When Satya Nadella, Microsoft’s chief executive, told a conference of women in tech on Thursday they should not ask for a raise, but trust “faith” and “karma” to reward them appropriately, he not only caused an immediate stir at his own company and other tech companies, but also touched a nerve among women in other industries.

The furor highlighted one of the country’s biggest workplace paradoxes: Even as women are becoming more educated than men and achieving higher career levels than ever, they are still treated differently at work.

That includes receiving median pay of about 20 percent less than their male counterparts. One reason is that women negotiate less than men, including for higher pay. When they do, they are penalized, largely because of preconceived notions about gender roles that have not caught up with women’s role in the workplace. It is expected that men promote themselves and speak up, but not women.

“It basically violates the expectations about how we think women are supposed to be,” said Linda Babcock, an economics professor at Carnegie Mellon University and a leading researcher on women and pay negotiations. “The literature talks about women being communal, kind, interested in others, helpful, not aggressive. When people violate expectations, there’s backlash against them.”

Alexis Fritzsche, who works in sales in San Francisco, said Nadella’s comments would inspire her and her friends to ask for raises, rather than discouraging them.

“The conversation around salary, the conversation around the art of women asking and how to ask are conversations that are happening organically already between my friends and myself,” she said. “For us, it only fuels the fire that they should be asking for raises.”

After the uproar about his remarks, Nadella backtracked, writing Microsoft employees, “If you think you deserve a raise, you should just ask.”

But within the tech industry, Nadella’s comments particularly hit home. The industry generally has been under fire for its low numbers of women and in some cases poor treatment of them. Tech companies have lately been issuing reports on the diversity of their workforces; generally, about one-third of all employees and fewer than 20 percent of technical employees are female.

“His comments are illustrative of a double standard for women in tech,” said Monica Harrington, a former senior manager at Microsoft who said the problem was far bigger than just one executive.

Research gives women contradictory messages. A study of Carnegie Mellon University business school grads found that women are less likely than men to ask for raises and that this contributes to the pay gap. Yet at the same time, women pay a price for negotiating, a fear Nadella confirmed when he said he has more trust in and gives more responsibility to women who don’t ask for raises.