Women often could and should ask more for what they are due (Women, yes we can earn more – if we start to learn our true value, 1 August). But why should all the focus be on changing women’s behaviour? It’s the job of managers to recognise and reward competence accurately. The self-help books Viv Groskop refers to seem to concentrate on ways in which women can get closer to the male norm. But is constant American-style self-promotion and credit-claiming really the way forward? In most areas women are now generally better qualified than men; surely the challenge is to have systems and people that recognise this appropriately.
Tom Schuller
Author, The Paula Principle: How and Why Women Work Below Their Level of Competence
• Back in the 1980s, in my 20s, I worked as a fee earner in a solicitor’s private practice in the south-east. I was good at my job, but I learned I was being paid quite a bit less than some of my male counterparts. I approached my manager requesting a pay rise, and decided the male approach might work, giving the reason “because I’m worth it”, and made no mention of any domestic arrangements or what I thought might sound like whingeing. It worked, and I got a rise. That was easy, I thought, so I tried it again the following year and that worked, too. And when I thought I wanted to move to another town and went to hand in my notice they bought me a car to persuade me to stay.
I got to realise just how valuable I was to them, which gave my self-confidence a huge boost. So, women – just go for it and ask. Just pluck up the initial confidence to present yourself eye-to-eye as a worthy hard worker – one needs to do that in so many ways in the modern world. I’m at the other end of my working life now, as a receptionist in the NHS. Don’t even get me started.
Lindsay Sheffield
Whitstable, Kent
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