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Apparently the answer to that question is still yes, much to our disappointment. I was just reading an article at Copyblogger, Why James Chartrand (of Men with Pens) Wears Women’s Underpants. That would be because James is a woman who used a male pen name to get better work and build the foundation of a great career.

Now, if you know me well from reading this blog or talking to me in person, you know that I’m all about the right person for the job gets the job. Corporate politics bore and annoy me, that’s why I left the office life and started to work at home.

Honestly though, there are still some office politics that gets kicked around the world wide web, but not nearly as much as in an actual office. Once you find the right like minded folks to work with that all sorts of fades away.

This blog is called Easy WAHM Websites … WAHM stands for work at home mom(s) and is a commonly used phrased for moms that took matters into their own hands and started making their living online. There are many men who do the same thing, working from home and have been doing so for quite some time.

The underlying truth is when a man says he works from home people don’t automatically assume that he’s playing on the computer all day and eating bon bons on the sofa watching soap operas, they envision him as wildly successful and full of brilliant ideas. When a woman says she works at home people seem to automatically think there is a scam involved, she’s just saying that to make it sound better than it is, she’s desperately selling off her kid’s possessions on eBay etc… etc… etc… You get the picture.

So, one who knows me might think that I would say that James Chartrand was abusive of our gender, a traitor to her kind. Quite the opposite actually. I salute James Chartrand for doing what needed to be done to support her children and help herself in her time of need. Even more so, I salute her for saying, “Hey, guess what? I’m a woman and this is my story.” and sharing that story with the world, because it needs to be shared.

Is it right that she received higher pay and better results when using her male pen name to apply for the same jobs she applied to as a woman? Of course it’s not right, but she’s not the one in the wrong in this tale. The person(s) in this scenario are wrong are the ones that thought only a man could do their copywriting job and do it well. Guess the jokes on them in a way now since they would now bend over backwards to have this brilliant woman write their sales pitch today. I love that!

I love that one day she decided to experiment with a pen name to see what happened, and when the results were good she rolled with it, got good pay for her already good work, and used that pay to support herself and her daughters. I say kudos to James Chartrand for doing what she needed to do, doing a good job, and making a decent days wage for doing so.

There are a few people that feel deceived and angry at James about this. I’m sorry, I think they’re angry at the wrong person. The people to be angry at are the people that treat women so poorly in the workplace that it’s easier and more fruitful of your labors to say you’re a man instead.

Any person, man or woman, who thinks this doesn’t happen in our society is going to be disappointed. It does happen, and it happens often. Women are extremely underpaid and underappreciated in many professions, both online and offline.

The story of James Chartrand should be sent to every office manager that does any kind of hiring as a wake up call to remind them what our society does to us, what our cultural structure has created, and how we can make the business world a better place.