MONEY TALKS
To close the pay gap, we need to discuss our salaries openly, says Alana Massey, who learnt how to talk cash while working as a stripper. She shares her best money hustles to bring to the boardroom
Before I could make a living as a writer, one of the most consistent jobs I had to earn a wage was working as a dancer in strip clubs. In the club environment, it’d be more suspicious to be cagey about my earnings than to disclose them. Though every shift was different, I’d gauge how well I was doing by comparing notes with my workmates to see if a night was going badly or if I just needed to up my hustle. While the vulgar fantasy of strippers as greedy drama seekers persists, the reality is we shared details about money casually and in a spirit of generosity that I’ve never seen in any other industry.
I retired the sequins and sky-high heels to become a full-time writer in 2014, and from day one I’ve talked about my earnings with other women in the media. I can count on one hand how many reactions were positive. When I’ve thrown a figure out there and I’m the highest earner, I’ve been met with astonishment and resentment. When I’ve been the lowest, I can feel the burn of pity in their eyes. Whether discussing your salary or your rent, money is an uncomfortable subject because it reveals far more about us than we might want to share, from class to our nature – how stingy or generous we are. In other words, it breaks social codes.
I wish I could say that I made a point of talking about my rates as a gesture towards women’s empowerment in the workplace, but really I was just curious about what others made. I believe in the basic principle that having more intel about my industry is better than having less. And I believe that if I want information, I have to give it. When I sold my first and second books for more than six figures each, I didn’t hesitate to disclose the amount – not openly on my social media, but to writers who were in the process of selling books themselves. So it came as a surprise when my female peers refused to tell me what they earned. These are women in their twenties who sell multimillion-dollar apartments at 20 per cent above the asking price. Women who write about their sex lives in magazines with reckless abandon. Women who would sooner die than surrender their surnames or share their bank accounts just because they got married. But when it comes to discussing money in a frank way, they remain tight-lipped.
What makes the situation even murkier are work environments that discourage salary transparency even when research shows that this has a negative effect on business. A study by Cornell University and Tel Aviv University found a direct link between pay secrecy and a decrease in work performance, while
“MONEY REVEALS FAR MORE ABOUT US THAN WE MIGHT WANT TO SHARE”
“IF WE’RE NOT DISCUSSING OUR SALARY, HOW CAN WE START TO FEEL EMPOWERED?”
research at Middlebury College in the US found that sharing salary details actively improves work performance. Hell, there should be weekly Aa-style meetings scheduled to discuss pay.
Picture this scenario: your male colleague, who does exactly the same job as you, reveals how much he earns. It’s $30,000 more than your salary. You’re outraged, but you can’t utter any words and you internalise the sheer injustice. If this scene is familiar and you still clam up every time you know you have to bring up money at work, it can be as simple as talking dollars with your friends. You’ll begin to feel more comfortable around the subject, which will lead to more confidence when broaching it with your boss. What we earn is so closely tied to our sense of selfworth that if we’re not discussing it, how can we start to feel valuable or empowered?
In recent years, government debate has existed around the use of “gagging clauses” – contract stipulations forbidding employees from discussing their salaries – though few would even realise they’re at the mercy of such contract clauses. In 2013, thenAustralian finance minister Penny Wong introduced a bill to the senate moving to ban gag clauses in all federal government contracts within the not-for-profit sector, in effect allowing greater transparency around funding and giving charities more opportunity for success.
Social expectations about pay, however, remain firmly intact. At 24, Anamarija Slatinec has held more jobs in her nine years in the workforce than many people twice her age. Despite openly sharing details of her salary with her friends, she’s encountered reticence and hostility from employers when broaching the subject of income. Working as a doctor’s receptionist in the evenings, she earned a lot less than as a receptionist working day shifts. “When I would bring up salary, he would make me feel guilty for asking,” she says. “When I quit because I found a job in tourism that paid much better, he refused to give me a reference.”
Talking about money isn’t just a nod to a brand of “have it all” feminism – it’s about preparing the 40 per cent of Australian households with women as the main breadwinners for a new financial landscape. The results of income secrecy go way beyond equality as its own social good. The income they’re missing out on could lead to lower wages for households headed by women. The dearth of females in executive management becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy: since men seem to be doing the heavy lifting at managerial level, it appears that women’s work is tangential to the overall success of the company. “When I worked for a big multinational insurance provider, of the 20 or so executives in the company, only three were women,” says Slatinec. “It affects the perception that women don’t need to be worrying about earning equal amounts to men.” If your CEO doesn’t care about women’s individual incomes, they might want to consider the effect on the end-of-year profits: a report from the Peterson Institute For International Economics found that companies with more women in senior executive roles outperformed those with less.
Right now, the so-called “career ladder” that women are on is more like the “career vertical-face-of-a-mountain-covered-with-shards-of-glass-and-spiders”. To level the playing field, women should lead the charge towards more income transparency. And though I’m always game for being an embarrassing loudmouth, it can’t be entirely left up to brazen ex-strippers to do all the talking about what women are earning. Everyone needs to up their hustle.