The pocket-money pay gap paves the way for a lifetime of inequality

Research has shown boys get more pocket money than girls even from a very young age, most likely because they simply ask for more. Although it might be a complete coincidence and something parents don’t realise they are doing, it’s clearly something perpetuated for the rest of our lives.

The study shows boys get 13% more money week-on-week than their female counterparts. It also showed although 40% of children believe they should get more, boys are far more likely to actually ask for more cash. It’s not surprising to see that pattern continued over their lifetimes. It’s likely everyone has experienced the attitude of men who think they can have exactly what they want, whether it be jobs, opportunities, friends or relationships.

I, along with most women I know, see arrogant guys who through their bulldozer technique in approaching professional contacts have succeeded in getting places female counterparts have not – if only because their approach and lack of gratitude left a trail of destruction for the rest of us to try to piece back together before trying ourselves. Even as someone at the beginning of their career, I’ve had it drilled into me to be passionate, but patient. Don’t annoy people, don’t send too many emails. And as every normal human being knows, say thank you at the first opportunity.

Yet in my experience women who take this approach are shunned in favour of men who go in all guns blazing and near-enough demand access. You want them not to succeed, just once, to be taken down a peg or two, but it will never happen. Confident guys will always get what they want. And so the cycle continues, because pushy blokes like to employ pushy blokes and so on and so forth until every good job is an unbreakable fortress of men who just went out and insisted they got what they wanted.

I know plenty of people will argue against this, and yes, clearly some women do the same thing. But it’s still far less likely to work: the pay gap is still alive and well, leaving even young girls preparing to push against the glass ceiling, and women are still more likely to be in lower-paid professions than men. When a woman does bring up the issue of things maybe not being quite as fair as they could be, it makes the headlines – take Jennifer Lawrence complaining about the pay rates in Hollywood, saying: “I’m over the adorable way to try and state my opinion.”

But the question is, why do women feel that they have to be adorable and inoffensive in the first place? Because we do. From a young age, it’s all about being told to sit down and shut up – and probably look nice at the same time. This attitude is simply not the same for our male counterparts. Lawrence said she didn’t push for the extra millions because she wanted to be liked and didn’t want to seem difficult or spoilt, adding that she couldn’t speak for the average working woman because her career, clearly, isn’t average.

But it does mirror what, in my experience, most of the women I know go through day-to-day. For girls, it’s always an effort to get your voice heard when for years, you’ve been told to be quiet. I’m not a shrinking violet, but I know how exhausting it gets always having to try to right injustice yourself.

Instead of teaching girls to shy away when they think something isn’t fair, we need to tell them to speak up. Whether they come across as spoilt or unlikeable shouldn’t be an issue when they think they see something unjust. Stop teaching girls they need to be “adorable” and give them the power to speak up for their pocket money.