Bitch If You Do, Broke If You Don’t

September 4th, 2009 Barry Posted in Economic cartoons, Labor rights & Unions, Sexism & Misogyny | Comments Off on Bitch If You Do, Broke If You Don’t

What I intended with this cartoon was to reply narrowly to one narrow argument; the argument that “women get paid less because they ask less.” It’s not that simple, and one reason it’s not that simple is that women can be punished for asking:

For example, a Carnegie Mellon and Harvard study by Hannah Riley Bowles, Linda C. Babcock, and Lei Lai showed that women are actually often penalized for negotiating. Bowles explains, “What we found across all the studies is men were always less willing to work with a woman who had attempted to negotiate than with a woman who did not.”  She continued, “They always preferred to work with a woman who stayed mum. But it made no difference to the men whether a guy had chosen to negotiate or not.”

TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON

Panel 1: A woman is at a computer. There is a speech bubble coming from the computer that says: “The wage gap isn’t due to sexism! It’s because men negotiate pay while women take whatever’s offered.”

Panel 2: The woman turns and looks behind her and sees two men talking. Man 1 says, “Mr. Jones, I’ve been doing good work. Can I have a raise?” Man 2 says, “Let me think about it.” A thought bubble coming from him says “What a go-getter!”

Panel 3: The woman has her fist clenched and a determined look on her face. Her thought bubble reads: “The internet is right! If I want to be paid like a man, I have to act like a man!”

Panel 4: The woman is smiling and speaking to Man 2. She says, “Mr. Jones, I’ve been doing good work. Can I have a raise?” Man 2 says, “Let me think about it.” His thought bubble says “What a pushy bitch!”

A large caption at the bottom of the comic reads: “Bitch if you do, broke if you don’t.”