Man Is ‘Completely Gobsmacked’ By Wife’s Sexist Boss Who Won’t Give Her A Raise Because Her Husband Has A Good Salary
Interview
Nothing is ever really fair, is it? While the gender pay gap has shrunk trifold since 2016 – women being only 7 cents away from earning the same as an average American man, as compared to 21 cents – the same can‘t be said about fair treatment at work.
As this man shares in his r/antiwork confession, his dear wife was shortchanged because, well, not everyone does have a well-earning husband as she does. In other words, her male counterparts needed a pay raise “more” because they’re breadwinners and this non-descript company values female workers based on how much their tech-savvy husbands make. Say you‘re sexist without saying you‘re sexist, right?
Seeing that the partially responsible husband took it to heart even more than the unfairly-treated wife, user u/DLS3141 shared the story with fellow Redditors and quickly received many different suggestions.
Getting a raise is a natural part of the career ladder and should not be determined based on anything else other than performance
Image credits: Mimi Thian (not the actual photo)
Throughout the years, there has been much research done on the gender pay gap. Some were done to see whether the gap is closing, others to prove that it’s an actual issue many women face on a daily basis – something many people still fail to believe, despite the evidence. One of which, of course, is gendered discrimination when it comes to asking for a well-earned raise.
Well, is it really that bad? According to the most recent research done by Amanda H. Goodall and her colleagues, evidence shows surprising results: both men and women are as determined and assertive when asking for advancement. However, the gap opens up as soon as you start comparing how often men and women are successful in these requests.
Unfortunately, the gender pay gap is still taking its toll on women, and sometimes injustices like this dishearten their husbands more than them
“Are women really asking for less?” Amanda Goodall, Ph.D., associate professor at Bayes Business School in London, told Bored Panda. “The reason that’s important is that if you think a lot more women work part-time than men – one theory was that this could be one of the reasons they weren’t asking.”
Although this theory sounds plausible, it turned out that all part-timers, both men and women, are equally destined to get their advancement requests fulfilled (or not). “Very often, as in the case of the Netherlands, for example, women don’t want to work full-time jobs. So it’s not necessarily that they’ve been discriminated,” Goodall explained.
Most people in the comments couldn’t believe this is still happening in the 21st century
One of the biggest obstacles researchers like Amanda face when figuring out the real and many causes of the gender pay gap is lots of different factors. How often do people ask for a raise; do they work full-time or part-time, are they educated, and so on. “What’s interesting [to me] is that there are lots of psychological studies done that show all this data about women being more risk-averse,” Goodall pointed out. “Actually, when women have the same knowledge and the same kind of experience as men, they will also take risks. And there’s been so many discussions about this.”
What she was able to find out was that a fancy degree, firm size or longevity of their job tenure at the company have nothing to do with slightly higher refusal of the request for advancement. Still, then: where does the 5% that separates women’s chances of obtaining a pay rise (as compared to men) come from? Does this mean the gender pay rise is real? Amanda thinks before jumping to conclusions, however apparent they seem, there should be more research conducted.
Still, she believes that things are changing for the better. “A lot of the big consulting firms I used to work with used to have this kind of trajectory of managers who often were white, ambitious males and workaholics,” Goodall said. “Then the millennials came and two things happened. Number one, they realized the diversity of their managers wasn’t very good. Number two — millennials said, ‘We want to actually enjoy our lives for a change.'”
The vast majority of Americans aren't as lawsuit happy as yall seem to think. Lawsuits are expensive and time-consuming, and without very clear evidence of wrongdoing, difficult to win. It's just that we have piss-poor worker's protections, so it required lawsuits to get egregious bad actor companies to behave slightly less awful.
Things like this are really hard to prove if you don't get it in writing or got them on the record in one way or another. It is also the reason why this is still a common practice. It is hard to prove and you can go to court and waste all your money and ruin your career. The pay gap is hard to close specifically because it is hard to prove that gender discrimination is the cause.
