Nothing is ever really fair, is it? While the gender pay gap has shrunk trifold since 2016 – women being only 7 cents away from earning the same as an average American man, as compared to 21 cents – the same can‘t be said about fair treatment at work.

As this man shares in his r/antiwork confession, his dear wife was shortchanged because, well, not everyone does have a well-earning husband as she does. In other words, her male counterparts needed a pay raise “more” because they’re breadwinners and this non-descript company values female workers based on how much their tech-savvy husbands make. Say you‘re sexist without saying you‘re sexist, right?

Seeing that the partially responsible husband took it to heart even more than the unfairly-treated wife, user u/DLS3141 shared the story with fellow Redditors and quickly received many different suggestions.

Getting a raise is a natural part of the career ladder and should not be determined based on anything else other than performance

Image credits: Mimi Thian (not the actual photo)

Throughout the years, there has been much research done on the gender pay gap. Some were done to see whether the gap is closing, others to prove that it’s an actual issue many women face on a daily basis – something many people still fail to believe, despite the evidence. One of which, of course, is gendered discrimination when it comes to asking for a well-earned raise.

Well, is it really that bad? According to the most recent research done by Amanda H. Goodall and her colleagues, evidence shows surprising results: both men and women are as determined and assertive when asking for advancement. However, the gap opens up as soon as you start comparing how often men and women are successful in these requests.

Unfortunately, the gender pay gap is still taking its toll on women, and sometimes injustices like this dishearten their husbands more than them

“Are women really asking for less?” Amanda Goodall, Ph.D., associate professor at Bayes Business School in London, told Bored Panda. “The reason that’s important is that if you think a lot more women work part-time than men – one theory was that this could be one of the reasons they weren’t asking.”

Although this theory sounds plausible, it turned out that all part-timers, both men and women, are equally destined to get their advancement requests fulfilled (or not). “Very often, as in the case of the Netherlands, for example, women don’t want to work full-time jobs. So it’s not necessarily that they’ve been discriminated,” Goodall explained.

Most people in the comments couldn’t believe this is still happening in the 21st century

One of the biggest obstacles researchers like Amanda face when figuring out the real and many causes of the gender pay gap is lots of different factors. How often do people ask for a raise; do they work full-time or part-time, are they educated, and so on. “What’s interesting [to me] is that there are lots of psychological studies done that show all this data about women being more risk-averse,” Goodall pointed out. “Actually, when women have the same knowledge and the same kind of experience as men, they will also take risks. And there’s been so many discussions about this.”

What she was able to find out was that a fancy degree, firm size or longevity of their job tenure at the company have nothing to do with slightly higher refusal of the request for advancement. Still, then: where does the 5% that separates women’s chances of obtaining a pay rise (as compared to men) come from? Does this mean the gender pay rise is real? Amanda thinks before jumping to conclusions, however apparent they seem, there should be more research conducted.

Still, she believes that things are changing for the better. “A lot of the big consulting firms I used to work with used to have this kind of trajectory of managers who often were white, ambitious males and workaholics,” Goodall said. “Then the millennials came and two things happened. Number one, they realized the diversity of their managers wasn’t very good. Number two — millennials said, ‘We want to actually enjoy our lives for a change.'”

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