How the hell does this still happen?

Date

November 30, 2013

Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg. Photo: Bloomberg

Five grand a year. That’s how much more a male university graduate will earn as a starting annual salary than a woman with the same qualifications, according to a new COAG report. Not bad for simply being born with external gonads.

The report shows women on average are paid 17.5 per cent, or $266 a week, less than men, and wind up with an average $85,000 less in superannuation at retirement as a result. Yet, girls generally outperform boys at school, and are more likely to complete year 12 and hold a bachelor’s degree by age 30.

When I read these stats, I almost laughed at the sheer lunacy of such bias. Until I remembered that it is just not funny. At all. It wasn’t when I first wrote a column citing similar stats as a young reporter. Sure isn’t 20-odd years on, as I sit down to ask the same question I did then – why the hell are we putting up with this sexist bull?

Why isn’t the COAG report a call to arms? Why, when what is going on is actually illegal in this country, are we not hearing this discrimination railed against in Parliament, loudly and often? Where are enforced quotas?

And there’s another question I fear I already know the answer to: has my generation failed those following? Couldn’t we have done more? How have we let this go on for so long in this once progressive country? When did it become OK to bend over en masse, or at least en gender, and cop this indignity? How did we all become so damn complacent?

My frustration led me to pick up my dog-eared copy of Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg’s brilliant book Lean In: Women, work and the will to lead, in which she vents similar annoyance. ”I have watched these disheartening events from a front-row seat,” she wrote of pay and leadership inequity in business. ”The proverbial glass ceiling has been cracked in almost every industry, and I believed that it was just a matter of time until my generation took our fair share of leadership roles. But with each passing year, fewer and fewer of my colleagues were women. More and more often, I was the only woman in the room.

”It has been more than two decades since I entered the workforce, and so much is still the same,” she continued. ”It is time for us to face the fact that our revolution has stalled. The promise of equality is not the same as true equality.”

So, where are we women going wrong? Why are we not stamping our feet, calling out our bosses and picketing Parliament? Sandberg says the answer lies deep within the female psyche.

”In addition to external barriers erected by society, women are hindered by barriers that exist within ourselves. We hold ourselves back in ways both big and small, by lacking self-confidence, by not raising our hands, and by pulling back when they should be leaning in.

”We internalise the negative messages we get throughout our lives – the messages that say it’s wrong to be outspoken, aggressive, more powerful than men. We lower our expectations of what we can achieve. We continue to do the majority of the housework and childcare. We compromise our career goals to make room for partners and children who may not even exist yet.”

I know in my career one of my greatest failings is asking for more – money, responsibility and opportunity. My core problem is falling victim of what another great female voice of our time, Tina Fey, describes as impostor syndrome. ”The beauty of impostor syndrome is you vacillate between extreme egomania and a complete feeling of: ‘I’m a fraud! Oh god, they’re on to me! I’m a fraud!’ So you just try to hide the egomania when it comes and then slide through the idea of fraud. Seriously, I’ve just realised that everyone is a fraud, so I try not to feel too bad about it.”

Looking back on my own career, I cringe at the realisation I have always apologised for asking for more, couching my arguments with softening stances such as ”I am so grateful for the opportunity you have given me”, or ”I love my job and wouldn’t think of leaving, but …”

Yet men have no qualms saying they not only want more money, more opportunities, more recognition – they deserve it. As Sandberg writes, ”Multiple studies in multiple industries show that women often judge their own performance as worse than it actually is, while men judge their performance as better than it actually is”.

When my teenage goddaughter asked me what I was writing about this week, I quoted the COAG stats to her. Her stunned reaction was to ask, ”How can that be true? It’s not fair. Surely it’s not legal?”

I told her it’s not, and it will be up to her generation to change things. My only saving grace was that she was so angry and incredulous, she didn’t turn around and question why my generation has allowed this burden to remain.

Saturday Age columnist Wendy Squires is a journalist, editor and author.