What a decade of "lean in" got wrong, and what actually moves women up
Fifty-four percent of women haggled over their latest job offer. Among men, the share was forty-four percent. Even so, women walked away with the smaller paycheck. That finding comes from Kray, Kennedy and Lee at Berkeley Haas, published in 2023 and covered by Fortune, and it ought to end a decade of advice in a single sentence.
For years, the "lean in" movement offered a tidy story to explain the gap. According to that story, women earn less and advance more slowly simply because they fail to ask. Teach women to ask through confidence workshops, negotiation seminars and constant encouragement to value themselves, and the gap will close. That story suited employers well, since each fix it offered was something the woman had to carry out herself. Research from Berkeley flips that reasoning upside down. Women ask more frequently than men do, yet even after asking they end up with lower offers.
Where the number originates
Working out of the Haas School of Business at Berkeley, Laura Kray, Jessica Kennedy and Margaret Lee examined how job seekers haggled over recent offers. Researchers were taken aback to find that women were the group negotiating more frequently. The core lesson is that women received lower pay no matter how hard they bargained. A single study has limits. It doesn't prove women negotiate more skillfully or less, and it can't isolate every factor behind the different outcomes. Even so, the findings dismantle the most comfortable explanation on offer. A gap can't be pinned on a behavior that women are performing more frequently.
Several other studies have reached conclusions that line up with this one. Studies of the likability penalty have repeatedly shown that the same request is heard as assertive when a man makes it and as pushy when a woman does. Combine the two and the story changes from "women don't ask" to "women ask, and the room penalizes them for it."
How this shows up in everyday life
Picture yourself at the offer stage for a position in Hartford that you badly want. You've reviewed three postings that list pay ranges, you know where the midpoint sits, and you request it calmly, backed by your reasons. The recruiter says she'll "see what she can do" and returns with an offer about two thousand dollars higher, described as a real stretch. A second applicant, interviewing for that very same opening, requests the highest figure in the band and secures something near it, which is labeled "competitive." You bargained as well. He negotiated. The results still differ, and nothing you said on that call would have changed them, because the decision about what your request was worth was settled before you spoke.
What this means for your daily life
Should someone have ever suggested you lacked confidence, consider what that suggestion really achieved. It placed the problem inside you, where correcting it requires nothing from the employer. Tulshyan and Burey made a similar argument about imposter syndrome in Harvard Business Review in 2021: the label puts a structural problem onto the individual. The confidence gap repeats that same pattern, just wearing a different label. You don't need repair. The workplace needs to be looked at more closely.
What to do next
Question the pay band, not your own value. "What is the posted range for this level, and where does this offer fall within it?" Pay ranges are now mandated in a growing number of states, so the question has a concrete answer. Then ask the one question that can't easily be read as a judgment of your personality: "What would it take to reach the midpoint?" You are working from the numbers, and numbers are hard to paint as demanding.
Across Greater Hartford, from the offices of Hartford's insurance and financial firms to the healthcare and manufacturing employers of the wider metro, these conversations happen every day. Women preparing for them can take them to a local women's business center, such as the Women's Business Development Council in Hartford, or to a regional group like WAVES in Glastonbury, to practice with peers who have seen the same patterns.
Think back: when did you last ask for more in a Glastonbury or Bloomfield negotiation, and what did it cost you?