Women Make Less Because They Don’t Ask (and Other Birthday Conundrums)

The gender pay gap is a long-debated affliction of women’s rights. While some discredit any discrepancy altogether, many studies cite women not asking for more money as a contributing culprit to this inequality. Glamour magazine conducted a 2014 Salary Survey in their September issue and noted, "The biggest mistake I see women making is simply not asking.” Reasons for this hesitancy in negotiating starting salaries and asking for raises vary from not wanting to appear too aggressive to not having high enough expectations. Many lists dispense advice on combating this trend, but the simplest solution is just to ask for what you want. Important as this lesson is in the workplace, one can apply the same logic to much more than salaries. For instance, while celebrating my birthday this weekend, I had 3 perfect opportunities to successfully employ this practice. 

To start things off, Mr. O&O and I had the pleasure of attending our ballroom dance studio’s pirate-themed graduation celebration on Friday night. Wow! That was a mouthful; let’s stop and break that sentence down. 

• Since the beginning of the year, Mr. O&O and I have been taking ballroom dance lessons at a studio in Fishers called Five Star. (If you are interested in lessons, let me know! I can get you 3 for $25.)
• There are various levels of ballroom dancing, and our studio gives exams to allow students to graduate from one level to the next. 
• Due to the fact that graduation fell on National Talk Like a Pirate Day, we all celebrated and dressed accordingly (and placed in the top 6 during the costume contest, I might add). Back on track? Aye! 

Leading up to this celebration, we were starting to feel the financial strains from our weekly lessons and hadn’t been progressing as quickly as we had hoped. We had heard mentions of these dance exams, but no one had directly addressed them with us. In the spirit of the pay-gap advice, we took the initiative to schedule a meeting with the studio manager and simply asked what we could do to speed up our progression. The next week our teacher started teaching to the test and the following week we tested out (aced it!). We now know to just ask when we feel ready to test out, and we are already prepping for our next test!

For birthday weekend day #2, I participated in an event with a theme that was an absolutely perfect fit for celebrating my birth in particular – a charitable literary pub crawl! The sponsoring organization, Indy Reads, offers free literacy tutoring around the community. It is dear to my heart not only for its general mission, but also because I volunteer with the family literacy program to teach parents how to inculcate positive reading habits in their kids. The crawl took place in Fountain Square, and each bar offered literary-themed drink specials, including an “Are you there God? It’s me, Margarita.” As if literacy charity and book cocktails weren’t enough, the night also featured a literary-themed costume contest. This was, of course, right up my alley, and I took the opportunity to showcase the quintessential Overdressed & Overeducated costume: Holly Golightly. Clad as one of the classiest ladies in all of literature (yes, Breakfast at Tiffany’s was a book first!), Mr. O&O and I met up with some book club gals and hit the town!

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Madeline, Holly Golightly, & Katniss

The night started off with a chat from local author, Mike Mullin, showcasing his new book Ashfall and ended with the world’s longest raffle. There must have been at least 75 separate items they raffled off to a room of 200+ people with only 50 chairs in what felt like 90 degree heat. It was a perfect storm. Mr. O&O was ready to skip out about halfway through, and he did end up leaving early to retrieve the car. But a thread of luck and desire kept me hanging on until the last trio of prizes, which were 3 separate reading-themed signs, my personal favorite being a light blue “Keep Calm and Read a Book” sign featuring a reading girl at the top. I wiped my brow and perked my ears for these last three items, but to no avail. She never called my numbers. Sad and dejected, I packed up my Holly accessories and headed to the door. On the way out, I happened to spot the guy who did win the wooden sign for which I had been hoping, and I started thinking, “What the heck is he going to do with this girly sign?” So I put on my best negotiating face, walked up to this winner, and asked, “Do you really want that sign?” Without hesitation he replies, “Nah. Do you want it?” YES!! Cheers, streamers, bells, and whistles are going off in my head. I thanked the guy profusely and gave him a hug for good measure, then off I skipped to the car to proudly show my husband our newest family heirloom! And I didn’t even have to make the case that it was my birthday. All I had to do was ask! Lesson learned!

As a side note and shout-out to one of my awesome book club gals who pub-crawled along with me, she presented me with the best homemade bookmark ever for my birthday present that night. Thanks, Katniss!

For the final day of my celebratory weekend and my actual birthday, sweet Mr. O&O whipped up some mostly-from-scratch pumpkin pancakes and brought them to me for my traditional birthday breakfast in bed. We spent the day relaxing at home and then headed off to our last celebration, a special dance event at the Indiana Roof Ballroom. This event is something that dance studios all over the state participate in once every few months as a dressy night out for all of their students. A live band greeted us in our formal attire and gave us the perfect chance to put all of our dance skills to good use.    

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Once we arrived, our dance instructors handed each dancer a dance card (like from the 19th century!) and tasked us with filling in a partner for each of the 20 dances. This is where my third “just ask” lesson came into play, albeit forcefully. Up to this point, I had always waited for the men to ask me to dance. However, I still had several blanks on my dance card after everyone who usually asks me had asked, so I left my comfort zone and asked some men to dance with me! I did successfully fill out my dance card, and by the end of the night, I was so glad I danced with so many new people! I learned a lot of different moves and made several new friends. So concluded my 27th birthday: overdressed, overeducated, and on my way to overpaid.

Ta-ta!
    Victoria