Last week, the Washington Post had an article on its blog with this title reviewing the depressing research that women “don’t ask” at the same rate as men and exploring why this might be so.  After all, as the author notes, women are negotiating every day at home–why do we choose not to do this in the workplace?  Selena Rezvani notes that her own research on top executives shows that top women learned to negotiate through experience and that

“Negotiating isn’t just one of several leadership competencies, it is the most important tool at women’s disposal.  A woman can work on being well networked or technically brilliant, but without the ability to ask, she has nothing.”

I couldn’t agree more–we all need to be negotiating more effectively.  And only a few days later, Maureen Dowd at the New York Times opined that women are often given the false choice between intelligence and sexuality and notes that Marilyn Monroe, unlike today’s politicians, actually tried to have both.  (It’s an interesting argument…)  In any case, the linkage between false choices, what I’ve called likeability v. competence, and the unwillingness to negotiate, is unfortunately nothing new.  As I’ve written with Cathy Tinsley, Emily Amantullah and Sandy Cheldelin in our latest interdisciplinary take on what is going on with women in general and women lawyers in particular, (Likeability v. Competence: The Impossible Choice Faced by Female Politicians, Attenuated by Lawyers)  it does appear that the trap of either being likeable or competent holds women back (and is clearly at play during election season.)  At the same time, some good news appears to occur with female lawyers which seem to escape this backlash because their role, status, and expectations as a negotiator do not fit into the “feminine” stereotype but rather the “lawyer” one.  And, as one of my students just asked, is that good news for women in general or just for women lawyers?