Wall Street may not have a figure like Harvey Weinstein, but the industry is currently facing its own #MeToo battle. The movement has forced the industry to address its own history, practices and culture in uneven and shameful ways. One senior Wall Street man told Vanity Fair, “Wall Street has to be the worst.” He says that because of the “long hours, the travel, the pyramid-like structure, where there are plenty of junior women, but disproportionately fewer and fewer as you get toward the top.”
Maureen Sherry, who became the youngest managing director at Bear Stearns, wrote about this topic for RealClearLife, saying her boss once “told me what to watch out for on resumes. To him, signs of trouble were people with gender studies on their transcript or who advertised her role in Take Back the Night, a campus group that opposes sexual violence.” Sherry also fictionalized her experiences in a 2016 novel called Opening Belle and wrote in a New York Times op-ed that on her first day on Wall Street she opened up a pizza box to find unwrapped condoms instead of pepperoni slices. Vanity Fair also writes many women felt they needed to use sex appeal to get ahead, even if they had the same credentials as a man. “Women absolutely feel compelled to use their looks,” a woman who had a successful career at a big bank. “From your first day, the deck is stacked against you.”
But women are starting to fight back. Many are starting entrepreneurial organizations after leaving big firms. “It just made me angry, and anger is a great motivator,” said a female hedge-fund manager who is launching her own fund. “It makes me want to go after criminal companies and take no fucking prisoners in this industry. F-ck all these guys for doubting me and holding me down.”
Thanks for reading InsideHook. Sign up for our daily newsletter and be in the know.
