higher-quality, more affordable, more widely available
child care; flexible work hours; and family-leave policies. All those im-
provements are needed, but they fail to question the way the problem
is framed. They do not ask why combining work and family is a female
problem rather than a human problem, and thus do not address it as a
human problem.”10 Valian also points out that until “both parties are
willing to resolve conflicts so that sometimes the male’s and sometimes
the female’s work suffers, there will be no change. Change will occur
only when each partner believes that the other should have an equal
chance for professional and domestic fulfillment and works to make
fairness a daily reality.”11 Seeing the home as an arena in which negotia-
tion plays an important role can enable both men and women to start
thinking more creatively and more fairly about ways to share their
household responsibilities. Linda Austin puts it another way: “The reso-
lution of these issues in the domestic realm is outside the reach of politi-
cal ideology. . . . Private power relations can only be negotiated by an
individual woman relating to an individual man.”12
Matters of Life and Death
The stress of working full-time and shouldering the majority of the
caretaking responsibilities at home, as we’ve shown, can represent a real
threat to women’s health. But there are even more serious health reasons
why women must learn to negotiate in the personal realm. Every mi-
nute, between five and six women worldwide are infected with the HIV/
AIDS virus.13 As of the end of 1999, 14.8 million women in the world
were living with HIV/AIDS;14 in the year 2000, 10,459 new AIDS cases
among women were reported in the United States alone.15 Condom use
is widely known to prevent the transmission of HIV, but men don’t
especially like wearing condoms and don’t often volunteer to do so. This
puts women into the almost unavoidably awkward position of needing to
ask. But asking for what they want and need, so difficult for women in many circumstances, can feel close to impossible in this intimate situation. And needless to say, not asking can have drastic life consequences.
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E P I L O G U E
Research has begun to focus on why condoms are not used more
frequently, despite the obvious risks of not using them. A 1993 study of
the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Haiti points to two principle issues: women’s
economic dependency and their concern with fostering and protecting
their relationships.16 After conducting gender-segregated focus groups
with men and women, the researchers concluded that because men
bring in most or all of the family’s income, women receive little respect
and have “little influence on household decisions.”17 In Haiti, many men
exercise a lot of sexual freedom outside the home. This makes it doubly
important for women to wield some influence over the “household deci-
sion” of whether or not their partners wear condoms during sexual
activity. But women who receive little respect because of their economic
dependency often can’t do this. Making their problem more difficult,
“the high value women attach to harmony in long-term unions leads
them to condone or overlook a man’s sexual activity outside the home
in the interest of protecting the partnership.”18 This characteristically
female commitment to protecting relationships—one of women’s best
and most enduring qualities—in this context could literally be killing
them.
The situation of women in Haiti is pretty extreme, and other Western
societies may not be quite so imbalanced in terms of sexual power-
sharing. But researchers in the United States have found that women
often don’t ask their partners to use condoms for similar reasons—
because they’re concerned that doing so will damage their relation-
ships.19 If their unwillingness to ask their partners to use condoms
doesn’t always cost American women their lives, it often leaves them
with unwanted pregnancies or venereal diseases—such as herpes sim-
plex—that may be with them for the rest of their lives. It also puts their
future sexual partners and the rest of us (who until now have avoided
an epidemic similar to Haiti’s) at risk.
This one public health crisis, as much as any other example, high-
lights the importance of women not simply learning that they can ask
for what they want and need, but that they must learn to ask—in all
parts of their lives. Because men are the ones who wear condoms,
women must clearly learn how to negotiate better in the private realms
of their lives. But as the situation in Haiti so dramatically reveals, they
need to learn how to negotiate outside the bedroom as well—because
when women improve their economic status, they increase their clout
in private as well as in professional negotiations. Once that happens
(when women achieve economic parity with men and can wield equal
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power in the bedroom and the boardroom), men may be unable to find
women who will allow them to have sex without using condoms. They
may even find themselves living in a society so profoundly changed that
protecting the health of their intimate partners earns them respect and
admiration.
We like this vision of the future, and we hope that helping women
learn to negotiate both at home and at work—and teaching society to
accept women’s need and right to negotiate—will make our world a
better, healthier, and more just place for our children to inherit and
enjoy.
