As a daughter of two software engineers, I’ve grown up thinking that I can be whatever I want to be. My parents never taught me otherwise, and it made perfect sense to me that I could be the creator of my own destiny. As I slowly became more aware of my surroundings by reading the news and watching women around the world struggle to gain autonomy, I realized that the rest of the world still lacked the mindset that my parents had embedded in me from day one.

Yes, progress is happening. But sometimes it just feels like Newton’s Third Law prevents anything from really moving forward. Because for every forward action, there is an opposite and equally backward reaction. Or, in this case, at about the same time the Nobel Peace Prize was granted to Malala Yousafzai for her efforts in advocating for Pakistani girls’ education, Satya Nadella, the CEO of Microsoft, made an ostentatiously sexist comment against the pay-gap.

Nadella accidentally made headlines last week for his remark at the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing conference and it’s clear that the topic on the gender wage gap isn’t going away. When asked on his advice for women unsure about asking for a raise by Dr. Maria Klawe, the Harvey Mudd College president, Nadella encouraged women not to ask. His response incorporated the idea that “knowing and having faith [in] the system” will eventually win them the “right raises” as they progress through the workforce. His belief of “good karma” is well-intentioned, but ill-placed, as many employed women will attest. 

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His inadvertent slip was widely publicized because of the recent push for women in the technology sector. In retrospect, the incident seems a little overstated, especially considering Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign blunder in listing his “binders full of women.” Nadella did apologize, via Twitter, and write that he “was inarticulate” in how he phrased the wording of his response. He commented after: “Our industry must close gender pay gap so a raise is not needed because of a bias.” In doing so, he has accepted responsibility for his words, but also set up the framework to foster conversation, should innovators and CEOs around the world choose to accept it. 

His hyper-visible statement could potentially turn into a huge step for closing the gender gap, if acted on correctly. According to the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, the current gender wage gap for computer software engineers has a median weekly earning difference of $145 for the same labor (or on average, 90.9% the earnings of men, while representing 20.6% of the workforce). While the wage gap has definitely lessened over the years, there are many more gains to be made, starting with the fact that there are not enough women in tech. Microsoft revealed its diversity breakdown just two weeks ago, and only 29 percent of its employees are women. Even more tragic is the fact that women comprise only 17 percent of the technical and leadership roles there.

Nadella’s commentary jolted nearly everyone, and reactionary tweets against the situation started almost immediately. Lucy P. Marcus, CEO of Marcus Ventures, tweeted Nadella saying, “Karma doesn’t pay the bills.” Other influential officers stepped up, bashing the CEO’s remarks. But criticizing male CEOs on feminism is not the best way to advocate for equality. Patty Lopez, an engineer at Intel, explained, “We have to allow room for our male allies to learn and grow,” urging everyone to “keep the conversation moving forward.” Organizations like the American Association of University Women (AAUW) help with Lopez’s mission in their campaign to lessen the wage gap. The AAUW aims to do so by advocating for equal-pay policies, fair pay negotiations (done by the women, of course), and published salary audits, and many other organizations will hopefully follow AAUW’s footsteps.

So instead of focusing on Nadella’s words, we should give way to the women and let them lead us into a world where employees, regardless of their sex, will not have to rely on other ideas of “good karma” to earn their rightful raises.

Contact Contributor Shweta Tatkar here; or follow her on Twitter here.