By Patricia O’Gorman, PhD
Author of The Girly Thoughts 10-Day Detox Plan: The Resilient Woman’s Guide to Saying NO to Negative Self-Talk and YES to Personal Power (publication date 10.28.14) – a fun book about a serious topic
The Resilient Woman: Mastering the 7 Steps to Personal Power (2013)
Healing Trauma Through Self-Parenting—The Codependency Connection (2012)
Even with my book The Girly Thoughts 10-Day Detox Plan being released in just days, I couldn’t resist sharing with you this funny video on the wage gap between men and women. Yes, I know this is no laughing matter. But it is so common that many women have just given up trying to address it, preferring instead to do what Microsoft’s CEO Satya Nadella calls trusting in the natural order.
Do Your Girly Thoughts Really Bring Good Karma?
Here’s what Nadella actually said:
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 a raise have because that’s good karma. It’ll come back (http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2014/10/10/355100973/microsoft-ceo-nadellas-remarks-add-to-techs-sexism-problem).
What Nadella forgot was to remind women to continue to put their baby teeth under their pillow for the tooth fairy and to continue to wait for Prince Charming.
Equal Pay For Women—A No Girly Thoughts Solution
But what happens when you address a long-term problem without being hampered by those societally driven notions of how you should act and how you should look—without your girly thoughts? Well, you could wind up with a novel way of thinking through a problem that makes an important point with intelligence, creativity, and humor.
“Equal Payback Project”
The answer, I believe, is in this hilarious and irreverent video that is not for the fainthearted. It features Sarah Silverman providing a truly out-of-the-box solution to the pay inequality situation. “Equal Payback Project” is aimed at closing the wage gap between men and women.
“The project, benefiting the National Women’s Law Center, which advocates for equal pay, is essentially a giant fundraiser, with a ludicrously lofty goal of raising almost $30 trillion—a figure calculated by multiplying the 69 million working women by the amount ($435,049) each one stands to lose, on average, to the wage gap over the course of her career.
Silverman explains the project in the amusing video below. But then, realizing that goal is unlikely to be met, she embarks on an even more drastic plan to get the money she deserves”(AdWeek.com).
Not Recommended for Your Young Daughters
This is not recommended for young children, but I highly recommend you share with your girlfriends.
And after you’ve finished watching, ask yourself, “Do I still need to rely on my girly thoughts to help me this week at work? Learn more strategies for detoxing from your negative self-talk in my new book, The Girly Thoughts 10-Day Detox Plan: The Resilient Woman’s Guide to Saying NO to Negative Self-Talk and YES to Personal Power, available for preorder now at Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, HCI Books, and wherever books are sold.