So, a Harvard study indicating that this is a problem is an "excuse" ? Companies expect white men to negotiate. In the real world, other people who negotiate sometimes get penalized for trying to do that due to their race or gender and the expectations that people subconsciously carry about the roles and places of those people in the society. That's the actual real world - not the imaginary one you live in where there is an equal playing field. Here’s another story about that:
Of course, people should try and should advocate for themselves, but that alone isn't going to fix the problem because as humans, only about 2% of thought is conscious and we're all making subconscious choices based in our biases, early training, ongoing indoctrination, etc. That's why a large part of the solution is to create better practices that address this. That's why the end of what I quoted to you said this: "To reduce the insidious impact of racial and gender negotiation biases in hiring, compensation, and promotion negotiations, broader organizational and societal changes are needed. Because negotiation biases spring from faulty intuition, reducing the role of snap judgments in the decision-making process is an important step toward promoting more equitable job negotiations."
Telling people that it’s entirely their fault if they don’t get the pay they deserve is disingenous because it’s only part of the story.
