Where is the one place where there is never a line for the women’s restroom?
A financial office building.
Like I touched on in my previous post about the gender wage gap, women are grossly underrepresented in top leadership positions in all fields, and one that is close to my heart is the financial sector.
I work in finance, a largely male-dominated industry, and in both offices where I have worked there were barely any women. The only women that do actually work in these offices are the secretaries or sales assistants, very few were bankers or stock brokers. And let me tell you, there was never a line for the women’s bathroom at either of these joints.
It is unclear to me why so few women work in finance. The obvious answer would be that many women opt for different types of work because of their desire to have children. Finance is well known for its long hours, both in and out of the office, especially in your first few years in the business. It is also well known for not being flexible about its hours, which is not exactly ideal for women in their twenties and thirties who want to have a child. However, this cannot account for the entire discrepancy.
The funny thing is, women have historically performed better than men when it comes to finance. Studies have shown that companies with women on their boards of directors and women who invest money perform better than their all-male counterparts. A recent study by Rothstein Kass, for instance, found that hedge funds run by women outperformed a broad index of hedge funds, which is not so surprising when “numerous studies have shown that women take less risk, do more diligent research, suffer less from overconfidence, trade less frequently and are quicker to admit mistakes.” Yet men still significantly outnumber women in this industry.
A managing partner at the hedge fund Kase Capital Management, Whitney Tilson, notes that “if women are, in general, better suited to be successful investors, then this is a strange market inefficiency.” The real question then is how to get women more interested in working in the financial sector. This has serious implications because financial dependency is one of the main reasons that women have continued to be subordinated by men for so long. Furthermore, there will never be any hope for closing the gender pay gap when women continue to be underrepresented in industries that pay the most and leadership roles that control compensation.
Truthfully, I am not exactly sure what is the right solution. As fellow blogger Alexa Liacko writes, “this issue of missing women in leadership roles is a deeply intertwined product of social conditioning and “feminism” aversion that will take years to undo.” What is apparent is that we need to figure out how to motivate women from a young age to be interested in industries like finance. After all, it would be refreshing to not always be the only person in the office wearing high heels.
Girls, Who Run the World? 
I’m not terribly fluent in how the finance industry works, but based on my perception of it I understand it to be one driven largely by ego, and perceptions of power. Granted, I’m no expert, but from background of literary criticism I know that men choose to show and their power over others frequently. Women face the bum end of the stick in these encounters, becoming not just threats to a the stakeholders in a traditionally male dominated industry, but also becoming objects for men to show off to other men as prizes.
I can imagine this sort of culture exists in finance too. Could it be that women try and enter the industry, but are deterred by rampant discrimination they face once there?
From a writing standpoint, I must first point out that I love the way that you began your post – it was funny and clever, like a knock-knock joke that delivers a punch line like a punch in the face. Then you reiterated your thesis more clearly and explained your personal experience. All of this situated the reader to perfectly understand your point. Adding to the strength of the essay, you present the problem, but ask the reader to answer it for you, thus forcing them to seriously consider the issue, rather than skimming your assessment of it. Again, you employing humor – “the funny thing is” – to serve the exact opposite purpose of indicating the injustice of the situation. The research that you point out, that women are less confident (take less risks, do more research, etc.) shows just how much anxiety a woman has to perform well in a male-dominated work place to prove herself. I agree, it’s hard to design a way to induce women to pursue positions in fields such as finance and it will take many years and many positive research projects to encourage equal representation of each gender in the workplace.
This post is so refreshing! While I do not work in finance, I work in an office where I am the only woman. There are definitely times when I cannot help but stop in bewilderment when I realize how skewed the hiring is a my work place. I work at an acting management company in Beverly Hills. Every time I come to work, I am the only person in the office not wearing dress pants and a tie.
Why would this particular business not have more women employees? It is frankly insulting because it makes it appear as though women are not fit to manage another person’s (in this case actors) career. According to the gender distribution of all my bosses and co-workers, it seems that only men are fit and qualified for this task… and I guess me?
All this is to say that I believe this huge disparity touches other industries as well as finance.