Fixing the Economy and Women
July 20, 2009
by Amy Siskind
|This past week, a dear friend of mine from Wall Street, Cammy Fulton, passed away well before her time. Cammy worked at Lehman and was a Wall Street woman who always had other women’s back. She will be missed by many. This blog piece is in her memory.
Amidst the wreckage of our economy, a discussion started earlier this year in the MSM about whether this past economic downturn could have been avoided had more women been in positions of power on Wall Street. Nicholas Kristof, a favorite here at The New Agenda, wrote a column titled Mistresses of the Universe in which he asked:
…whether we would be in the same mess today if Lehman Brothers had been Lehman Sisters.
I think those of us who work or worked on Wall Street know the answer to that: No!
…the same study also suggested that elevated testosterone levels could lead to greater assumption of risk; high testosterone levels “may shift risk preferences and even affect a trader’s ability to engage in rational choice.” In other words: when male traders crash..
So could it be that the problem on Wall Street wasn’t subprime mortgages, but elevated testosterone?
Katty Kay and Claire Shipman wrote a wonderful op-ed that appeared last week in The Washington Post titled Fixing the Economy? It’s Women’s Work. I, for one, have been eagerly waiting for someone to start to put some actual numbers behind what those of us from Wall Street innately know – we need more women in positions of power for balance.
Katty and Claire report:
And it’s not only one study, but at least half a dozen, from a broad spectrum of organizations such as Columbia University, McKinsey & Co., Goldman Sachs and Pepperdine University, that document a clear relationship between women in senior management and corporate financial success. By all measures, more women in your company means better performance.
And hats off to Katty and Claire for digging into another issue – the fact that women often cannot or choose not to have a linear job paths. After all, despite the progress that women have made, fact is we still are responsible for the majority of the duties associated with raising our children.
Beyond a certain point, many women find that the costs to family of a high-octane career are just too great. We need to recognize that the glass ceiling is in part a self-imposed, defensive perimeter. But we can’t afford to have women take themselves out of the running for top slots. And the only way to prevent that is changing the workplace to allow us the freedom to fit in our personal lives.
Luckily, that freedom makes economic sense, too. That’s why companies such as Wal-Mart, Capital One, Best Buy, Sun Microsystems and Sara Lee, to name just a few, say they have glimpsed the future of work and have decided it’s an extremely manageable place. They’ve discovered that allowing people to work the way they want — from home; at night; from the sidelines of the soccer field — actually increases productivity. Best Buy found that changing the work rules boosted productivity by an average of 40 percent.
And their conclusion – based on hard, cold facts and numbers:
Corporate America, take the first step toward economic recovery. Open your minds and offices to new ways of working and succeeding. Not because you are nice guys — but because it will help the economy and your bottom line.
Katty and Claire – YOU GO GIRLS!!!
In addition, male CEO’s spend more money and demand higher salaries and special favors. They are the ones who need the mansions, private jets, and put the nights with the prostituted women on the company card.
I really think a big part of the economic problem is discrimination. Women are the work force now. Women are taking care of children and buying homes. More men are bachelors and own only an apt and a playstation. Discriminating against women via small paychecks and limited job growth is weakening our infrastructure.
[...] Excerpt from: Fixing the Economy and Women : The New Agenda [...]
My advice to Americans who want to fix the economy:
Fire the men.
Promote the women.
Interesting take on women and the economy. Although testosterone may cause men to take more risks, it can’t always be labelled as a bad thing. Sometimes those risks turn bad, sometimes good.
Men that take risks aren’t afraid of failure, asking for raises, or making the big decisions under pressure. Women in upper management are probably just as “risky” as the men in those positions. It’s a character trait in order to succeed which a lot of women have as well.
Brian,
My piece cites the article in NYT which mentions studies that show how testosterone impacts risk. If you click on the link to the article by Nicholas you will see the information.
Women’s fear of asking for raises or more salary has nothing to do with their risk taking abilities. They just realize that the risk is greater for them then the men. They ask for raises and more salary. They just usually are turned down. Women experience rejection more often throughout their life than men and this impacts their view of that kind of risk. Elevated testosterone, however, may make men take unusually preposterous risks, and in finance, that is hardly a good thing, as the studies show.
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