Boys will be idiots, Part Duh

It’s interesting that, in span of a few days, when the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to a 17-year-old advocating for girls’ education, and just before Ada Lovelace day (the annual celebration of women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, or STEM), the CEO of one of the über-tech companies of all time opened his mouth at a conference all about women in STEM…

And Microsoft’s Satya Nadella told his audience at the Grace Hopper Celebration last Thursday that women who do not ask for raises are showing their traditional superpowers and building up karmic credits that will pay out through the HR systems of whatever organization they work for.

No, I am not making that up. Here’s what he said when asked for advice on how women who are uncomfortable about asking for salary increases should approach the process:

“It’s not really about asking for the raise but knowing and having faith that the system will actually give you the right raises as you go along. And that, I think, might be one of the additional superpowers that, quite frankly, women who don’t ask for raises have. Because that’s good karma. It’ll come back. Because somebody’s going to know: ‘That’s the kind of person that I want to trust. That’s the kind of person that I want to really give more responsibility to.’ And in the long-term efficiency, things catch up.”

It’s not enough that women in technology companies (and elsewhere, no doubt) are being told by their managers to be “less abrasive” and to “step back” and “let others shine” if they actually speak up to, you know, contribute to corporate success. (While men are given suggestions on what technical skills they might want to develop.) Or even that women who ask for raises are seen as “unpleasant”, while men doing the same are not viewed negatively.

But now the CEO of Microfreakingsoft flat out tells women: don’t ask for a raise, Babycakes, and the very act of not asking will ripple through the great, all-knowing halls of your corporation, and your superpower-strength forbearance will in the end pay off. Because “the system will give you the right raises as you go along.”

Just state your request—silently—to the universe, and your increase will drop from the branches of the cosmic salary tree.

Oh, please. It’s bullshit advice like this that has meant that women have to be twice as good as men at whatever technology we’re talking about to get half the respect and 78% of the pay. Not to mention grinning and bearing through the fratboy brogrammer cultures. Tech companies up and down the Valley They Call Silicon are reluctantly releasing demographic data (prodded by the Anita Borg Institute, which organizes the Grace Hopper Celebration) that reveals again and again that most of their techies are young males (primarily white and Asian).

(Moreover, if you look at what Nadella said, if you just smile and show how hard you work, “someone is going to notice”…and what you’ll get is more responsibility. He says nothing about more actual, you know, money. And that’s the system as we currently know it.)

And you have to ask: is this the advice Nadella gives to men in tech; just wait for your work to be rewarded? Hell no, it isn’t, because the entire industry is roaring with its males continually and loudly competing for more recognition and money. Because they all know that size matters, and you measure size by how far your ego gets you as well as by your salary, bonus, stock options and the rest of it.

That “I am a ninja” mentality is the “traditional superpower” of men in most businesses, but certainly in technology.

It was great that Maria Klawe, president of Harvey Mudd College (which is all about STEM, and which until about 35 years ago was male-only) shared the stage with Nadella. She stepped in and politely disagreed with that piece of advice, and shared a couple of experiences of her own, where she didn’t advocate effectively for herself. Which just goes to show you: if a woman as astute and respected as Klawe has problems with negotiating salaries, we all have a lot to learn.

Some time after Nadella left the stage in Phoenix someone must have pointed out the shitstorm that was erupting around the Internet, and he issued first a tweet saying he’d been “unclear” about the issue:

Then the PR folks got to him and he issued a statement saying he’d been “wrong” in his answer, and that—man or woman—“if you think you deserve a raise, just ask.”

Yeah—no, not so much. Because the whole point of the question he was asked is that women are much less comfortable about or inclined to ask for a pay raise than men, and studies show that when they do ask, they’re much more likely to not get it and to in fact have a black mark laid against them for doing so.

So, Nadella’s “just ask” is kind of like Nancy Reagan’s “Just say no” campaign: catchy to say but both ridiculous and meaningless in the execution.

Although it does sound marginally better than his original response.

In a way, I’m glad Nadella was such an idiot, making that statement at a conference on women in technology. It shows exactly how systemic that attitude is—the one that says, “Oh, we value women in our organizations…as long as they shut up, smile at our antics and work.” Because the CEO of Microsoft—which reported earlier this month that 29% of its global workforce is female (and in the tech arena, only 17% are women)—really thought that was a fine answer to a question about an issue fundamental to hiring and retaining talented people.

It also raises the question of how well the CEO of Microsoft grasps the technologies of today. Because it’s almost as though he didn’t know that Twitter exists.