A Colleague Drank My Breast Milk and Other Wall Street Tales
Wall Street Women
It seems that every week there is another editorial about the issue of gender equality and flexibility in the workforce. This past Sunday Maureen Sherry wrote an Op-Ed titled, A Colleague Drank My Breast Milk and Other Wall Street Tales. It is illuminating, but not shocking, to hear a woman who achieved success on Wall Street opening up about her experience with institutionalized discrimination and harassment. When interviewing a young woman for an entry-position she explains the reality of being a woman in her field:
“Of course she would have to avoid stereotypical female behavior, and so she could never cry. She would work long hours and hide her pregnancies and her preschooler’s art. One of my co-workers even hid being married. When confronted, she practically swore never to reproduce, and she never did.”
Every day we speak with women signing up for the Second Shift who have left major careers in finance because of the brutal hours, hostile environment and lack of flexibility. Why do they leave— according to many of the women we speak to, it is because they start out at a disadvantage just being a woman and if they become a parent it just gets harder. They all have stories like Maureen Sherry’s:
• Investment banks openly taking college recruits on strip club tours.
• Women bankers working all-nighters while pregnant.
• An MBA candidate asked in interview if she were pregnant would she terminate the pregnancy for the sake of the deal.
By the time Wall Street women sign up for membership with The Second Shift they are fed up, and for good reason!
“Women now receive the majority of college and graduate degrees, and we make the vast bulk of consumer decisions and purchases. Forty percent of American households with children under 18 have a woman as primary or sole breadwinner. For future generations of women to do better, we must change the culture of institutions like Wall Street.”
These days, many Wall Street firms do actively try to recruit and retain more women. Unfortunately the culture and workplace norms have not changed and they continue to bleed critical talent during the crucial mid-career years. Returnship programs work for women who are eager to go back to full-time careers. However, Returnships assume that women are willing to come back to the same family un-friendly hours, to the same intolerant environment the left behind. These programs do not address the myriad reasons that drove these same women out in the first place.
We don’t have all the answers but we are working on one idea—providing flexible opportunities to women so they are in the driver seat of their own careers. If given a break from the unrelenting corporate finance grind many of our members say they would happily continue their jobs, even with the “all boys club environment,’ so it is up to the industry to try harder to keep them.