In the latest episode of the Roosevelt Institute's Bloggingheads series, Fireside Chats, NND Editor Bryce Covert talks to National Review's Ramesh Ponnuru about what's behind the gender wage gap. Their discussion began with a recent Bloomberg View column in which Ramesh argued that there may be factors other than discrimination, such as career choices, that account for women receiving lower pay. Bryce responded at The Nation by citing studies that show discrimination is a real problem, and Ramesh followed up with her at The Corner. In the video below, the two finally come face to face (sort of) to get to the bottom of what's keeping women down.

Responding to Ramesh's suggestion that women may be paid less at least partly because they are "not as aggressive as men in asking for salaries," Bryce concedes that "the idea that women aren't ambitious enough is not one that you find only on one side" and that "society does tend to shape men to be more aggressive and women to be more cooperative, for lack of a better word." But she notes that studies have found that "even if there is some sort of ambition gap," women who are just as ambitious as their male peers are "still not getting the money. The ones that ask still are not rewarded for asking." She also cites a study that shows managers are likely to offer men more as a baseline in salary negotiations, which means that "if a woman's going to go in and try to negotiate and be aggressive and ask for the money, she's already at a disadvantage before she even gets there." Given that the same behavior has been observed in female managers, Bryce argues that this "is not just the patriarchy keeping women down," but an "unconscious bias" shared by both men and women in the workplace.

For more on this debate, including our employers' Leave It to Beaver mindset and why fair pay laws alone aren't enough, check out the full video below: