Do you know what you’re worth? Do you know how to ask for a raise? Do you know how to negotiate your salary?
$tart $mart facilitator Sonya Stafford is helping college women change their answers to those questions by facilitating salary negotiation workshops for students at North Carolina Central University. $tart $mart salary negotiation workshops empower college women who are entering the job market with the tools to negotiate salaries and benefits.
Stafford, who is a staff development coordinator at a North Carolina government agency, believes that the most beneficial aspect of $tart $mart training is “showing young women that they are worth more than our society tells us, both as women and as workers. Also, letting them know that one unfortunate truth of our society is that it will take advantage of us if we don’t stand up for ourselves.”
One of the many reasons the gender wage gap exists today is because women have not been socialized to ask for the salaries they deserve. This isn’t to say that all women are timid, shrinking violets who can’t stand up for themselves, but when men are disproportionately told to go out and “get theirs” while women are told not to make waves, it stands to reason that unfavorable trends will emerge. With $tart $mart, facilitators like Stafford are teaching women to be informed about the value of the jobs they want and to use that knowledge to negotiate a fair salary.
Stafford said she wanted to get involved in $tart $mart as a result of her experience of “being ‘low balled’ from the moment [she] entered the workforce 23 years ago.” Stafford’s experience illustrates that it is crucial for women to have financial knowledge and salary negotiation skills before they even enter the workforce, because if you start out your career earning less than you deserve, the loss of those wages will follow you throughout your career and into retirement.
In addition to being a $mart $tart facilitator, Stafford has been a member of AAUW since 2008. It’s easy for AAUW members to get involved with $tart $mart. If you are a member, you can encourage your branch or state to sponsor a $tart $tart facilitator training, become a $tart $mart facilitator yourself and deliver programs on area campuses, recruit other AAUW members to become trained facilitators, or recruit a campus to hold a $tart $mart workshop.
The more college women Stafford and others like her can reach, the more we can do to close the wage gap!
This blog post was written by AAUW Leadership Programs Fellow Jessica Kelly.
