Career Change
The best and easiest way to ensure that you will earn more is to move into a male career path and stay there. Try to stop thinking of is as changing levels or having higher ambitions. It is a change to a different job, but not necessarily a harder or more stressful job. Move out of the slow lane and into the passing lane. Even if you are never promoted again, you will almost certainly make much more money in your lifetime than if you stay in a female career path.
Maybe you were hoping I could teach you how to keep your current job and get paid what you think you are worth. If I had that formula, I would certainly share it with you. Aside from some tips on asking for a raise, however, there is little I can offer you. Female career paths are low-paying. You may want to learn how to convince your management that your position is just as crucial to the success of the company as others that pay more. You can try for the rest of your working life, but you will probably fail.
It may appear that male career paths pay better because they are occupied by men. That may be true, but management has its own set of reasons why they believe male career paths pay more money. Whether these reasons are valid does not matter. Whether the rules make sense does not matter. If you want to make more money, the most assured way is to do the jobs that pay more. You are much more prepared to do this than you think.
I'm sorry to rip you away from a career you may love, but I know there are other jobs out there that you can love equally well. There are jobs that can be just as challenging and rewarding, utilize your unique skills, and pay you twice, three times, or ten times what you currently earn. After reading this book you can decide yourself whether you want to make a change. Let's return to the premise that two classifications exist in the business world:
- Women are divided (by themselves and others) into two groups: career women or regular women.
- Male and female job tracks exist, and the male job tracks pay considerably better.
These are both oversimplified, but the premise can help us define why we are where we are and where we want to go. You can make both of these silly classifications work in your favor.
From this point forward, forget about classifying yourself as a regular woman or a career woman. Do not burden yourself with decisions about which classification you fit. Men have no such classification method. The jobs they perform are infinitely varied, and so are the ways they perceive their own commitment to their jobs and to work itself. The kind of work men want to do usually changes several times during a lifetime, as do the level of ambition they bring to the workforce and the sacrifices they are willing to make for work. To divide the entire male workforce into two categories would seem completely absurd, not to mention ineffective. It is equally absurd and ineffective to do so with women.
Even after you discard this classification for yourself, remember that others have not done so. You must appear and behave like a career woman to earn more for your efforts. So what? Maintain the image you need, and you can be free to be who you are. Use the unenlightened mindset of others to help you get the job you need to pay your bills.
If you are like most women, you see yourself as a regular woman, or at least on that side of the continuum. Examining the reasons why may help you overcome any need to classify yourself. I believe there are three reasons why women do not categorize themselves as career women.
- They believe they lack sufficient ambition.
- They see the sacrifices as too great.
- They view themselves as unqualified.
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