The three of us take this class together.And then Carrie reads all the books in the original Greek and Latin，goes to all the lectures.I read all the books in English and go to most of the lectures.My brother is kind of busy.He reads one book of 12and goes to a couple of lectures，marches himself up to our room a couple days before the exam to get himself tutored.The three of us go to the exam together，and we sit down.And we sit there for three hours-and our little blue notebooks-yes，I‘m that old.And we walk out，and we look at each other，and we say，“How did you do？”And Carrie says，“Boy，I feel like I didn’t really draw out the main point on the Hegelian dialectic.”And I say，“God，I really wish I had really connected John Locke‘s theory of property with the philosophers who follow.”And my brother says，“I got the top grade in the class.”“You got the top grade in the class？You don’t know anything.”
The problem with these stories is that they show what the data shows：women systematically underestimate their own abilities.If you test men and women，and you ask them questions on totally objective criteria like GPAs，men get it wrong slightly high，and women get it wrong slightly low.Women do not negotiate for themselves in the workforce.A study in the last two years of people entering the workforce out of college showed that 57percent of boys entering，or men，I guess，are negotiating their first salary，and only seven percent of women.And most importantly，men attribute their success to themselves，and women attribute it to other external factors.If you ask men why they did a good job，they‘ll say，“I’m awesome.Obviously.Why are you even asking？”If you ask women why they did a good job，what they‘ll say is someone helped them，they got lucky，they worked really hard.Why does this matter？Boy，it matters a lot because no one gets to the corner office by sitting on the side，not at the table，and no one gets the promotion if they don’t think they deserve their success，or they don‘t even understand their own success.
I wish the answer were easy.I wish I could just go tell all the young women I work for，all these fabulous women，“Believe in yourself and negotiate for yourself.Own your own success.”I wish I could tell that to my daughter.But it’s not that simple.Because what the data shows，above all else，is one thing，which is that success and likeability are positively correlated for men and negatively correlated for women.And everyone‘s nodding，because we all know this to be true.
There’s a really good study that shows this really well.There‘s a famous Harvard Business School study on a woman named Heidi Roizen.And she’s an operator in a company in Silicon Valley，and she uses her contacts to become a very successful venture capitalist.In 2002-not so long ago-a professor who was then at Columbia University took that case and made it Howard Roizen.And he gave the case out，both of them，to two groups of students.He changed exactly one word：“Heidi”to“Howard.”But that one word made a really big difference.He then surveyed the students，and the good news was the students，both men and women，thought Heidi and Howard were equally competent，and that‘s good.The bad news was that everyone liked Howard.He’s a great guy.You want to work for him.You want to spend the day fishing with him.But Heidi？Not so sure.She‘s a little out for herself.She’s a little political.You‘re not sure you’d want to work for her.This is the complication.We have to tell our daughters and our colleagues，we have to tell ourselves to believe we got the A to reach for the promotion，to sit at the table，and we have to do it in a world where，for them，there are sacrifices they will make for that，even though for their brothers，there are not.
The saddest thing about all of this is that it‘s really hard to remember this.And I’m about to tell a story which is truly embarrassing for me，but I think important.I gave this talk at Facebook not so long ago to about 100employees，and a couple hours later，there was a young woman who works there sitting outside my little desk，and she wanted to talk to me.I said，okay，and she sat down，and we talked.And she said，“I learned something today.I learned that I need to keep my hand up.”I said，“What do you mean？”She said，“Well，you‘re giving this talk，and you said you were going to take two more questions.And I had my hand up with lots of other people，and you took two more questions.And I put my hand down，and I noticed all the women put their hand down，and then you took more questions，only from the men.”And I thought to myself，wow，if it’s me-who cares about this，obviously-giving this talk-and during this talk，I can‘t even notice that the men’s hands are still raised，and the women‘s hands are still raised.How good are we as managers of our companies and our organizations at seeing that the men are reaching for opportunities more than women？We’ve got to get women to sit at the table.
Message number two：make your partner a real partner.I‘ve become convinced that we’ve made more progress in the workforce than we have in the home.The data shows this very clearly.If a woman and a man work full-time and have a child，the woman does twice the amount of housework the man does，and the woman does three times the amount of childcare the man does.So she‘s got three jobs or two jobs，and he’s got one.Who do you think drops out when someone needs to be home more？The causes of this are really complicated，and I don‘t have time to go into them.And I don’t think Sunday football-watching and general laziness is the cause.