Too much testosterone on Wall Street
Editor's Note: Sarah Iqbal is a consultant at the World Bank, currently working on the Doing Business Gender Law Library. Previously, she worked as an attorney in California.
Writing in the New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof opines on the benefits of having greater gender diversity in the financial sector:
At the recent World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, some of the most interesting discussions revolved around whether we would be in the same mess today if Lehman Brothers had been Lehman Sisters. The consensus (and this is among the dead white men who parade annually at Davos) is that the optimal bank would have been Lehman Brothers and Sisters.
Wall Street is one of the most male-dominated bastions in the business world; senior staff meetings resemble a urologist’s waiting room. Aside from issues of fairness, there’s evidence that the result is second-rate decision-making.
The basis of his argument comes from studies pointing to greater gender diversity as mitigating increased risk-taking behavior. According to one such study peer pressure leads to male herding behavior in financially pressurized situations resulting in high risk bets. Women’s propsensity for risk-taking, however, seems immune to this type of pressure. So is it just me, or does the crux of Kristof’s argument boil down to there being too much testosterone on Wall Street?
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One of the most aggravating things about these opinion editorials are the sweeping claims made about one gender vs. another. It takes a very specific personality and skillset to be a successful trader on Wall Street, and there is no evidence presented that suggests successful female traders are any different than their male counterparts. There is most probably overt gender bias in hiring female traders, but there may also be a biological gender bias. I don't mean this in the way Lawrence Summers once clumsily explained it.
I mean that for every 1,000, there might be a fewer absolute number of women than men who possess the necessary persona and skills to excel in trading. One must consider that the occupation of trading has been built and designed by men, the rules by which women play. This opens the discussion of whether professions are inherently biased towards one gender. These points, I believe, are also valid for female-dominated occupations, such as kindergarten teachers.
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Posted by: Etherspirit | Feb 9, 2009 8:44:54 PM
I agree with all the points above. This is not a gender either/or argument. We are in the middle of an existential crisis that requires a through review of 'how things are done.' Personally, I believe that the old rules no longer apply and we must create a new game instead of holding onto the old. The new game should include all of 'the crowd' including women.
Posted by: Tracey Carr | Feb 10, 2009 4:26:12 AM