It’s been going on for years. The disparity between pay for women and men continues. According to a report from the American Association of University Women,  one year after receiving their diplomas, women earned 82 cents for every dollar men earned.

In an article found in Wikipedia, “In 2010 the median income of a full-time year round workers (FTYR) was $42,800 for men, compared to $34,700 for women. The female-to-male earnings ratio was 0.81, slightly higher than the 2008 ratio. The female-to-male earnings ratio of 0.81 means that, in 2009, female FTYR workers earned 19% less than male FTYR workers. The statistic does not take into account differences in experience, skill, occupation, education or hours worked, as long as it qualifies as full-time work. However, in 2010, an economist testified to theU.S. Congress Joint Economic Committee that studies “always find that some portion of the wage gap is unexplained.”

When I was a speaker for the health and fitness industry, I conducted lectures for women in business. The most common topic women wanted to discuss was pay. Typically, 99% of the women in m y workshops greatly undervalued their time, talent and knowledge.

Many of the comments women shared included, “I feel bad asking for money. I’m afraid if I charge too much they won’t hire me. I haven’t raised my prices in three years, I’m afraid if I do people will leave me.” And to me, the saddest comment of all,   “Well male trainers charge more but that’s because people pay it.”

I will add on to the above by saying that I know many, many women that do things for free. Predominantly women are the ones who feel that if they give something free, it may pay off in the end. As long as people get stuff for free, your worth will never be realized by you or a potential customer.

Here are my thoughts based on the comments above.

1. I feel bad asking for money. My question is, why?  If you’ve worked hard to get where you are, you deliver 100%,  why in the world would you feel bad asking for something you deserve? NEVER feel bad asking for money you’ve rightly earned. I used to tell my staff, “I’m not selling anything, I am simply providing an opportunity. You can either take advantage of it or pass.”

2. I’m afraid if I charge too much I won’t get any new clients. If you’re afraid of charging too much perhaps you need to work on understanding and respecting the service that you provide. If you’re a crappy trainer, salesperson, whatever, you won’t make any money and you’re right, you don’t deserve top dollar. But if you practice excellent customer service with a focus on delivering a quality product, you won’t be charging too much.  You can certainly check around with the competition, but often that leads to people undervaluing themselves because they’d rather be in line with competitors.

3. I can’t raise my prices. I can guarantee that your customer or clients have had an increase in pay. Further, you can bet everything from groceries to clothing to gasoline have increased in price. Why should you be any different? Your cost of living has gone up to!  I’d rather hang on to those clients that value what I deliver. If you lose clients, they didn’t value what you were delivering.

4. Male trainers charge more because people pay it. My friends, it’s not because he’s male, it’s because he’s asked for what he believes he’s worth. You are no different.

As long as women fail to recognize their value is no different than their male colleagues, they will continue to be undervalued. To me, there is no greater gift you can give yourself than understanding the value of your contributions to work and life.

Here’s a great article to check out when you’ve got the time.

Bottom line, we women aren’t going anywhere. So there’s no better time than now to stand up and expect and request to be paid what you’re worth. The longer you sit idle on the sidelines, or assume you can’t get what you’re worth,  the more money will be given to those who recognize their value and ask to be compensated accordingly.

What do you think?

 

Here’s to never wishing for more time, rather making the most of it!

Nicki