When the men leave for the strip club….
March 9, 2009
by Amy Siskind
|I have been racking my brain about how to incorporate my Wall Street knowledge into an interesting series for our blog. Nina M is right — no one wants me to write about TARP. I will instead endeavor to share observations and stories from my time on The Street, and give suggestions and ideas about how we can, together, make things better for women in corporate America.
People ask me all the time about the sexism on Wall Street. My standard response, up until recently, was that I made it out unscathed. Or did I? With the benefit of some distance and time, I wonder if that was truly the case.
I had the fortune to work at some firms that were evenly split male/female. For example, Lynn Tilton and I worked together in the 1990s at a firm called Amroc Investments which was owned by a brother and sister. Amroc later became Avenue Investments and counts among its employees one Chelsea Clinton.
There was only one time in my career where I was the only female professional on the trading floor. I remember having some reservations about leaving Amroc and going to an all-male trading floor. I balanced my concerns against the fact that I got along well socially and professionally with men, and could hold my own on trading floors. Knowing that I was on the fence about leaving my employer, the new firm Wassterstein Perella Securities, promised me a two year contract with a big payout and offered to make me their first female Managing Director. I was 31 at the time and had just given birth to my first child, so this seemed too good to turn down. Ah, is it ever true that advice, like youth, is wasted on the young.
Now I need to premise what I write next by speaking out for Bruce Wasserstein, who owned the firm at the time and is now the Chairman and CEO of Lazard. Bruce is not only the most brilliant person that I have ever met in my life, he is also a world-class mentsch. Everything about Bruce is classy, including the fact that when his sister Wendy Wasserstein, the playwright, died of cancer, Bruce adopted Wendy’s daughter. Bruce did his best to stay clear of the trading floor, as did most of the investment bankers, the latter were recipients of ridicule the moment they stepped onto the floor (poor Ken Buckfire, whenever he entered, would hear the very audible chants of “Buttfire”).
So there I was a Managing Director on this trading floor of about 50 people. This place was not much different than what you see in the movies– “f*ck” was used as often as “the,” parts of the floor would clear out for the sporadic post-lunch farts, fists and shoves were all part of a week’s work. I was the only female professional on the trading floor. There was never a line in the bathroom. As I started hiring, I did bring in the second female professional (this took some doing– most women did not want to work on an almost all-male floor), but still we were vastly in the minority.
As is typical on Wall Street, there were frequent outings. At some places that I have worked, these outings were genuinely meant to be opportunities for employees to get to know one another and gel. At Wasserstein Perella Securities, these were more of an excuse for the guys to leave the wife and kids at home and go to the “titty bars.” There would be loads of testosterone floating around on the days of these events. The guys would be comparing cuban cigars, plotting the venue(s) and wearing sh*t eating grins. The head guy was a big tipper and customer, so many of the strippers knew him by name, a real badge of honor.
So there we would be at dinner. The steaks and the $200 bottles of wine were served. The chatter and excitement of it all. The frequent checking of watches. The pats on the backs. The anticipation of it all. This is when I became the lonely outsider. The only one who didn’t fit in and get the joke. Even the guys that worked for me went out after dinner. I will tell you that a few guys told me privately that they never felt comfortable going to strip clubs; but this was expected for men, and so they did it.
The next day was harder still. The guys were clearly exhausted. Most still reeked of cigar smoke and alcohol. The hardest part for me was looking at their faces. Many of them had young babies or young daughters at home. I have wondered to this day how a man goes out and pays to have a woman sit on his lap, and then goes home to his wife and his young daughter(s). How can a man objectify a woman that way and not realize that he is just perpetuating a society that will ultimately do the same to his daughter one way or another? How does he sleep at night?
When I worked at Deutsche Bank, I was involved in booking a large, very successful corporate loan underwriting. I found out after the loan closed that I had not been invited to the “closing dinner.” I worked on the deal with another woman—she and I were the only ones in our division who worked on the deal—and we were both not invited to the closing dinner.
The rest of the deal team worked out of another division and they were all men. Well, guess where the closing dinner was held?
