For twenty years, one book shaped how the business world explained the gender pay gap. Women Don't Ask, by economist Linda Babcock, argued the fix was simple: teach women to negotiate, and the gap would close. Millions of women, Jo included, absorbed that lesson.

Then in 2018, three economists got access to real employer data that earlier researchers never had, added one overlooked variable, and reversed the story almost entirely. Women, it turns out, do ask. They just don't get.

In this episode, Jo traces the full arc of the research, from Babcock's original findings, to the study that flipped the popular narrative, to a 2010 experiment that reveals something almost every woman has lived through without a name for it: the same woman who negotiates fiercely for a friend's business will quietly soften her own price mid-sentence. Along the way, Jo connects the research to her own experience pricing across borders, and lays out what actually helps once you understand what the studies really found, and what they didn't.

Research referenced in this episode:

Babcock, L., & Laschever, S. (2003). Women Don't Ask: Negotiation and the Gender Divide. Princeton University Press.

Artz, B., Goodall, A. H., & Oswald, A. J. (2018). Do women ask? Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, 57(4), 611–636.

Bowles, H. R., Babcock, L., & Lai, L. (2007). Social incentives for gender differences in the propensity to initiate negotiations: Sometimes it does hurt to ask. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 103(1), 84–103.

Amanatullah, E. T., & Morris, M. W. (2010). Negotiating gender roles: Gender differences in assertive negotiating are mediated by women's fear of backlash and attenuated when negotiating on behalf of others. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 98(2), 256–267.

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Instagram: @thequietgame
Website: www.jobeldade.com
Email: info@jobeldade.com

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