The Evaporating Women of Wall Street
April 1, 2011
by Amy Siskind
|Fewer women seem to be climbing the corporate ladder on Wall Street these days. Amy Siskind says it’s time to get rid of bad managers with gender bias—it would only be good business.
Where are the heroines of Wall Street? They were so conspicuous when I entered the workforce—the “tiger lady” in Baby Boom (1987) who starts a multimillion dollar company while raising a child, or the Working Girl (1988) who rides the Staten Island Ferry and orchestrates a colossal M&A transaction. The women of my generation bounded onto Wall Street, assured we could raise our children while making millions (and, we did). The future looked bright. The ranks of Wall Street women swelled as we climbed the ladder, extending a hand up and down to other women. Then, something started to go terribly wrong.
Read the entire article here.
I can’t help but believe that we are seeing less and less of women on Wall Street because they are more likely than not to oppose gaming the system and being a whistleblower, rather than scheme to win at all costs, like the boyz tend to do and therefore, are not welcome.
If I recall correctly, wasn’t there 2 or 3 female economists who warned of the coming financial implostion, but were dismissed out of hand by both Summers and Geithner?
I am not surprised that Corporate Media has not covered this story responsibly and accurately, the quality of their reporting on any topic has gone down hill in the past 5 years. I am also not surprised they cover stories in a sexist manner since Corporate Media seems to be the most sexist institution left in the world.
The sexism of Corporate Media is against their own financial interests since women are the majority and make most consumer decisions but they are so committed to their sexist view of the world they can’t even act in their own best financial interest (or the best financial interest of their stock holders) and continue to regularly insult and ignore the female audience.
Interestingly, Susan Faludi (who I adored before she went downhill with The Terror Dream) considered both Working Girl and Baby Boom to be backlash movies. I haven’t seen either, so I don’t know if her assessment is accurate, but she considered Sigourney Weaver’s character in Working Girl to be a misogynistic portrayal of a brittle, selfish yuppie career woman, and Diane Keaton’s exit from the corporate world to start a baby food company to be a “women can’t have it all” message. So based on movies, at least, I wonder if the 80′s were really that much better.
I really enjoyed your personal account of Wall Street, Amy.
the 15th,
The heroine in Working Girl was Melanie Griffith, who in a very Sarah Palin-ish kinda way used street smarts to outmaneuver the Ivy Leaguers. But agree that Sigourney’s character was not positive. Melanie sure was. I was cheering for her all the way. Melanie beat out mostly myopic men in her victory.
I’m at a loss for Baby Boom. I loved it (and, well, maybe because Diane Keaton is one of my favorite actresses) and even own it (I own under 10 movies). It was a complete inspiration to me because I realized it was taken place in the past (my generation was next), but that they begged her to come back to the Investment bank and she did not -instead having it all.
There are no heroines since then in financial services that I could recall or google to find.
P.S.: I loved Faludi’s first book too – but I disagree – these movies made me feel like as a woman I could have it all (and I did)!
P.S.: please go rent Baby Boom. If you don’t feel like running a marathon afterward, I’ll send you your rental cost: – )
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