Olivia: I want you to think about your very first starting salary. Now, imagine that one 15-minute conversation you didn't have back then could cost you over a million dollars by the time you retire. A single conversation. Jackson: Whoa, hold on. A million dollars? That can't be right. That sounds like a wild exaggeration. One chat? Olivia: It's not an exaggeration; it's the reality for millions of women. And it’s the shocking, central premise of the book we’re diving into today: Women Don’t Ask by Linda Babcock and Sara Laschever. Jackson: Okay, you have my full attention. How does a single conversation snowball into a million-dollar loss? Olivia: It’s fascinating because the book itself was born from a moment just like that. Linda Babcock, one of the authors, is an economics professor at Carnegie Mellon. She was talking to a male colleague one day and discovered he was being paid significantly more, even though they had similar qualifications. The difference? He had negotiated his starting salary. She hadn't. That personal shock launched this entire field of research. Jackson: Wow. So she lived the problem before she started studying it. That makes it personal. Olivia: Exactly. It’s not just an academic exercise; it’s a quest to understand a hidden force that shapes women’s entire economic lives.

Jackson: Let’s get back to that million-dollar figure, because my brain is still stuck on it. How does that math even work? Olivia: It’s a phenomenon the book calls the "accumulation of disadvantage." It’s like a tiny snowball rolling down a very, very long hill. The authors tell this incredible story from a study they did with graduating MBA students from Carnegie Mellon. Jackson: Right, these are top-tier students, all highly qualified. You'd expect them to be savvy negotiators. Olivia: You would. But here’s what they found. The starting salaries for men were, on average, about 7.6% higher than for women. So they dug in to find out why. Was it bias? Different specializations? Nope. The key difference was negotiation. 57% of the male graduates had negotiated their initial salary offer. Jackson: Okay, 57%... that seems reasonable. What about the women? Olivia: Seven percent. Jackson: Wait, seven? As in, S-E-V-E-N? Olivia: Seven percent. And here’s the kicker. The students who did negotiate—mostly men—increased their starting salaries by an average of 7.4%. That was almost the entire pay gap. It could have been virtually eliminated if the women had just negotiated their offers. Jackson: That is staggering. So it's not about performance, it's not about qualifications... it's literally just the act of asking at the starting line. Olivia: Precisely. And that small, initial gap gets baked in. Let’s say a man negotiates his $100,000 offer up to $107,000, and a woman accepts the $100,000. From that day forward, every single raise, every bonus, every percentage increase is calculated off a lower base number. Over a 35-year career, that small gap widens into a chasm. The book calculates it can easily add up to over a million dollars in lost earnings. Jackson: It’s like starting a race ten yards behind the starting line and never being allowed to catch up. And it’s not just about salary, is it? The book mentions this goes way deeper. Olivia: Oh, much deeper. They did another brilliant experiment using the word game Boggle. They told students they'd be paid between three and ten dollars for playing. After the game, the researcher handed each student three dollars and said, "Here's three dollars. Is three dollars okay?" Jackson: A classic non-offer offer. It puts all the pressure on you to challenge it. Olivia: Exactly. And the results were wild. The men were nine times more likely than the women to ask for more money. Both groups were equally unhappy with the three dollars, but the men were the ones who acted on that unhappiness. The women just accepted it. Jackson: Nine times! That’s not a small difference; that’s a completely different behavioral universe. It’s like one group sees the world as fixed, and the other sees it as negotiable. Olivia: And that’s the core of the asking gap. It’s not just about big-ticket items like salaries. It’s about asking for a better project, for more resources, for help at home, for a deadline extension. Men do it constantly, and women, as a group, just don't. Jackson: Which leads to the obvious, and probably most important, question: Why? Why are women holding back? Is it just a lack of confidence? Olivia: That’s what most people assume. But the book argues it’s something far more complicated and, frankly, more infuriating. It’s less about a lack of confidence and more about a very real fear of the consequences.

