Star-Tribune Editorial Board

As a candidate for governor in 2002, Dave Freudenthal called for state government to take the lead in bridging Wyoming's gender gap in wages.

Six years later, Freudenthal is a two-term incumbent and the pay gap has widened. The difference between men's and women's pay in the Equality State averages more than $17,000 per year.

Should we conclude that the governor is to blame because his administration hasn't reduced the gap? No. That would be as unfair as what Freudenthal did when he wagged his finger at working women and their collective "attitude."

"It does seem to me that young women are less inclined to be hard-nosed about the negotiations of a new job," Freudenthal said. He also blamed some lawmakers - including women - for voting against child-care bills.

"I think there's an awful lot of acceptance of current circumstance," he added.

Freudenthal is perhaps not the best judge of a job seeker's bargaining skills. As a lawyer in private practice, then as Wyoming U.S. attorney, and finally as governor, he hasn't had to negotiate a salary for a long time.

Some studies indicate Freudenthal has a point when he blames the victim. The Washington Post in July detailed the research of a Carnegie Mellon University economics professor, Linda Babcock. She found that 51 percent of the male master's degree graduates asked for more money when they received job offers, compared with only about 13 percent of the women.

As Freudenthal suggested, the students who negotiated were rewarded: They received 7.4 percent more, on average, than those who did not.

But that's not the whole story. Another Carnegie Mellon study showed that men and women get different responses when they initiate salary talks. Both male and female employers viewed women who asked for more as "less nice," and were less likely to hire them. Not so for men. Meanwhile, women who stayed mum were rewarded by being hired - often at lower wages than the men who spoke up.

"This isn't about fixing the women," CM researcher Hannah Riley Bowles told the Post. "It isn't about telling women, 'You need self-confidence or training.' They are responding to incentives within the social environment."

Viewed with that perspective in mind, Freudenthal's advice for women sounds hollow.

The governor predicted last week that he'd get in trouble for his remarks, and he indeed has been taken to task by some women.

One anonymous woman wrote on trib.com, the Star-Tribune's Web site, that the governor has done a good job of overhauling state employees' wages. But she added, "The treatment of female workers in your government has to improve. Strengthen and enforce the laws and policies that protect workers against discrimination, harassment and retaliation."

The woman also called for an end to what she sees as the state's hypocrisy on the issue: "I say we either stand behind the Equality State motto or remove it completely."

Another woman wrote, "Nothing changes if nothing changes," and lamented that negative attitudes about working women still seem to prevail in the state.

"No wonder so many bright and talented women who grew up in Wyoming have left the state," she concluded.

Perhaps that's the lesson for the governor and others who might blame working women's attitudes for the wage gap. The attitudes most in need of change don't belong to women.