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I once worked at a place where I was the only woman in my department with 2 men. I had a B.S in the particular with several years experience. The two men were younger and inexperienced with no college education. I made about $10k less than them. Unbelievable.
This exact thing happened to my mom.... in 1982! I thought the dinosaurs in charge then would be extinct by now.
I always get uncomfortable when people at work ask me what my husband does for a living. Once you know what a co-workers spouse does, it’s not hard to guess their household income. It’s an invasive question and I’ve decided I’m not going to be answering it anymore. Especially since I realized no one ever asks my husband what I do.
I got asked a few years ago in a job interview if I had a boyfriend and if I wanted kids. I needed the job so I didn't reacted badly but my instincts were to tell them to f**k themselves and leave the interview, to put a official complaint. Its insane how discriminated women are at work.
This happened to me. I married a man who's family was well known as being well off in the community. So I didn't need the money.
she should go freelancer and write to her current clients .. she could actually ask for much more for the same job and still do less than she needs to do now.
Not necessarily, and trying to poach a companies clients, could be a nda violation
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Something like this happened to me at my first job (grocery store). About 2 years after I started working, the bosses hired another guy, and he immidiately got trained as an evening-"supervisor". Slightly higher pay and all, but he very often asked me what he should do. He was two or three years my senior, and when I asked one of the managers why he got the extra training and I hadn't been offered the opportunity, he (manager, that is) said it was because I had been below 20 when hired. Because my coworker was older, he automatically got the training. When in practice I was the "boss" on the evening shift, he got the pay for it... I started working in May, turned 20 that July 😑
This is f*cked up, NGL. The same with discrimination against single and childless people. It's like somehow in the (narrow) minds of these douchenuggets, if you don't tie the knot and/or breed like rabbits, you don't deserve to be compensated by market value or have time-off.
Had this same conversation in another post with some woman who claimed she did the exact same job as her brother, but claimed was paid less because she was a woman. The fact is, this is illegal, plain and simple. After several messages back and forth, I asked her why she didn't report her employer under the Civil Rights Act. Not surprising, she stopped responding. As with this post, my guess is there's more to this story than blatant discrimination. There are federal laws that protect against discrimination against a protected class, such as age, race, and gender. One only needs to visit a government website eeoc.gov to file a complaint and start an investigation. If discrimination is happening, and people are not reporting it, they only have themselves to blame.
So if she tells them she's getting a divorce then she would get a raise? Bet it wouldn't work that way.
All those details...except for the name of the company so they can be boycotted. Sounds like BS to me.
I question stories like this as well. Not only do you make a good point about lack of information, but there are federal laws to protect against discrimination. Failure to file a simple claim on a government website under the Civil Rights Act tells me most these stories are made up.
Load More Replies... She should do her research on other employment. If she really is that good, she shouldn't have any problems finding a new employer or even better start her own business. Thanks to technology you can work for a firm on the east coast while living on the west coast.
Devil's advocate; if the other women also get a raise, is the denial of OP's wife's raise sexism or just a b******t reason? However you look at it, it's insanity of course.
Would also be interesting to know if any consideration was given to married men, and if their wife's worked. Like you said, it's complete nonsense either way, but just to see if they thought this was a reasonable policy to apply to all staff, or just woman
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Brandon likes to make ignorant and judgemental comments. I wonder if he has a good relationship with his mother? If he has sisters? A wife or girlfriend (or boyfriend for that matter)? Brandon could do with getting out and about in the world. Meeting different people, hearing their life stories, seeing the world through other people's perspectives. I hope he finds his peace and learns to listen.
Load More Replies... The vast majority of Americans aren't as lawsuit happy as yall seem to think. Lawsuits are expensive and time-consuming, and without very clear evidence of wrongdoing, difficult to win. It's just that we have piss-poor worker's protections, so it required lawsuits to get egregious bad actor companies to behave slightly less awful.
