Reddit Bans Salary Negotiations Because Study Claims Women Are Easily Lied To

CEO of Reddit Ellen Pao has banned salary negotiations at her company because she read a study which claims that women are more frequently lied to during such talks. “Women are far more likely to be lied to in negotiations,” said one of the study’s authors. “It’s not inconceivable that, in asking for a concession, [women] aren’t going to be given a fair response. This is one step in the right direction.”

Pao, who recently failed to win a high-profile gender discrimination lawsuit, made the change after she confirmed her biases by reading another study which claims that women tend to be more intimidated by the negotiation process.

The two studies claim that women are “low power” and are easily intimidated, which would lead one to believe that the researchers themselves might have a low opinion of the gender, if they didn’t also argue that women are just more darned polite than men.

From the study:

Drawing on literature on language, power, and politeness, the authors argued that framing situations as opportunities for negotiation is particularly intimidating to women, as this language is inconsistent with norms for politeness among low-power individuals, such as women. By contrast, framing situations as opportunities for asking is much less intimidating to women, as this language is more polite and role-consistent. Consequently, gender differences in initiating negotiations persisted when situations were framed as opportunities for negotiation yet were eliminated when situations were framed as opportunities to ask

When asked about the new policy, the company said that “Reddit provides fair market salaries to provide all candidates with a more level playing field,” said a Reddit spokeswoman. “They do negotiate to convert cash to equity if they want more equity and lower salary.”

Of course, all companies are going to tell their employees that they are paying a fair salary. Now that the negotiation process has been eliminated, employees will be forced to wonder what their colleagues are earning with no chance to try to equalize their compensation in relation to their less or more productive counterparts.

Gil Silberman, a lawyer writing at Quora.com said, “Taken too far, this denies the company the ability to hire exceptional talent and the ability of exceptional talent to negotiate a suitable position. It basically becomes a union shop.”

Of course, no one studied the effect this would have on men’s careers at the company, and whether their ambitions would be hindered by the fact that they might excel at something which is a real-world skill; namely that of negotiation. But there really seems to be no limit to what we will do to curb the ambitions of those whose skills might merit them a higher salary, especially when those meritocratic careerists are men.

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