The Real Reason You Want a Female Boss

It turns out that the fact that women tend to be better for business isn't the only reason you should be interested in working for a female boss. According to new research, when women work under men, they are paid drastically less, compared to their male counterparts. In other words, the pay gap is not really a product of women "opting out" or being somehow incompetent; it's because of sexism.

According to a study, which focused on male and female executives and corporate officers, when men determined women's salaries, those salaries are substantially lower. In fact, among these high level executives, women who worked under a male CEO were paid an average of $46,500 less per year than their male counter parts. $46,500 per year.

Interestingly, the study found that women are not immune from these sorts of bias when in power, but that the gap is significantly smaller. Male executives and corporate officers working under a female CEO were paid an average of $21,960 less than their female colleagues. In other words, there's still a gap, but one that's not as big.

Predictably, the most biased CEOs when it came to setting salaries were the older men. In fact, male CEOs paid their high-level male employees an average of over $100,000 more than their high level female employees. Because that seems about right.

Overall, this is just one more example of the sorts of challenges women face in the workplace. And, unfortunately, having a more equal mix of male and female CEOs — something that might actually even out the gender disparities on both sides — seems like it might be a long way off. As of 2014, women represent only 4.6 percent of the CEOs of Fortune 500 companies. So it's unsurprising that this study found that female executives are also, on average, paid less overall.

Really, though, this study just further dispels the myth that the modern workforce is somehow "gender blind" and women just need to learn to work within the system in order to achieve equality. The existing, prevailing system that's already in place in corporate America, the one that favors older white men most of all, is inherently biased against women. Gaining equality is not a matter of "leaning in"; it's a matter of disrupting the sexist status quo until all things start to shake out a little more equal.

Also, this might be a sign it's high time to go find some female bosses to work for.

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