SURPRISE: you will work for nothing the rest of the year

We need to talk about money. I'm normally not one for musts, but this is simply too important not to have to. When was the last time you asked for a raise? Do you know how much your male colleagues earn? And by the way, did you know that you work for free for the rest of the year? Let that sink in for a moment, yes.

Today is November 14, 2022, Equal Pay Day. This is the last day of the year that you, as a woman, are paid for your work when you compare your income to that of men. I repeat: it is 2022. And men are still paid more than women simply because they are men. This research also concerns white women, as the wage gap between men and women of color is even larger. If we keep stumbling along as we are now, it will take until around 2050 before we are on equal footing with men. That can't be right?

Here are some figures from Sophie van Gool, the author of the book Why Women Earn Less – and What We Can Do About It. Women earn 13 percent less per hour than men, which amounts to seven weeks per year. And this is starting today. By the way, this is separate from part-time (having to) work. I deliberately put ‘having to’ in parentheses here, to prevent a discussion about part-time princesses from breaking out. For many women, it is simply not possible to work full-time, or a simple calculation: the man earns more per hour and voilà, calculate your loss.

Additionally, women receive 40 percent less pension and in half of the cases are not financially independent in a relationship. Anyone wanting to live in the most gender-equal country in the world should move to Iceland. There, they are only 0.908 away from the ideal; a score of 1 means everything and everyone is equal.

I received a sort of mantra from home: make sure you can take care of yourself, make sure you can take care of yourself, make sure you can financially (!) take care of yourself. But I also knew that everything was negotiable. No space does not exist. That is probably the legacy of a family full of entrepreneurs, a blessing in my case. But how do you ensure that every woman knows this and that every woman dares to negotiate?

The most original ways to negotiate your salary? According to companies, according to women, and according to me. Here they come:

1. A smart one from Sophie van Gool: have men and women anonymously (but with gender and job level) fill in what they earn in an Excel sheet. This way, you immediately gain insight into whether you earn the same. A nice way to bring up your salary.

2. Propose to retire the prehistoric performance review, just like at Mortgage Advisor Viisi. It is no secret that this conversation mainly revolves around the good relationship with a manager. The articulate white man always walks away with the spoils here, while the shy woman just misses out on the euros. The company created a transparent reward system where no favoritism is involved.

3. Apply through Equalture, a company that makes gender, age, and background invisible and selects the best candidate for a position through games. It is known that women often have less confidence when applying for a position, and this filters that out immediately.

Now.nl also pointed out some stubborn prejudices about the wage gap on paper, this shows that it doesn't even matter if you work full-time. Even then, the expectation is that you, as a woman, prioritize family over your career. Can we now do a fast forward to 2050? Only on the payslip please.