Wall Street doesn’t like women. Or it’s women who don’t like Wall Street?

In the early eighties Wall Street at the peak of its power and success was enrolling the best and the brightest of American youth, with the promise (often fulfilled) of 7 digits income, unlimited prestige, around the clock adrenaline and 70+ hours working weeks.

Within Wall Street ranks, the number of women rose and many of them succeeded in reaching senior positions, reaffirming a trend to gender equality that seemed unstoppable, in the financial sector like everywhere else. Until the 1987 stock market crash and the massive downsizing that followed it, which fell disproportionately on women more than on men managers. Ever since, every crisis in Wall Street has brought a reduction in the number of women in leadership positions. 

In a recent article for the Atlantic, Margo Epprecht, writer, chartered financial analyst and former stock analyst, tries to explain why women have a hard time breaking the glass ceiling in the financial sector.

According to data developed by Catalyst, a non-profit aimd at expanding opportunities for women in business, today women in the financial services are 54% of the work force, but they occupy only 16% of the senior executive positions and none of the CEOs. Why? The answer doesn’t lie in women’s lack of ability. According to a publication of the Financial Analyst Journal (FAJ), also cited by Epprecht in her article, women are in fact “significantly more likely than men to be designated as All-Stars”.

 Prejudices, difficulties in establishing strong professional networks and psychology.

As reported by the Atlantic quoting a New York Times interview with Sallie L. Krawcheck, former president of the Global Wealth & Investment Management division of Bank of America, gender inequality has its origins partly in the prejudice that women are unable or unwilling to commit to their careers as men do, especially once they are mothers. Prejudice is not, however, the only factor holding women back. Women are worse PRs of themselves than men are. They are also less able to establish strong professional connections that would help them advance in their careers. From a psychological viewpoint, reports a study of the American Association of Psychology, also cited by Epprecht in the Atlantic, it’s understandable: in environments dominated by men (and often openly sexist like Wall Street), it’s not easy for women to create a solid professional network.

Not only: in a work environment where leadership has historically belonged to men, many find it hard to see women as credible candidates for senior management positions. In a study of the Center for Talent Innovation, in fact, many senior managers express a view that women generally not have the “executive presence” that differentiates “leadership material” from everybody else. According to them, women managers would lack that a combination of gravitas (the ability to project confidence), communication and appearance (looking polished and pulled together), that senior executives need.

According to Epprecht, it would also be the very same nature of Wall Street, historically rewarding those who risk big, to represent an obstacle for women. As described in a recent article of the Harvard Business Review, women would in fact be unanimously considered more risk adverse than men.

Always and everywhere the core of gender equality in the work place: work-life balance. According to Epprecht, the main reason why women don’t break Wall Street’s glass ceiling is their need to balance work and family life. As in many highly demanding and prestigious careers, the personal and emotional cost of 80 hours work weeks and frequent international travelling is simply too high for many women. And even when it’s not, their supervisors seem to think so, automatically disqualifying them for high-power positions.

In a few words, Wall Street would be pray of a vicious cycle: because of habit, psychology and a corporate culture dominated by men, women hold less powerful and satisfying position than men do. Not feeling valued and stimulated enough in their jobs, women would therefore be less willing than their male colleagues to sacrifice family life for their careers. Doing so, they would reaffirm the prejudices of a system that simply doesn’t see them as “leadership material”.

Inequality at home at the basis of all social inequalities.

Even though Epprecht does not analyze them, it’s important to ask ourselves: what are the social norms that have made Wall Street-like work models not only possible, but predominant? The truth being said, most men also don’t like to work 80+ hours a week, but they are willing to do it for the power, the prestige and, above all, the money with which Wall Street rewards its senior managers. For them, the personal cost of sacrifying personal and family time is dramatically inferior than it is for women. The reason is simple: most men who are senior mangers at Wall Street are in fact still able to have a family, whose demands are often met by their wives and partners, women who have often left their high-power careers to take care of the children. As Sheryl Sandberg points out, in Wall Street like in Main Street, inequalities in the work place actually are just a consequence of inequalities at home.

Upper photo: yarnbombing in Wall Street, from the exibition "Spontaneus interventions", http://www.spontaneousinterventions.org/project/yarnbombing