Opinion
7 Reasons Why Sharing Our Salary Make Us Uncomfortable
Like most people watching the Golden Globes this past weekend, I was fan girling Debra Messing for calling out E! about the pay disparity that lead to the resignation of one of their popular hosts Catt Sadler.
To be perfectly honest, I was a couple of weeks behind on my entertainment news fix and didnβt even realize Catt had left.
She was one of the hosts I loved so I decided to do a bit more digging to figure out what Debra Messing was referring to. I landed on Cattβs website explaining what she found out and why she left.
I canβt say I was surprised but I was deeply saddened for her. 12 years given to a company and job you love just to be presented with a choice that never should be. Take what they give you and keep doing what you love or take a stand and lose said job.
I commend her bravery for not only taking a stand (which affects her earnings and in turn her family, regardless of how much money she already has) but speaking up and out about it.
E! Entertaimentβs lackluster and frankly eye-roll inducing response (Twitter had receipts to prove the explanation didnβt hold merit because the tapes donβt lie) only make matters worse. Although to be fair, Iβm not sure how else they could handle it because letβs be honest, no corporate company is going to admit βhey we do pay our male employees more than their female counterparts at the same/comparable level doing the same/comparable job for whatever reason.β
Iβve been out of corporate for 7 years this March so I havenβt really had to think about this in a while. But Cattβs story got me thinking about what I would do if I were in her position where I found out that my colleague who was doing the same job as I / was at the same level as I, and was making almost double my salary. To add insult to injury, when I tried to negotiate for same or close, I was denied.
I let the thought kind of drift away and then this morning I read about the HUGE pay disparity between Michelle Williams and Mark Wahlberg for reshoots for βAll The Money In The Worldβ (she made $1000 and he made $1.5million) and it hit me.
What would happen if we shared salary information? Or more appropriately, WHY do we not share salary information?
I started pondering all the reasons I donβt share that information and I identified 7Β Reasons Why Sharing Our Salary Make Us Uncomfortable.
7. Feeling a need / sense of privacy. Simply put, it’s my personal business and some things should be kept private.

Sadly, even after writing down these reasons and looking at the words jumping at me knowing whatβs really behind them, I still donβt know if I would share that information outside of my husband and the extremely few people I trust enough to tell.