The cost was expensed to Deutsche Bank too. The strip clubs were clever enough to mask the name of the club on the credit card slip.
lol@sh*t eating grins
MaryL,
Been there, done that – sigh.
The client entertainment aspect will be the next installment on this series!
I love how men celebrate “their” success by objectifying women and revelling in their ability to control underclass women, human beings…so much so that even when a woman is part of the success, they ignore it in favor of their delusions. They enjoy it so much, they wear the shit eating grin for days.
My observation is grins in anticipation the day before….
And frowns the next day feeling sick – and for some the guilt.
How these outings could be seen as anything less than creating a hostile work environment is beyond me. So I’m curious — do these firms not have a personnel department? I should think a “how do you think I should handle this?” visit to the head of HR — not threatening anything, just asking for guidance — could trigger management discussions that might curb the most flagrant behavior.
Otherwise, I’d be tempted to regain my power amidst that kind of oppression by quietly snapping some pictures of the biggest a$$holes, just in case they’d be useful in future.
*****A
At that time, personnel departments at most firms would not only turn a blind eye but also sign off on expense reports to strip clubs. Only recently did that end.
Adrienne,
You raise an interesting question that has really bothered me lately.
Human Resources Departments are overwhelmingly female.
And yet, on Wall Street in particular, women are marginalized and are under-represented.
The Fraternity of Leadership remains.
Why do women HR representatives choose not to act? They have so much knowledge about what goes on and they have the numbers to back it up.
Are they fearful for their jobs?
Recently, some of these HR women did summon up the courage to go up against Dell. The lawsuit is pending…
thanks for your candid post. I heard about some younger guys at fidelity getting caught expensing strip bar outings and moved my money from there.
women can vote with their funds. I am a valuable customer and I am happy with the tone and tenor of the firm I am in now, with my IRA and mutual funds.
I told Fidelity what I was doing and why. so much for a female CEO.
My first reaction to the post is that one should complain to HR, etc. However, I experienced a huge disparity in pay between myself and other men in a national law firm and I did nothing about it. I left the firm. I didn’t want to make waves because the legal field that I am in is so small. I regret it to this day.
Right on the sh*t eating grin. what is up with paying women less? What is the mentality there?
The Paycheck Fairness Act is a start. It changes the national dialogue a bit. Beyond that, we need to get women into positions of power so women will get paid fairly.
Kiuku – you’re loving that expression!
Amy,
Thank you for your post. I think it raises two tactics:
1. The importance of outside pressure and support of HR professionals. Many times, female HR Executives are the only female executives at their respective companies. Outside pressure from groups like TNA not only encourages them to step-up and support women at middle and lower ranks but also let’s them know that if the companies penalizes them for speaking-up an outside agitator will throw a spotlight on that company. Say what you want about activists like the Rev. Jesse Jackson and Rev. Al Sharpton but they will rally around minority corporate executives who feel discriminated against or marginalized.
2. The importance of putting a spotlight on Hilda Solis and her plan for the Women’s Bureau http://www.dol.gov/wb/; the EEOC http://www.eeoc.gov/abouteeoc/commission.html – four of the five Commissioners are women and Eric Holder and the Civil Rights Division http://www.usdoj.gov/crt/
Kevin,
When you find a widely read news story about such a woman and it has on open “comment string”, pls let me know and I’ll post it at PumaResponders.blogspot.com
1950democrat@gmail.com
When I read this last night, I wanted to wait for other responses. I cannot express my disappointment that once again, other women, the presumed HR personnel are being blamed.
“Bruce is not only the most brilliant person that I have ever met in my life, he is also a world-class mentsch”. This brilliant person, who controlled the firm, bankrolled these outings so his salesMEN were in the company of characters like Al Bundy and Big Pussy. For what purpose? $$$$$$$$$$$$! He could not come up with a better motivational tool to generate commissions?A mentsch does not maintain a culture where managers feel excluded from business functions.
Where is the disconnect?