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A C K N O W L E D G M E N T S
We have many people and organizations to thank for their help
with this project. The National Science Foundation, the Heinz
Family Foundation, and the Heinz School at Carnegie Mellon provided
generous support for Linda’s research. Max Bazerman and Mark Kamlet
encouraged Linda to write a book about her ideas. Nikki Sabin of the
Harvard Business School Press recommended that she write it with Sara,
kicking off what we expect will be years of fruitful work together. Lin-
da’s Ph.D. students Deborah Small and Heidi Stayn contributed hun-
dreds of hours of hard work and along with Michele Gelfand and Han-
nah Riley collaborated with Linda on much of the important research
in the book; Jon Baron hosted our survey on his website; and Jennifer
Lerner taught Linda a great deal about psychology and directed her to
relevant research. Linda’s research assistants
Jo Ann Shoup and Luisa
Blanchfield and the students in Linda’s negotiation classes helped her
refine, develop, and find confirmation for her ideas. Linda’s colleagues
at Carnegie Mellon made the writing process easier and more enjoyable
by making the Heinz School a fun and stimulating place to work.
We would also like to thank the hundreds of scholars whose im-
portant work in gender studies helped pave the way for this work. The
scholarship of the following researchers, in particular, contributed im-
measurably to the substance of this book and the development of our
ideas: Lisa Barron, Linda Carli, Ann Crittenden, Faye Crosby, Kay
Deaux, Alice Eagly, Peter Glick, Madeline Heilman, John Jost, Rosabeth
Moss Kanter, Deborah Kolb, Eleanor Maccoby, Brenda Major, Cecilia
Ridgeway, Judith Rosener, Laurie Rudman, Deborah Tannen, Virginia
Valian, and Mary Wade.
Ann Laschever, Richard and Roberta Gross, Mike and Ann Moore,
Charlie Moore, and Mande and Dave Mischler extended their hospital-
ity to Sara’s entire family while she was traveling around the country
interviewing people. They also put her in touch with a raft of good
potential interview subjects. Rachel Asher, Hilary Blair, Ellen Brodsky,
Judith Fisher, Lucia Gemmell, JoAnn Griffin, Michele LaForge, Dolores
and Barney Laschever, Julia Lieblich, Karen Lynch, Jenny Mikesell,
Lynn Osborn, Ann Riley, Marilyn Griggs Riley, Diane Schilder, Mary
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A C K N O W L E D G M E N T S
Snyder, Pamela Sutherland, and Vic Svilik also directed Sara to
people with good stories to tell and a wide range of experiences with
negotiating.
We extend special thanks to the many people who took time out of
their busy lives to let us interview them. We heard far more wonderful
and illuminating stories than we could include here, and everyone we
talked to enhanced our appreciation of the forces that constrain women
from asking. In many cases, we have changed their names and a few
details about their lives to protect their privacy, but the essence of their
stories remains intact.
Cynthia and Jan Babcock, Lisa Barron, Jonathan Caulkins, Jennifer
Lerner, Julia Lieblich, Hannah Riley, Joyce Roe, Denise Rousseau, Ger-
hard Sonnert, Kathleen McGinn, and Sara’s husband, Tim, as well as
members of Ann English’s book club in Pittsburgh read early versions
of the manuscript and shared their excellent suggestions.
Dick Thaler introduced us to Peter Dougherty, our wonderful editor,
who has been an ardent champion of this project from the beginning.
The book has benefited immeasurably from his acute suggestions, broad
knowledge, and constant enthusiasm.
Brenda Peyser was a steady source of encouragement for Linda; Anne
Blumberg and Jonathan Dorfman cheered Sara on at every step along
the way; and our husbands, Mark Wessel and Tim Riley, provided non-
stop support, enthusiasm, tolerance, and help with the kids.
This book could not have been written without the dedicated efforts
of Carly Canning, Noeleen Geaney, and the staffs of the Cyert Center
for Early Education at Carnegie Mellon and the Bigelow Cooperative
Daycare Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts, who took such good care
of our children while we were working on it. Last but not least, we want
to thank our children for their patience as we labored on long after we
promised we’d be done—and for entertaining us, making us laugh, and
distracting us, even when we wished they wouldn’t.
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N O T E S
The research we have used in this book looks at average differences between men and women, using samples of people in the United States. Although we included people from a variety of racial backgrounds in our research and interview samples, the average person in the United States is white, and we haven’t (and by and large others have not) collected large enough samples within racial groups to say anything about how gender differences may vary across racial groups. As a result, there may be important differences that we aren’t picking up. This research needs to be done (and in some cases is in the process of being done) and we hope that the issues raised in this book will inspire more of this type of work.
Preface
1. Fisher 1999; Pasternak and Viscio 1998; Helgesen 1990.
2. Rousseau 2001.
3. U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics 2000.
4. U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics 2002a.
5. U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics 2002b.
6. Fullerton and Toossi 2001.
7. U.S. Small Business Administration 2001.
8. U.S. divorce statistics, available from www.divorcemag.com/statistics/statsUS.
9. Ibid.
10. Weitzman 1985.
11. Ventura and Bachrach 2000.
12. Detailed income tabulations from the Current Population Survey, http://
www.census.gov/hhes/income/dinctabs.html; U.S. Department of Labor 2000.
13. Committee on the Status of Women in the Economics Profession 2002; Blank
1994.
14. Shemo 2002.
Introduction
1. Babcock 2002.
2. Small, Babcock, and Gelfand 2003.
3. Only 2.5 percent of the female subjects but 23 percent of the male subjects asked for more.
4. Babcock, Gelfand, Small, and Stayn 2002. The survey was hosted by Jonathan
Baron’s website at the University of Pennsylvania.
5. Another interpretation is possible, however. Men may not really be doing more negotiating than women; men and women may behave in the same ways but label
or describe their behavior differently. That is, what a man calls a negotiation, a woman calls something else. This interpretation seems less plausible because it suggests that men and women define a common word in our language differently. But even if 189
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it is true, it still has implications for behavior. If women aren’t calling their interactions negotiations and men are, women may not be viewing those encounters as strategi-cally and instrumentally as men do and may therefore gain less from them in significant ways.
6. Although we strove to make our sample as representative as possible of the full diversity of women in Western culture, we use the interviews only to illustrate the ideas in the book and did not try to ensure that our sample exactly matched current demographic patterns in the population. We also interviewed far more women than men.
7. Babcock, Gelfand, Small, and Stayn 2002.
8. Gerhart 1990.
9. Pinkley and Northcraft 2000. Example is from page 6.
10. Ibid.
11. Janoff-Bulman and Wade 1996.
12. Malhotra 2002.
13. Martell, Lane, and Emrich 1996.
14. Valian 1998. Quotation is from page 3.
15. Ibid. Idea introduced on pages 4–5.
16. Pinkley and Northcraft 2000. Quotation is from page 6.
17. Babcock, Gelfand, Small, and Stayn 2002.
18. Ibid.
19. For good texts that summarize negotiation research, see Thompson 1998; Raiffa 1982; Lewicki, Saunders, and Minton 1997; Neale and Bazerman 1991.
20. Janoff-Bulman and Wade 1996; Gerhart and Rynes 1991; Kaman and Hartel
1994.
21. Gladwell 2000. Quotation is from page 258.
22. Ibid. Quotation is from page 259.
23. Ibid. Quotation is from page 11.
24. Information on Delo
itte and Touche’s program is drawn from McCracken 2000.
25. Ibid.
26. Kanter 1990. Quotation is from page 11.
27. Ibid. Quotation is from page 13.
Chapter 1: Opportunity Doesn’t Always Knock
1. Babcock, Gelfand, Small, and Stayn 2002.
2. Rotter 1966.
3. Crandall and Crandall 1983.
4. Strickland and Haley 1980; Parkes 1985; Kunhikrishnan and Manikandan 1995;
Wade, T. J. 1996.
5. Smith, Dugan, and Trompenaars 1997.
6. Austin 2000. Quotation is from page 39.
7. These statistics are from the Catalyst website, 2001 Catalyst census of women board of directors of the Fortune 1000 (www.catalystwomen.org). Catalyst is a nonprofit research and advocacy organization.
8. Rosenthal and Rodrigues 2000.
9. Inter-parliamentary Union 2000.
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10. Austin 2000. Quotation is from page 39.
11. Fiske and Taylor 1984.
12. For research on the development of gender schemas, see Maccoby 1966; Liben and Signorella 1987; Mussen 1983.
13. Valian 1998. Quotation is from page 48.
14. Fiske and Taylor 1984.
15. Beal 1994.
16. Rubin, Provenzano, and Luria 1974.
17. Goodnow 1988.
18. Chodorow 1978.
19. Orenstein 1994. Quotation is from page xiv.
20. Barron 2003.
21. Tannen 1994.
22. Carpenter and Huston 1980.
23. Carpenter and Huston 1980; Fagot 1978; Huston and Carpenter 1985.
24. Carpenter, Huston, and Holt 1986.
25. Babcock, Gelfand, Small, and Stayn 2002.
26. Cohoon 2001.
Chapter 2: A Price Higher than Rubies
1. Sauser and York 1978.
2. Crosby 1982.
3. Graham and Welbourne 1999.
4. Major and Konar 1984.
5. Martin 1989.
6. Major and Konar 1984.
7. Jackson, Gardner, and Sullivan 1992.
8. Porter and Lawler 1968; Locke 1976.
9. Proverbs 31:10.
10. Crittenden 2001. Quotation is from page 2.
11. Ibid. Quotation is from page 5.
12. Ibid. Quotation is from page 17.
13. Ibid. Quotation is from page 17.
14. Eckert 1993. Quotation is from page 34.
15. Goodnow 1988.
16. Ibid.
17. Valian 1998. Quotation is from page 32.
18. Ibid. Quotation is from page 33.