Jackson: Consequences? What kind of consequences? You ask for a raise, the worst they can say is no, right? Olivia: You would think so. But the book introduces this concept of a "social penalty box" that women get put into when they violate unspoken gender norms. When a man is assertive, he's seen as a leader, a go-getter. When a woman is assertive, she's often labeled as aggressive, difficult, or... well, the b-word. Jackson: Ah, the classic double standard. Olivia: It’s a double standard with a massive price tag. There's this unbelievable story in the book about a program created by a leadership consulting firm in California. It was nicknamed the "Bully Broads" program. Jackson: You're kidding me. 'Bully Broads'? That sounds like something out of a 1950s sitcom. Olivia: I wish I were. This was in the late 90s and early 2000s. Companies were paying around $18,000 per person to send their most ambitious, high-performing female executives to this program. And the goal? To "reform" them. To teach them how to be... nicer. Jackson: Let me get this straight. These women were so good at their jobs, so effective and assertive, that their own companies paid a fortune to teach them how to be less effective? Olivia: Essentially, yes. They were taught to soften their language, to hesitate when presenting ideas, to use self-deprecating humor, even to cry in meetings to appear more vulnerable. The founder of the program admitted, "Many of the things these women do would not be as inappropriate in a man." Jackson: That is just... profoundly messed up. It's a penalty for success. You're being punished for exhibiting the very traits that are celebrated in your male colleagues. Olivia: It’s the ultimate Catch-22. The book calls it being "damned if you do, damned if you don't." If you don't ask, you fall behind financially and professionally. But if you do ask, you risk social sanction. You might get the raise, but your boss and colleagues might now see you as "not a team player." And research shows that likeability is far more critical for a woman's influence and success than for a man's. Jackson: So men can be respected without being liked, but women have to be liked to be respected. That’s an impossible tightrope to walk. Olivia: Exactly. And this fear is deeply ingrained from childhood. The book talks about how girls are socialized to be communal, to prioritize relationships, to make things "nice for everybody." Boys are encouraged to compete, to win, to be agentic. So when a woman enters a negotiation, she's not just asking for money; she's often pushing against a lifetime of conditioning that tells her "nice girls don't ask." Jackson: I'm thinking of the story of Ada, the high-powered lawyer in the book. She could fiercely advocate for her clients, her employees, her children... but she admitted she found it incredibly hard to ask for anything for herself. Olivia: That’s a perfect example. It’s not about a lack of skill; it’s about the role. When she’s advocating for others, she’s fulfilling a communal, caretaking role that society accepts. When she advocates for herself, she’s violating that role, and that feels dangerous. Jackson: Okay, so if women are penalized for asking, but they lose out if they don't... what are they supposed to do? This feels like a game that's rigged from the start. Olivia: It does. But here’s where the book delivers a fantastic plot twist. It argues that the solution isn't for women to simply act more like men. The solution is to change the game entirely, by leveraging a hidden female advantage.

Jackson: A hidden advantage? After everything we've just discussed, that sounds like a big twist. What is it? Olivia: The book argues that our whole perception of negotiation is wrong. We tend to think of it as a battle, a zero-sum game where one person's gain is another's loss. This is what economists call a "distributive" or "fixed-pie" mindset. And that aggressive, competitive style is where men often feel more comfortable. Jackson: Right, the "I win, you lose" approach. Olivia: But the most effective negotiation isn't like that at all. It's "integrative," which is about finding creative solutions to "grow the pie" so that both parties walk away better off. And this is where women's natural tendencies become a superpower. Jackson: How so? Olivia: The authors tell another amazing story from an MBA negotiation experiment. They put students in same-sex pairs and had them conduct a complex, multi-issue negotiation. The all-male pairs tended to treat it like a competition. They were more confrontational, used more distributive tactics, and focused on their own positions. Jackson: And the all-female pairs? Olivia: They consistently, and significantly, outperformed the all-male pairs. They reached agreements that were objectively better for both sides. They did it by sharing more information, asking more questions about the other person's needs and priorities, and focusing on building a relationship. They were collaborating, not competing. Jackson: Ah, so it's like that classic negotiation parable of the two sisters fighting over the last orange. Olivia: Tell me. Jackson: They fight and fight and finally agree to cut it in half. One sister squeezes her half for the juice and throws away the peel. The other sister grates her half for the peel to bake a cake and throws away the fruit. If they had just talked, they could have realized one needed the juice and the other needed the peel, and both could have had 100% of what they wanted. Olivia: That is the perfect analogy! That’s integrative bargaining. And the book shows that women are naturally more inclined to have that conversation—to ask "Why do you want the orange?" instead of just demanding their half. Their focus on relationships, empathy, and communication isn't a weakness in negotiation; it's their greatest strength. Jackson: So the "female advantage" is that women are better at growing the pie instead of just fighting over the slices. Olivia: Exactly. It reframes negotiation entirely. It’s not a conflict to be won; it’s a collaborative problem to be solved. And when you see it that way, the anxiety and fear of damaging the relationship start to fade, because the goal is to make the relationship stronger by finding a mutual win. Jackson: That’s a powerful shift in perspective. It’s not about women needing to become more like men; it’s about everyone recognizing that the so-called "female" way of collaborating is often a more advanced and effective way to negotiate.

Olivia: It really is. The journey of the book is so compelling. It starts with this shocking, hidden financial penalty that women face for not asking. Jackson: Then it takes you into this frustrating social penalty box, where you see the unfair punishment women get for trying to fix the problem by being assertive. Olivia: But the conclusion isn't one of despair. It’s this empowering revelation that the very skills women have been socialized to value—collaboration, empathy, understanding others—are the keys to a better, more sophisticated form of negotiation for everyone. Jackson: The ultimate message feels like it’s twofold. For women, it's about recognizing that their collaborative style isn't a liability; it's a strategic asset. They need to own that and bring it confidently to the table. Olivia: Absolutely. And for organizations and society at large, the message is that we need to stop rewarding only the loudest, most competitive voices. We need to build systems—in hiring, in promotions, in daily life—that value collaboration and proactively ensure fairness, so you don't have to be a "hard-edged negotiator" just to get what you deserve. Jackson: It’s about changing the game, not just teaching women to play a rigged one better. Olivia: That’s the core of it. And it starts with awareness. So, for our listeners, we have a question. Think about a time you held back from asking for something you knew you deserved—a raise, a better project, more help, anything. What was the situation, and what held you back? Jackson: We'd love to hear your stories. Share them with the Aibrary community on our social channels. Your experience is part of this bigger story. Olivia: This is Aibrary, signing off.