I think Fl woman has the best tactic and I wouldn’t paint this scenario with too wide of a brush least all men are included. I was young and in the Marines when topless became all the rage and we went in droves to see the ladies and their bare breasts then after a few months, it got real old and the allure mostly vanished. In my opinion, guys that frequent strip clubs are incapable of intimacy with a woman on most levels including the sexual.
Yes Mary, of course you are correct but we can’t expect this Fraternity to change by themselves. Someone (or people) need to keep pointing out that what they are doing is not helping women to succeed in being treated like equals. Complaining women in the company are dismissed or marginalized in their careers because they lack the power and support internally.
The buck stops with the HR people…
Many, many times over the course of my career I have seen or heard about cases of sexual harrassment. What happened to the male offenders? They got promoted (or reassigned with a promotion.) And the women involved? They often left the company or got a lateral transfer, or a demotion.
There’s an old saying, the fish rots from the head down. Business owners set the tone for how their business is run. HR derives its power from from top management. In a company the size of WP, the probability that Bruce did not know what was going on is rather small. Regardless of how nice he may have been to Amy, it does not exonerate him from his responsibility in sanctioning and financing the activity. Certainly, he had no intention of stopping the practice, so how could HR have done so? HR sez no, the big producer goes to management who sez yes. Who do you think has the power to stop it?
HR has to keep on message. They will be overruled sometimes–maybe even many times—but that is no excuse to sit back and do nothing…
It’s a numbers game—the more voices saying the same thing—has to have an effect at least some of the time.
I am less concerned about the “entertainment” issues than I am about the unequal treatment of women in pay, in promotions and in layoffs.
OK, what can HR do? I think you are right, it is a numbers game. But the numbers that matter are the commission #’s. THese outings are usually not expressly designed to hurt women workers. But as described, women feel/are excluded. Does this impact their ability to generate revenue? Does it undermine the effectiveness of a female manager with male subordinates? It definitely can. When determining layoffs, even in the most equal of circumastances, aren’t revenue and effectiveness factors considered when determining layoffs?
I am not saying that HR should not be part of the solution but to expect them to do it without management support is unrealistic.
I don’t think revenues and effectiveness factors are considered in layoffs—generally speaking. Men hold the power, men dominate the management committees, men dominate the compensation committees.
Men pick to keep those and to promote those most like themselves—it’s that simple.
Women in positions of power have to help other women. Maybe women in HR don’t have the power, but they certainly have the position.
Somehow, they have to work harder to get management to help women to succeed. Playing a little more offense, rather than defense, may do the trick.
From my personal experience (30 years in banking) I think things have stagnated for women at best and may have indeed gotten worse. Maybe it’s just the industry, but I just don’t see the progress. So I think we all need to take a critical eye to what we can do better.
Amy said, ” no one wants me to write about TARP.”
Kevin wants us to support women who are already in positions of power. What about something on Elizabeth Warren, who has been speaking out loudly about an economic issue?
Changing nothing else, if Bruce Wasserstein’s name was changed to a woman, say Lynn Tilton, as the owner of of the firm in question, what the comments would be?
Things have stagnated. The question is “Why?”
I work in an industry that has significant female representation. So I’ve been lucky. The only time I ran into this sort of behavior was many many years ago when I worked for a beltway bandit. IMO, the whole point of these strip club “business” outings is to exclude the female co-workers. For that alone, it should never be funded by the company. That’s absurd! Company policy shouldn’t even allow for this form of “business” celebration.
@Amy Siskind on March 9th, 2009 6:00 pm
My observation is grins in anticipation the day before….
And frowns the next day feeling sick – and for some the guilt.
Toxic to be around, I bet.
Sheryl,
Yes, that’s awful! Maybe we need a directory of the businesses that are not so toxic, to direct customers to.
PS. How did you do italics?
Flora,
Aggressively supporting women like Elizabeth Warren, Christina Romer and Sheila Bair is an excellent strategy. Who knows, Barney Frank, and some other Congressional representatives who spoke up for her when the rumor was floating that Tim was going to can her, might have saved Sheila Bairs’ job.
