LETTERS: Cautioned by Society

To the editors:

In the Feb. 24, 2010, editorial comment “Risky Business,” Lea J. Hachigian argues that much of today’s gender gap in salary levels and other areas is the result of “the failure of females to seek out and take necessary risks.” The solution, she argues, is to change our expectations of girls’ behavior in childhood in order to encourage them to grow into brave, risk-taking adult women (who aren’t afraid to ask for a raise). While changing societal expectations about girls’ capabilities is certainly something to be promoted, there are aspects of the relationship between women and risk-taking that Hachigian’s analysis fails to capture.

If women in general do not aggressively negotiate their salaries, this is in part due to the reality that they are often viewed negatively for such behavior. Research shows that people expect women to “play nice” and often punish them for aggressive or “risky” behavior that would go unnoticed or even rewarded in men. While Hachigian suggests that what needs to change is girls’ willingness to “seek out and take necessary risks,” it is far more necessary that society as a whole learns to see women and girls as appropriate agents of risk-taking.

To take one topical example: When you turned on your TV this past February to watch the 2010 Winter Olympics, one athlete you didn’t see was the world record-holder for ski jumping on Vancouver’s K95 hill, Lindsey Van. That’s because since 1998 the International Olympics Committee has refused every request to admit Women’s Ski Jumping as a recognized Olympic sport, while Men’s Ski Jumping has been included in the Olympics since the first modern games in 1924. In 2005, Gian Franco Kasper, a member of the IOC, said that ski jumping “seems not to be appropriate for ladies from a medical point of view.” (In other words, the IOC’s expectations of appropriate behavior for women doesn’t include speeding 60 mph along a ramp and flying dozens of meters through the air on a pair of skis.)

Lindsey Van and plenty of other girls and women are out there taking risks on a daily basis, necessary or otherwise. What we ought to be asking ourselves is why we as a society continually fail to reward them for doing so.

GINA HELFRICH, Ph.D.

Cambridge, Mass.

Feb. 28, 2010

Gina Helfrich, Ph.D., is Assistant Director at the Harvard College Women’s Center.