With the passage of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act we've made a huge stride forward, but we have much to do (Mom's Rising) in terms of pay equity across the board. If you are about to interview for a job, start a new business and look for sources of capital, or simply want your kids to do their homework, one thing you can do for yourself is to learn the skill of negotiation.

Here are some sobering statistics that make it clear why learning to negotiate is essential to women's personal and professional developement, and career success (from Women Don’t Ask:  Negotiation and the Gender Divide by Linda Babcock and Sara Laschever):

• In a single recent year, 39 percent of the American workforce changed jobs.
• In 2000, 76.8 percent of women aged 25 to 54 worked outside the home.
• The divorce rate hovers at 50 percent.
• Women's earnings relative to men's have stagnated at 73.2 percent.

Women Don't Like to Negotiate

• In surveys, 2.5 times more women than men said they feel "a great deal of apprehension" about negotiating.
• Men initiate negotiations about four times as often as women.
• When asked to pick metaphors for the process of negotiating, men picked "winning a ballgame" and a "wrestling match," while women picked "going to the dentist."
• Women will pay as much as $1,353 to avoid negotiating the price of a car, which may help explain why 63 percent of Saturn car buyers are women.
• Women typically ask for and get 30 percent less than men when they do negotiate
• 20 percent of adult women never negotiate at all.

Women Suffer When They Don't Negotiate

• By not negotiating a first salary, all people stand to lose more than $500,000 by age 60
• Men are more than four times as likely as women to negotiate a first salary.
• Eight times as many men as women graduating with master's degrees from Carnegie Mellon negotiated their salaries.
• Women who consistently negotiate their salary increases earn at least $1 million more during their careers than women who don't.
• Women own about 40 percent of all businesses in the U.S. but receive only 2.3 percent of the available equity capital needed for growth. Male-owned companies receive the other 97.7. percent.

Women Have Lower Expectations and Lack Knowledge of their Worth

• Many women are so grateful to be offered a job that they accept what they are offered and don't negotiate their salaries.
• Women report salary expectations between 3 and 32 percent lower than those of men for the same jobs
• Men expect to earn 13 percent more than women during their first year of full-time work and 32 percent more at their career peaks.

If you'd like to turn things around and learn to ask for what you want and GET it...

Register now for lawyer/mediator Victoria Pynchon's free telelclass, "How to Negotiate Anything."