Things like this are really hard to prove if you don't get it in writing or got them on the record in one way or another. It is also the reason why this is still a common practice. It is hard to prove and you can go to court and waste all your money and ruin your career. The pay gap is hard to close specifically because it is hard to prove that gender discrimination is the cause.
Load More Replies... I once worked at a place where I was the only woman in my department with 2 men. I had a B.S in the particular with several years experience. The two men were younger and inexperienced with no college education. I made about $10k less than them. Unbelievable.
This exact thing happened to my mom.... in 1982! I thought the dinosaurs in charge then would be extinct by now.
I always get uncomfortable when people at work ask me what my husband does for a living. Once you know what a co-workers spouse does, it’s not hard to guess their household income. It’s an invasive question and I’ve decided I’m not going to be answering it anymore. Especially since I realized no one ever asks my husband what I do.
I got asked a few years ago in a job interview if I had a boyfriend and if I wanted kids. I needed the job so I didn't reacted badly but my instincts were to tell them to f**k themselves and leave the interview, to put a official complaint. Its insane how discriminated women are at work.
This happened to me. I married a man who's family was well known as being well off in the community. So I didn't need the money.
she should go freelancer and write to her current clients .. she could actually ask for much more for the same job and still do less than she needs to do now.
Not necessarily, and trying to poach a companies clients, could be a nda violation
Load More Replies... Something like this happened to me at my first job (grocery store). About 2 years after I started working, the bosses hired another guy, and he immidiately got trained as an evening-"supervisor". Slightly higher pay and all, but he very often asked me what he should do. He was two or three years my senior, and when I asked one of the managers why he got the extra training and I hadn't been offered the opportunity, he (manager, that is) said it was because I had been below 20 when hired. Because my coworker was older, he automatically got the training. When in practice I was the "boss" on the evening shift, he got the pay for it... I started working in May, turned 20 that July 😑
This is f*cked up, NGL. The same with discrimination against single and childless people. It's like somehow in the (narrow) minds of these douchenuggets, if you don't tie the knot and/or breed like rabbits, you don't deserve to be compensated by market value or have time-off.
Had this same conversation in another post with some woman who claimed she did the exact same job as her brother, but claimed was paid less because she was a woman. The fact is, this is illegal, plain and simple. After several messages back and forth, I asked her why she didn't report her employer under the Civil Rights Act. Not surprising, she stopped responding. As with this post, my guess is there's more to this story than blatant discrimination. There are federal laws that protect against discrimination against a protected class, such as age, race, and gender. One only needs to visit a government website eeoc.gov to file a complaint and start an investigation. If discrimination is happening, and people are not reporting it, they only have themselves to blame.
So if she tells them she's getting a divorce then she would get a raise? Bet it wouldn't work that way.
All those details...except for the name of the company so they can be boycotted. Sounds like BS to me.
I question stories like this as well. Not only do you make a good point about lack of information, but there are federal laws to protect against discrimination. Failure to file a simple claim on a government website under the Civil Rights Act tells me most these stories are made up.
Load More Replies... She should do her research on other employment. If she really is that good, she shouldn't have any problems finding a new employer or even better start her own business. Thanks to technology you can work for a firm on the east coast while living on the west coast.
Devil's advocate; if the other women also get a raise, is the denial of OP's wife's raise sexism or just a b******t reason? However you look at it, it's insanity of course.
Would also be interesting to know if any consideration was given to married men, and if their wife's worked. Like you said, it's complete nonsense either way, but just to see if they thought this was a reasonable policy to apply to all staff, or just woman
Load More Replies... Brandon likes to make ignorant and judgemental comments. I wonder if he has a good relationship with his mother? If he has sisters? A wife or girlfriend (or boyfriend for that matter)? Brandon could do with getting out and about in the world. Meeting different people, hearing their life stories, seeing the world through other people's perspectives. I hope he finds his peace and learns to listen.
Load More Replies... 
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