Claire Wasserman just wanted to provide women with a space to air their grievances about being a woman in the workplace. So she started the organization Ladies Get Paid to help working women and gender non-conforming people share their stories in a safe space. "I felt like having women in a room talking about discrimination that they felt — how could you have men there?"

Wasserman knows that in order for the wage gap to be history, real change will need to come from the top. But that didn't stop her from advising women to take an active role in their salary negotiations. "If I negotiated my salary, and you negotiated your salary, together, collectively, we would be moving the needle in some way on the wage gap."

She hosted events across the country for non-binary and women-identifying folks to open up and share their stories around these sensitive topics like money. "I felt like with a topic that is as sensitive as money, I was concerned that if you had a panel that was sort of prescribing advise to women not knowing their financial context, let's just have an open forum, and let's make it story sharing. So I felt like having women in a room talking about discrimination that they felt--how could you have men there?"

But then, in October of 2017, after hosting an all women’s event at a bar in San Diego, Ladies Got Paid became Ladies Get Sued…for gender discrimination against men.

Wasserman, an expert at teaching women how to ask for money, now had to take a page out of her own book. In just three weeks, she was able to raise over $100,000 “through the power of (her) community.” Now, Ladies Get Paid is able to continue to provide advice to women on life in the workplace. From now on, though, men are invited too.

Check out my conversation with Claire in the Ladies Room above and let me know your thoughts on this interesting case! For more important conversations, make sure you follow Strong Opinions Loosely Held where we publish the Ladies Room every week.