The gender pay gap doesn’t exist

Picture this:

The leadership team of a small nonprofit organization is at its annual retreat. The makeup of the leadership team is mostly white, mostly women. These are the senior-most leaders from the organization; all of the people in the room have at least 20 years of professional experience. This group is not new to each other – all have worked at the organization for 5 or more years.

The group engages in a game at one point in which they take on different identities (age, race, gender, and ability) and their path along the game board is dictated by the privileges (or lack thereof) for that character. All of the data is cited and based on research, and the implications of the characters’ identity is felt by the players.

At the conclusion of the game, the group debriefs the experience. Nearly all of the comments are along the lines of:

• “This was a really powerful experience.”
• “I learned so many things I hadn’t realized were true.”
• “It really hit home to be impacted in the game by things that I haven’t had to experience.”

But one reflection is completely different. One white man says,

• ”This was fascinating, and I believe all of the data used in the game except for the data about the gender wage gap. I just don’t believe that it exists.”

The reaction in the room is palpable. Shock. Frustration. Disbelief. Did this colleague really just dispute the facts that were presented in this game, denying a reality that very possibly affects several other people in the room?

One brave soul speaks up and challenges the comment, sharing her personal experience from early in her career. Others sit there stunned. He relents at the end by saying “I’m open to it, but I’ll just need to be presented with a broader set of data to believe it.”

What happens next (in the days following the meeting) is that one of the senior women in the room spends hours putting together the research to “prove” to him that the gender wage gap does, in fact, still exist.

One more piece of data should be shared to punctuate this story:

The annual salary of the man who made the comment is 90% higher than the average salary for the women on the team.

Yep, true story.

There are so many lessons in this story about power dynamics and gaslighting and how leaders can manipulate people into subversion simply by challenging them to an academic debate. Who wants to stand up to the person in power to make an argument to prove scientifically something the data supports and you have experienced in your actual real life? If that argument isn’t enough, you have to wonder if it’s worth it.

So what?

Like my other salary rant a few weeks ago, I know that sharing this story isn’t going to solve anything. But I do think we can all take some lessons from it:

• Don’t be afraid to speak up – it’s OK to not have the perfect response. All too often we stay silent when someone says something we know is hurtful and demeaning, because we are worried that we don’t have the “perfect” way to say it. We end up letting the offending comment slide. There are moments when it is more important to interrupt cruelty or gaslighting than to produce the perfect debate point, or even a fully formed sentence for that matter!
• Instead of having a theoretical conversation about whether it exists “generally”, ask whether it exists in your company. Conduct a compensation audit, ensure that you do so through an intentional lens of equity considering race, age, gender, and other factors – and then make changes as needed. If you’re not in a position to lead the audit, be the employee that asks for one and champions its rollout.

And a final lesson learned, a reflection from someone who was present at the leadership team retreat above:

Faced with the same situation today, I would handle it differently. I had the facts at my disposal – the game, my lived experience, plus I had just finished reading a book that included high quality research on the gender pay gap. But I let myself be intimidated into thinking I didn’t know what I was talking about. I realized much later that it was stupid to let someone else make me feel that way, and even more stupid to stay silent in the moment.

So much learning from a frustrating experience. It’s Ok that we don’t get it right all the time. But when we know better, we can do better!