Again, when you are on the outside looking in it is sometimes easy to ask HR to do more, or to ask women executives not to close their eyes to wrong doing or to whistleblower when companies engage in sexist or discriminatory practices but these women need an activist organization watching their back (and correcting them – in private – when they do not step-up). This strategy is what traditional civil rights organization engage in.
Catalyst is researched based and gets corporate funding so they have to be careful who they offend and NOW believes it is working behind the scenes with the Obama administration so their criticisms have been muted. I believe TNA is becoming the grassroots organization that doesn’t care who it offends in supporting women.
You are tough Amy. It is horrible that you had to go through this (that many women still do), and on top of that you had a new baby at home. wow.
Hopefully more HR depts and more women execs will feel empowered to stand up and object if they know they have a group like TNA backing them up.
I would love to see some big time company with a woman head honcho that makes the important after work “bonding” events be held at the spa. I want to hear about some poor schmo that has to shuffle around in his flip flops and robe with the girls getting a pedicure. HA.
kevin,
Every so often I see an item you would be interested in (Warren, Bair, now maybe Christen in Alaska) but don’t know what to do with it. Why don’t you start a little blog where we could all enter such information as we come across it?
Blogspot is very very easy to set up at.
I worked in the strip club business, as a cook, dj, and ” stripperfluffer”. its just like the circus, or show business- there’s the behind the scenes reality of the business, and the “show”
the Owners ingeneral dont have time for all the drama, and have a business to run. the girls all loved me, as i tried to “take good care of all my girls” as best i could, within my job duties. True- many of the customers are jerks, but many are regularr guys, who for various reasons only want “the sizzle”, not the entirre steak.
and many of the girls get entangled with jerks. But the upside of the business is its relatively recession-proof- well, sort of..
and most of the girls make more money in a night than many of the men make in a week, or 2 even, if she works it good.
these girls have children, and even loving boyfriends, or husbands; and of course there are jerks- just like verywhere else.
so when al the strippers of america unionize, and get health care benefits, and such- the “lysistrata strategy”( its a greek tale about all the women in the world “mutinying” against the stupidity of men, chauvinism, and their stupid wars, and greed)-
then when the women take over the strip club business, like they are slowly doing in the porn business, then maybe it will be more fun for everybody involved; because i agree- the strip club business, and the porn world- too much of it treats women as cattel, or chattell, whatever, and thats not right. its a hard life, but unlike wall street,or politics, when you take that long hot bath at the end of the night, you emerge as clean as the day you were born. some dirt just doesnt wash off- like corruption, or political prostitution.
some of the best women i’ve ever known were whores and strippers, for the record.
Thanks Flora,
I will look into Blogspots [hope I am saying that right
].
goesh: nothing wrong with what you’re saying (that men who aren’t permanent high schoolers get over the appeal of strip clubs) but the problem isn’t actually how men feel about it.
The problem is that it kicks women right out of the human-beings-who-count category. It says, “Who cares what you do? All you are is something for me to blow my nose on.” (Except, of course, it’s not really about noses.)
It doesn’t matter if some of the guys are embarrassed. or don’t like it, or stop doing it. The damage it does to women doesn’t change. The only thing that would matter is if some of these uncomfortable guys actually took a stand and told their co-workers, out loud, in public, “No. I’m not participating in an insult.”
That’s also why it’s not the same as making some outnumbered guy walk around in a bath robe. He’d feel silly because he has issues, but nobody is actually using him as toilet paper. There’s no parallel to what gets done to women. Nor should there be. The idea is to STOP it for everybody.
(Kevin: type “blogger.com” (no quotes, of course) into the address bar of your browser. “Create your blog” is the first choice.
)
I have one similar, but not a strip club. A team of bankers (of which I was a part) closed a cash management sales deal with our largest customer. Bank president, loan officer, and a couple of more guys headed to the golf course after lunch in celebration. My female boss and I were not invited. We took off and went antique shopping. (No we didn’t buy anything at the bank’s expense.) In fact, it cost the bank nothing whereas the golf fees were expensed. We got a slap on the wrist for TAKING THE AFTERNOON off!
