Listen Up!

The Women's Jewelry Association (WJA) has started a new learning initiative designed to help its members negotiate better. Called "Negotiable," it's designed to help WJA members bargain better, whether its for a promotion, a better vendor contract or better sales. 

Going into 2020, it seems absurd that women are still playing catch up to men in making sure they get the salaries, raises and promotions they deserve, but the data is there to prove this is still the case. 

According to the WJA's Gender Equality Project, which conducted a survey on workplace practices earlier this year, 30 percent of employee respondents (who were over 90 percent female) said they had been deprived of equal opportunities for advancement; and 38 percent said they have been affected by pay disparity. 

While not all of this disparity can be blamed on women not having the right negotiating skills, it plays a huge part, which is why this program is so important. 

I actually have a bit of a background in this. I spent quite a bit of time studying the differences between the way men and women speak for my MA in applied linguistics. 

But it doesn't take a university degree to realize that women are usually super polite, relying on indirect requests and euphemisms while men are much more up front and direct. 

Other differences are less obvious - until you know to look out for them. 

Women hedge much more than men, which means they use words like you know, sort of, you see. Using these words tempers the power of what they are saying and relates back to them being ultra polite. They also use boosting modifiers such as just and so much more than men, which, along with hedging shows women's lack of power in mixed-sex interactions. 

Popular linguist Deborah Tannen, who has made a career from studying men and women's language, including in the workplace, argues that the very concept of language differs for men and women. 

In her book Talking From 9 to 5 she found that when men and women interact, men talk for longer periods of time and interrupt more often. Women also use more deferential speech (hedging and politeness) than men. 

However, there doesn't mean there aren't positives about the way women speak and negotiate. Women tend to understand the subtle non-verbal elements of a conversation far more than men. 

But here's one amazing fact I came across in researching this piece. When women are included in peace negotiations, the resulting agreement is 35 percent more likely to last at least 15 years and 64 percent less likely to fail. 

Talk about the power of women's speech. 

If chances for peace are greater because of women speaking their mind, it's more than time women in the workplace - including in the jewelry business - develop the tools they need to speak up for themselves to make sure they are comfortable negotiating for what they are worth and what they deserve. 

Perhaps it's time for us to be a little less polite and a little more direct. 

Have a fabulous weekend