The story of the job-seeking  woman philosophy Ph.D. who tried to negotiate a better deal with Nazareth College has made the rounds already.  After getting an offer, she countered, which was what people should do, but women too often feel uncomfortable doing, according to the Lean In brand.

It didn’t end well:

However, instead of coming back with a severely tempered counter-counter (“$57k, maternity, and LOL”), or even a “Take it or leave it, bub,” Nazareth allegedly rescinded the entire offer.

The candidate was shocked. “This is how I thought negotiating worked,” she explained to the Philosophy Smoker in a follow-up missive, “how I learned to do it, and, for that matter, how I think it should work: You ask about a number of perks and maybe get some of them. I was expecting to get very few of the perks I asked about, if anything … I just thought there was no harm in asking.” The Philosophy Smoker found it “flabbergasting.”

Is it surprising that the reaction was so severe? Perhaps. Most of us assume that there is always some room for haggling over the details, and that’s the problem that Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In raised, that women are too reluctant, too timid, to push a bit for their own benefit.  They shouldn’t be. There is no reason why anyone, regardless of gender, should be uncomfortable standing up for themselves.

But then, the Nazareth reaction might have had nothing to do with a gender reaction, but to a counter offer that was not just too demanding, but sent a message to Nazareth College that this was going to be a problem professor.  While her support group may have been flabbergasted, so too may the nice folks at Nazareth, who read the counter offer as a person who didn’t get their culture and nature. They’re not Harvard, you know, and a person seeking a first job who doesn’t realize that isn’t going to be a professor that will fit their mission.

At the L.A Times, Charlotte Allen brings the point home:

If you’re a female and you feel inspired to negotiate for a higher salary and  more perks because your “Lean  In circle” says “You go, girl!,” it helps to actually know how to negotiate.

It also helps if you realize that just because you’ve decided to negotiate, your bosses or future bosses are under no obligation to negotiate back. They can tell you to take a hike.

These may seem like home truths to anyone in the business world, or in any  world where negotiating is an expected part of the scene.

Maybe the problem is that gender roles impaired both the would-be prof, and her circle, from understanding that the range of outcomes wasn’t limited to those they desired; it never dawned on them that on the far end of the spectrum, the reaction would be “take a hike.”  If it’s true that women prefer not to negotiate, then it’s likely that they haven’t gained much insight into its mysteries.  Negotiation is an art as well as a science, and without the art part, mistakes are often made.

But then, if the point is for women to not be held back by gender roles and the deficits that come with them, then this should be a learning opportunity rather than a reason to complain about the unfairness of the treatment.  If you’re not very good at something, get better at it.  What cannot be done is demand that the other side give you a Mulligan because you blew it.

Or maybe this isn’t a gender issue at all, and it’s being made into a gender issue rather than an example of poor negotiating tactics?  When life is viewed through an identitarian prism, everything can be blamed on politics.  It’s easy and convenient, but it’s not very helpful, and it’s definitely not effective.

Just in case someone argues that this would never happen if the wannabe prof was a man, stuff happens to men too.  This doesn’t prove that it wasn’t a gender issue, but it similarly doesn’t prove that it was.  People blow negotiations all the time. People. Not just women. It happens.

So the question comes back the nail in the head. You know, this one, the one feminists despise.  Do you want to fix the problem or find a misogynist under every rock?  Do you want to get the job or get the support of your lean in circle?  Do you want to express your feelings about the loss or enjoy the success?  You can’t have both.

There is a question as to whether every problem is properly seen through a gender filter.  This isn’t to deny that sexism exists, but to question whether it’s the explanation for everything, or whether it’s useful to raise the flag whenever a roadblock is placed before a person who happened to be female.

“W,” the almost-prof, handled the negotiations poorly.  She not only exceeded Nazareth’s tolerance for demands in her counteroffer, but she sent a message she didn’t mean to send by suggesting that she would be unhappy working within the Nazareth paradigm.  While this can’t be empirically tested, it would seem that the demands wouldn’t have been received any better if she was male.  That happens. Deals are made every day, and deals are lost every day.

Not every problem that happens in the workplace is due to gender.  The solution won’t be either. If you want equality, that includes the right to fail, and it has nothing to do with gender. It happens to all of us from time to time, and we learn from it.

But when failure is wrongly chalked up to gender, it becomes an excuse that might make you feel better but blinds you from finding a solution so you don’t fail again.  It’s far more effective to seek solutions to problems than excuses for them.