Woman execs paid less: close eyes, reach in hat, pick reason

Posted Oct 10th 2006 6:13PM by Sarah Gilbert
Filed under: Bad News, Press Releases, Management, Television, Magazines, eBay (EBAY), PepsiCo (PEP)

I want, oh so deeply, to be shocked. But I'm not. Here's the thing: women are powerful! Women are amazing! Women are reaching the upper echelons of corporate America! Hurray! And while I'm sure everyone at NOW threw a soda party when Indra Nooyi took over as CEO of PepsiCo, Inc. (NYSE:PEP), I'm sure they also tried to get mad about today's "news": male executives make way more than female executives. And then I imagine they remembered: this is nothing new. This is nothing surprising.

Women have been making less than men since the dawn of time. And although Oprah and Indra and Meg are so darned powerful, they can hardly sway the enormity of gender history in a few decades of exerting their collective feminine force.

Let's try one reason female CEOs, CFOs and the like make pocket change compared to their male brethren (and no, there seems to be no relation between executive pay and corporate profit, sales, stock performance, or how many pageviews your bio on the corporate homepage got this year): there just aren't as many of them. Naturally that doesn't explain why (for instance) the top-paid female executive, Safra Catz -- president and CFO Oracle Corporation (NASDAQ:ORCL) -- made a sad 36% of what the top-paid male executive made (that's Eugene Isenberg, CEO of Nabors Industries Ltd. (NYSE:NBR), for the record). Catz wasn't even the highest-paid executive at her own company, pulling in about half of what founder and CEO Larry Ellison scored.

Well. That is Larry Ellison after all. His ego has to be worth at least as much as three women executives put together.

And, in fact, Larry is worth three women CEOs; 3.22x eBay, Inc. (NASDAQ:EBAY) CEO Meg Whitman's pay, that is.

Because it's fun (or maddening, depending on whether or not you're me, or one of those aforementioned NOW members) to wonder why, and make lists, here is a list of reasons why women make so much less than men:

Women don't negotiate as well as men do. Don't hate me for saying it, it's true. Since executive pay isn't established by the Federal Reserve Board, but instead by handshakes over shrimp cocktail and dirty martinis at Sparks, negotiating is the biggest reason why CEO X makes more than CFO Y.
Women don't value themselves as highly as men do. You have to have unmitigated gall to believe anything you can do is really worth $50 million a year. Very few women have such cajones.
Women aren't in the workforce as long as men are, on average. A few years off for maternity leave, and presto, earning power cut in half? Maybe it seems a bit harsh, but someone has to bear the overpaid CEOs of tomorrow!
On average, women executives manage smaller companies. Naturally, given the weak connection between corporate revenue and pay, this doesn't really explain anything. But it's a nice place to turn if you're on the compensation committee of Oracle's board and are feeling a bit guilty.
Women aren't as corrupt as men. Big paychecks such as those at Enron and Worldcom are typically hauled in by men. Just kidding! Turns out men and women are equally able to lie, cheat and steal.

What's your favorite reason why women make so much less than men?

Tags: ceo, ceo parity, ceo pay, CeoParity, CeoPay, ceos, parity, parity in pay, ParityInPay, pay, woman ceo, WomanCeo, women, women ceo, women ceos, women vs. men, WomenCeo, WomenCeos, WomenVs.Men

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

10-10-2006 @ 4:31PM

LRR said...

Because they whine all the time!!!

10-10-2006 @ 5:04PM

business said...

FIRST OF ALL, I think there's a false implication that MEN are the primary reason for, the generally accepted view, that women get paid less in the workplace. Maybe it's true, maybe it's not.

I think a big problems is bias from women, themselves, against other women. I see that as a factor far more than anything else in business. They play a huge factor in holding themselves down.

Are polls like 50% of women at Harvard (I forget the exact stats) plan to work regular hours and focus more on family rather invest the time to deal with the demands of being a high paid exec taken into consideration when doing the salary comparsons?

From the viewpoint of an investor or a business man looking for maximum profits and to destroy the competition into oblivion with no mercy, why would you care what gendor the person is as long as they're the best person for the job?

10-10-2006 @ 6:39PM

dd said...

Sarah,

I have to agree with BUSINESS. It's not a man or woman thing that gets the green. It's about long-range leadership, vision, initiatives, performance, goals, acumen, etc., of the person in charge, male or female.

Gender falls into that category of ethnic group-type card decks.