I Support Women In Finance
“What a thing to write, who wouldn’t?” you might be tempted to say.
The sad answer is, many people don’t, and 30 years after I first stepped foot on a Wall Street trading floor, women still face the very same attitudes, walls, ceilings, and yes, outright threats & harassment that I hoped would have been ancient history by now.
“Ok, but why are you writing this on your firm’s blog, and not your personal blog?”
The answer is easy, because we need to support women in finance from our industry positions, even more than as private individuals. Some folks might also say that it’s a marketing, “risk,” to attack this subject from a company blog, and maybe it is, but that’s ok with me. I am a numbers guy, but I also wear my heart on my sleeve, and if a potential client is uncomfortable with my stance here, we probably wouldn’t be a good business fit long term anyway.
Why are you even writing today?
Last night a good #FinTwit friend of mine was harassed to the point where she was driven to suspend her account to protect herself. Her attackers, and it was an attack, dragged her account, entered her DMs, and brought her personal email into it, all in an attempt to what? Be funny? Make a stupid joke? Appeal to other lowlifes? Today, two other friends of mine wrote about the disgusting nature of this attack, one a man, and one a woman. Can you guess who was similarly attacked by the account in question? I bet you can.
I don’t know whether men in finance are particularly insecure. I know my share of similarly insecure male physicians when it comes to women in medicine, so maybe not. But I’ve spent the majority of my career in finance, so that’s where my, “community,” is, online and off. And when my community behaves poorly, and can’t seem to move itself forward to save its life, that’s where I have to step up.
When I joined a MBS trading floor in 1991, there was exactly one woman trader. One. On a floor of over 100. I realized eventually that she was a pioneer, and I told her so during the pandemic lockdown when I was reaching out to people I hadn’t kept in touch with well enough over the years. Her trading book was steadily profitable, but she was quietly profitable. The male traders shouted, broke their 12Cs & phones. (Yes, that was not just in the movies.) One of the male traders who clearly condescended to her on a daily basis was eventually fired for mis-pricing securities to the tune of millions of dollars in losses for the firm, but you know the trading bros still respected him more than a, “girl trader.”
After business school, I took a job consulting with KPMG in NYC. The partner running the NY branch of the practice was one of the only women partners in the Wall Street facing practice. Our Park Ave office was the one with the Street relationships. We worked the hardest deals. Heck, our group structured the first Bowie bonds (you won’t find us mentioned, but you can look it up). The practice was headquartered in DC for some reason, and when I traveled there to work, the managers & even consultants poked fun at my partner. For what? Nothing that I could ever figure, except that she was a woman. You know what? She was great. Super smart. And successful. But that wasn’t enough.
I worked with & for women at multiple banks. I was lucky. They taught me a lot. But I saw the same things over & over. I watched my MD reduced to tears by her boss & his band of bro-associates. For. No. Good. Reason. I watched a promising associate that had a hand in hiring leave the group, and the industry, because she saw she couldn’t get ahead. She wouldn’t be invited to the, “after hours,” portion of client meetings, or the golf outings. She finally had enough, and though we spoke about it, there was nothing I could do.
Heck, at one bank, they even laughed at me because I was the only VP to report to a woman SVP. What? Yup. You can’t make this stuff up.
But you’re old - that was the 90s, even 2000s, etc.
That’s what you’d think. That’s what I’d like to think. But I’m writing here in late 2021. And it’s still happening. It’s happening on social media. And it’s happening in real life. And it will keep happening until more of us stand up and say, “enough.”
I did today. I got a, “Bless your heart,” reply to a tweet from one of the anon followers of the lead harasser. They don’t care, because I’m a little account. My hedge fund didn’t make me a character in, “The Big Short.” I’m a nobody. But… and this is an old formula: you get enough nobodies together, and it becomes something.
If you’ve read this far, I’ll only ask that you call folks out for their bad behavior. It really does help. These fools celebrate their misogyny, but for every one of them, there are ten other men (and women too, sadly) who prolong this type of prejudice & harassment through their silence, tacit approval, & semi-innocent behaviors. When questioned, they may actually begin to understand that they can be part of a solution, instead of inadvertently contributing to the problem. I’ll ask that you take it seriously when women tell you that they’re being harassed. I’ll ask that you understand it’s not about the woman needing a, “thicker skin,” or some such thing excusing the attacker’s behavior.
