Our concern for what others think of us is literally costing us billions of dollars every year as a gender. I recently wrote about the vicious and misleading balancing act of trying to get ahead while being likable in a world that has already decided that getting ahead is not feminine rendering us unlikable if we do what it takes to get ahead.

Among my thoughts about why women don’t negotiate very much is the idea that we don’t want to be judged in a negative light. What it takes to negotiate are skills that have long been deemed masculine. Therefore, enacting those skills threatens the way others see us. Being a tough negotiator means others may judge us as bossy, bitchy, heartless and ungrateful. But what’s really at stake here if others judge us in this way? 

First, we know that just because someone thinks something about us, that doesn’t mean it’s true. We know that asking for a fair wage does not make us bitchy or heartless or ungrateful. But we let other people win when we accept their judgments as real threats to our worth. 

Second, what’s the real threat of being judged in these ways? Again, I think it’s about people not liking us. After all, no one likes a bossy woman. But will not being liked hold us back from being promoted? From being tapped for special projects? If we work in some culturally archaic institutions, then maybe. But generally, if you are actually competent, you’ll rise—even if some people don’t like you. Because it’s not that they don’t like you, it’s that they’re scared of the change in the status quo that you represent. The more distance you can get from their judgements, the better you’ll be.

So back to my original statement, if we continue to concern ourselves with what others think of us and do what we can to avoid being seen as bossy, we’re going to continue to shy away from negotiations, remain undervalued, and miss out on opportunities to get ahead because others see them as a threat to our femininity. There is nothing unfeminine about getting paid fairly for your work but it’s going take a generation of women negotiating to shift the way this kind of assertiveness is gendered.