> It’s really hard to celebrate “women’s day” with free feminist speakers when I just found out some guy who does the same work as me is getting paid 20% more.
Please stop this. STOP. If "a man" is paid 20% less, they're expected to change job and ask 20% more at the new one. This is what is expected of "men".
How much one gets paid in relation to their peers is solely based on negotiation, in the beginning of my career i was a poor negotiator, after several years i did my research, got competing offers are used those as leverage to get the best offer. I was never taught any of these skills, i learned from experience, and by pushing myself to do things i'm uncomfortable with (would you believe me if i said in the beginning of my career, i felt guilty taking money for doing something i love, this translated into basically low balling myself). This is not a man vs woman thing, this is a good negotiator vs poor negotiator thing.
> How much one gets paid in relation to their peers is solely based on negotiation
This is very US-specific and does not hold, for example, in Germany. I actually prefer the situation in Germany: this way, you can concentrate on getting better at programming instead of having to invest lots of time to become good at negotiation, too.
The thing is that rigid salary levels they have in Germany is a drawback for people who has strong people skills, understanding of business, focus on delivery, width of knowledge, etc. Those make huge difference in the value you can bring to a company.
I want to talk to a company and show them the value I bring. You cannot sell yourself higher, if all employers look at are years of experience, and dry description of what work you did.
There's so little transparency as to what employees get paid that "outsiders", i.e. those who don't have an informal network of pals providing them confidential salary information on-the-side, don't have a way to determine what numbers to shoot for.
Someone well-connected would have avoided the company with the salary discrepancy before they accepted a job; those less well-connected incur the costly overhead of a job search when they finally find out the real deal.
> There's so little transparency as to what employees get paid that "outsiders", i.e. those who don't have an informal network of pals providing them confidential salary information on-the-side, don't have a way to determine what numbers to shoot for.
Glassdoor? levels.fyi? Why would anyone need a "network of pals" to get average salary information? Who even cares what the average is? Just shoot for whatever number you want and then stop comparing yourself to everyone else.
After several years in the industry it's hard not to get a network of pals. If you're lucky enough, some of them will make it into management. Their information about how hiring and promotions actually work is indeed indispensable.
For the asocial folks like me who are incapable of making any friends at all, there are recruiters. Most of them will happily discuss what "a typical number for a person of my level" should be.
If a manager lowballs an offer for a woman because they think they can get away with it then that manager deserves to be condemned for it. Fullstop. That behavior only indicates a lack of respect for the individual. If you work for a manager who does that then you should question whether they have any respect for their employees including you. A developer has so many options that there is rarely a good reason to work for such a disrespectful manager.
If you negotiated 20% higher starting salary then you earn 20% more for the same work than the person who didn't. I don't know of many companies where you can't negotiate for a 20% higher starting salary so I don't really think this would cause a large reputation hit.
The primary way you negotiate a higher salary at your current place of employment is to either go work someplace else or threaten to go work someplace else. Actually going to work somewhere else is the far more likely method for most people. Either way you are no longer working at the place where they didn't value your work enough.
Please stop this. STOP. If "a man" is paid 20% less, they're expected to change job and ask 20% more at the new one. This is what is expected of "men".