When Raises Don't Raise Consciousness

When men get raises, women cry discrimination. And when women get raises? It's the same.

By PT Staff, published on July 01, 1993 - last reviewed on August 30, 2004

All may be fair in love and war but not in today's office politics. On the job today, fairness (or the lack of it) too often depends on which gender you subscribe to.

Both men and women see promotions and hirings of the opposite sex as discriminatory actions. When a candidate of the opposite sex is chosen over an equally qualified one of their own sex, men and women both feel short-changed, report two Kansas State University psychologists.

Women view such choices as typical of the prejudice that's plagued them for eons. Men see a sign that they have to hand over the goodies to female contenders.

That both sexes are equally disgruntled over hiring practices came as a complete surprise to Frank Saal, Ph.D., and Craig Moore, Ph.D. They set out to prove that women view opposite-sex promotions as more unfair than men do. But when they actually tested opinions of 336 people, they found everyone stayed true to their gender.

In their study, students judged promotions of cops, educational counselors, and children's librarians. In all three job areas, same-sex promotions were seen as fair and square. But women protested when males ousted females, and vice versa.

Women were most irked when male cops or counselors were promoted, probably because they're more typically male jobs than librarian, for instance. That is, men deem "affirmative action" unfair, but not as unfair as women find "discrimination against women."

Who's right? It all depends on your point of view.

For the record, men and women did agree completely on one thing--the qualifications of all competitors. They just couldn't agree on the actual selections.

The battle of the sexes rages on and doesn't show any sign of letting up soon.