I have never met an HR person who was professionally sympathetic to an employee with a complaint. (Personally, sure – but in their job capacity, no).
An HR person is considered successful if the boss perceives the employees to be under control – no headaches, no controversy. An employee who complains about strip club outings is “creating” a problem where none previously existed (in the mind of the HR person). The interests of the HR person — no controversy — and the interests of the complaining employee — yes controversy — are at odds.
Too many people lose out because they assume HR’s job is to make sure the work environment is fair, or to enforce the law. Its not. HR’s job is to keep things quiet and ‘under control.’ Those are two different things. The rare exception might be if the employee’s complaint uncovers something that will reflect positively on HR when it is presented to the boss – say, something that will save the company money.
I would never advise anyone to go to HR with a complaint. Figure out who has the most to gain from taking up your position, and who has the power to make it happen. That’s the person (or persons) you need to go to.
What the heck is a “stripperfluffer”? Is this a euphemism for drug dealer?
And now, an anecdote… An acquaintance (previously ‘friend’) of mine’s job was to hire and monitor individual construction / installation crews working on a number of different sites within a given geographic area, all doing the same job for the same company. He told me that things were going really well, and that the crews all liked him. I asked him why, and he said that if the crew was on schedule, when he visited he always took them to a strip club after work, on the company’s dime.
I asked him what the women in the crews thought about that. He replied that there weren’t any women in the crews. So I said, well, what if you were to hire a woman – what would you do then? He replied, very matter-of-factly, “But I wouldn’t hire any women. They wouldn’t fit in.”
I think it’s definitely something that won’t change until more women are in leadership positions and also are equal economic forces in the household.
I disagree with David C Roach that “you emerge as clean as the day you were born” from having been a stripper. Only if you’re lucky enough to have a fallback — most don’t.
Having stripped in Vegas for two years about eight years ago, I think the male professional’s stripping addiction comes from a larger sense of entitlement that men, especially economically successful men, feel to be able to consume women. This is typically accompanied by a situation in which the man feels estranged from his wife, as their provinces — corporation vs home — grow farther apart.
Typically these are men who have prioritized stay-at-home wives, who are thrust into (and sometimes choose, to be fair) the home environment, a progressively thankless (esp as kids go off to school) setting which isn’t rewarded in any societally visible way. It’s justifiably hard for someone in her shoes to feel motivated to lay out the red carpet he feels entitled to when he comes home at the end of a long day. He is somehow able to suspend disbelief when a highly-paid stripper treats him like a king, instead of the average, out-of-shape, selfish, increasingly narrowly focused, office dude that he has become. Once he begins to spend four figures a week, five figures a month, it becomes self reinforcing — if it has become so costly, it must be worthwhile.
Having targeted the market of 35-55 year old professionals with the above dynamics, I found very few with wives who were their professional peers. The few times I met one in the latter category, he typically had a much better bullshit detector and a much lower tendency to get sucked into addictive SC behavior.
Nina,
Thanks for a post with many wise points!
When you say, “Figure out who has the most to gain from taking up your position, and who has the power to make it happen. That’s the person (or persons) you need to go to” — it sounds like Alinsky in reverse.
You suggest finding someone to offer carrots to. What if TNA or some suitable ‘outside’ group were applying sticks at the same time — either to that same person or to someone else in the company?
I wonder if David C Roach has a daughter? Or a sister? And if he would be okay about their being strippers? Or remember when you were in junior high and imagine all your friends know your mom’s a stripper.
I really agree — check out my recent post on gender bias in corporate entertaining.
I had a similar experience as an associate at a large national law firm. Two years in a row, during a firm retreat, the strip club followed the dinner. Another very drunk female associate went to the strip club and male partners bought her a lap dance. I complained to management, only to be called a “rat” by one of the top-billing attorneys and further harassed by many others. Nothing happened and I quit a month later. Should have sued….
[...] 1998, many women on Wall Street found ourselves being the only woman on the trading floor. Some of us gals decided that we should get together socially. The first time we got together there [...]
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