Summer interns research pay transparency and BookTok's diversity discourse

This summer, two Stanford undergraduates joined the Clayman Institute as part of the Susan Heck Interns program. An Institute founder, Heck was passionate about providing training and mentorship to undergraduates as well as focusing research on underserved populations. As part of the 10-week, full-time program, each intern works on a project of their choosing, complete with individual mentorship from a PhD with expertise in gender research. In addition, they participate in a weekly seminar led by a postdoctoral fellow. An interdisciplinary community of peers, access to scholarly mentorship, and the experience of launching a research project stand among the important benefits students gain from the program. Following are reflections and project summaries from this year’s interns.

Full Transparency: An initiative for pay equity and equality in the workplace

By Dakota Lawlar

November 18 is Indigenous Women’s Equal Pay Day and the last Equal Pay Day of the 2025 calendar year. Just a little over a month until the end of 2025, the day marks the amount of additional time Indigenous women need to work to earn as much as their white, male colleagues earned in 2024. Then the cycle begins again for the next year with Indigenous women working full-time, almost an entire year behind in pay. As a whole, economic experts forecast that at the current rate, the gender wage gap won’t be closed for more than 130 years. In my research thus far as a Susan Heck Intern at Stanford’s Clayman Institute for Gender Research, I’ve explored how pay transparency can be an effective tool against the persistent and pervasive problem of the wage gap. 

Specifically, pay transparency means that employees not only have access to information about their pay and how it compares to their colleagues, but also how their pay stacks up against current trends of the industry. With this information, employees can negotiate early in the application process and know which companies are committed to correcting unjustified pay disparities as well as which companies are trying to remain in the shadows.

Now in the second year of my research as a Susan Heck Intern, I’ve transformed this work into a research-based educational resource called Full Transparency. My goal in creating this movement, addressing pay transparency, is to help individuals navigate current law and advocate for themselves when negotiating their worth in the workplace. Providing this forward-thinking work and solutions to individuals, companies, and government agencies, my aim is to impact the prevalent and persistent wage gap before this century is over.

Companies and individuals can use the resource to learn more about pay transparency, how they can spark momentum for change within their own spheres, and most importantly, how to negotiate for themselves. By providing an overview of the severity of the wage gap, especially for minority women, and mechanisms through which pay transparency breaks the cycle of underpay, this resource is aimed to educate and inspire. Specifically, Full Transparency lays out the history of this fight for equal pay, current laws, which states have committed to passing such legislation, and steps each of us can take regarding our own personal situations.

On the employee side, individuals are provided information on how to leverage pay information during negotiations, where and why they should engage, in addition to creating whisper networks where employees can share compensation data with each other, and how social media can be a powerful tool for raising awareness on cultures of secrecy in the workplace. Crucially, research is also summarized, which illuminates aspects of one’s employment package that are often overlooked, yet just as likely to be prone to disparities when calculating one’s wage gap.

Companies have the opportunity to learn how to effectively implement pay transparency directives regardless of their local legislation. Guiding companies through the process with examples of directives other companies have successfully used, and research showing numerous long-term benefits, the Full Transparency site emphasizes how pay transparency is a much more valuable tool for companies than a risk.

While companies and employees play a vital role in ushering in a new era of pay transparency, advocating for structural changes at the legislative level is equally if not more important for expansive change. Full Transparency connects these individual initiatives to a larger initiative of advocacy, building momentum for pay transparency and other equal pay laws at the local, state, and federal level. While those processes are slow moving, together, knowing the tools we can use as a community, we can close the wage gap globally before the end of the century. Explore the Full Transparency website.

The Power in Privilege: Tracking Racial Disparity Among Women in Publishing Through DEI Discourse on BookTok

by Emily Nuñez

My name is Emily Nuñez (they/them), and I am a transfer student studying English literature. As an avid reader and novelist, my days are more often than not filled with all things books; I have always loved writing stories and my hope is to one day become a published author. As such, I have found myself continuously drawn to the ins and outs of publishing, particularly the staggering percentages of racial disparity within the industry among women authors.

This summer, thanks to the Susan Heck Internship program at the Clayman Institute for Gender Research, I was able to take my prior curiosity surrounding publishing and turn it into a project I feel deserves deeper exploration. My research over the last 10 weeks has focused on the notion of diversity in publishing as a threat, specifically to white women authors, and what I have since termed the “woe is a white woman” phenomenon.

Having immersed myself for several years now into the world of “BookTok” – a corner of TikTok which consists largely of readers, authors, and publishers coming together to discuss books and trends within the industry – I found myself exposed recently to some troublesome discourse. What I came across was white women authors taking to the social media application to voice concerns over the adverse effects they believe diversity and inclusion efforts are having on their personal attempts to find representation in the publishing industry. This exposure then led me to begin questioning the dangers behind the spread of misinformation, especially with the state of the current political climate, and from then I knew I wanted to learn more.

What I discovered in looking at the actual data was that white, cis-gendered women are, at this time, dominating the publishing industry. According to the Diversity Baseline survey conducted by Lee & Low Books in 2019 (which was sent out to 2,609 reviewer employees, 17,100 trade publishing employees, 1,528 university press employees, and 516 literary agents), 76% of the industry is white/caucasian and 81% identify as straight, with cis women making up 74% of the total. Further, my research allowed me to explore the DEI discourse on BookTok more thoroughly, and sought to take a closer look at the real power and sway that white women carry, to determine how they might better utilize it going forward by focusing instead on the importance of employing intersectional lenses when discussing diversity in publishing.

My internship at the Clayman Institute was a time during which the unrestrained investigation of my interests was not merely fostered, but heavily and sincerely encouraged. With an incredible mentor by my side throughout the entire process, as well as a team exuding nothing but kindness and support, I could not have asked for a better experience.