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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.

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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff mom never told you?

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Speaker 1: From House top Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to

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Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Kristen, I'm money Bags. Molly money Bags, Molly, alright,

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Speaker 1: so money Bags. On March twenty nine, two thousand and ten, Uh,

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Speaker 1: there was a Women in Finance Symposium. Don't I know it? Yes,

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Speaker 1: you are money bags today. Can see the dollars signs

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Speaker 1: in your eyes. Um. But basically it was this event

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Speaker 1: put together by the Department of Treasury in partnership with

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Speaker 1: the White House Counsel on Women and Girls in celebration

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Speaker 1: of Women's History months. So I got together a lot

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Speaker 1: of a lot of big wigs from the finance world. Basically,

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Speaker 1: they found like the handful of sea level finance execs

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Speaker 1: who happened to also be women and got them together

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Speaker 1: in a room to talk about the state of women

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Speaker 1: in finance. And the thing that I was most surprised

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Speaker 1: about with this event, Molly, was just kind of the

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Speaker 1: lack of press coverage about it. The event was sort

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Speaker 1: of a non event except for I feel like the

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Speaker 1: one press worthy thing that came out of this was

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Speaker 1: a quote from Treasury Secretary Timothy Geitner in response to

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Speaker 1: a question from a panel an audience member asking whether

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Speaker 1: the financial crisis would have happened if women had been

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Speaker 1: running Wall Street? Could women do a better job running

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Speaker 1: Wall Street? Essentially, and he said, quote, well, that's kind

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Speaker 1: of a low bar. How you might ask could women

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Speaker 1: have not done better? So people are saying, whoa, hey,

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Speaker 1: Gitner's pro women in Wall Street. That's great because any

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Speaker 1: went on to point out that women make up a

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Speaker 1: frighteningly small percentage of uh, the executives on Wall Street,

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Speaker 1: and a lot A large part of the symposium was

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Speaker 1: to try to um reignite women's interests in going into finance.

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Speaker 1: So let's talk about why are all these women? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: because the question, the question that was posted to Guidner

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Speaker 1: at the symposium did come straight from a New York

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Speaker 1: magazine article that was published right around the same time

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Speaker 1: entitled Surprise what if women ran Wall Street? Because there's

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Speaker 1: some thought, I mean, as usual when our podcasts, there's

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Speaker 1: some element of gender stereotypes. They're going to play into

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Speaker 1: it that women are these level headed, logical beings when

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Speaker 1: it comes to money because as a head of a household,

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Speaker 1: they're going to make sure that their family doesn't starve,

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Speaker 1: that everyone's well taken care of. And they're not as aggressive.

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Speaker 1: They're not the risk takers. That's a man's thing. Men

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Speaker 1: have historically taken care of the money. It's it's two

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Speaker 1: different worlds. And can women really integrate into this world

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Speaker 1: and become a force to be reckoned with on Wall Street?

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Speaker 1: And if they did, would the financial situation be better? Yeah?

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Speaker 1: So Sheila call Hacker of New York Magazine really digs

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Speaker 1: into this idea of differences between men and women, and

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Speaker 1: she traces it all the way down to biology, namely hormones. Molly,

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Speaker 1: one of our favorite topics here on stuff. Mom never

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Speaker 1: told me we talked about hormones in a while. We haven't.

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Speaker 1: So let's say hello again to testosterone and estrogen. And

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Speaker 1: a lot of it goes back to the risk taking

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Speaker 1: behavior fueled by testosterone. Obviously, you get on the floor

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Speaker 1: of the New York Stock Exchange if you're a trader,

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Speaker 1: and the men just go crazy, you know, I mean

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Speaker 1: they're trading competition, Yes, high competition, high stress. Uh, lots

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Speaker 1: and lots of money at risk here, and there have

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Speaker 1: been studies tracing levels of trestosterone and cortisone, which is

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Speaker 1: a hormone that we release as in response to stress,

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Speaker 1: and researchers have traced how men's hormone levels testosterone and

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Speaker 1: cortisone levels will shift during as the market fluctuates, essentially

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Speaker 1: during a trading day. Right there, talking about essentially the

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Speaker 1: influence of the environment on the testosterone, but basically saying

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Speaker 1: that if it's a guy who works maybe here for example,

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Speaker 1: at how stuff works, he's just writing his articles, doing

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Speaker 1: his podcasts. There's not a lot of proggressive behavior here.

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Speaker 1: Sorry to disappoint, I don't know, Josh, and Chuck gets

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Speaker 1: a little Harriet sometimes true. Um, but if you are

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Speaker 1: in this very highly competitive, stressful environment, that that's when

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Speaker 1: testosteroniser is going to surge. And there have been you know,

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Speaker 1: these studies lead the researchers to conclude that risk taking

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Speaker 1: and testosterone are linked. And because women have less testosterone

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Speaker 1: than men, then they will never have those risk taking

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Speaker 1: abilities that the men do. Yeah, supposedly, women produce fifteen

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Speaker 1: times less test saserone than men do, therefore inhibiting our

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Speaker 1: risk taking behavior. UM. And Terry Burnham is an economist

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Speaker 1: and author of Mean Markets and Lizard Brains, How to

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Speaker 1: Profit from the New Science of Irrationality. And he's really

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Speaker 1: looked into this testosterone financial risk taking connection, and uh

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Speaker 1: he found the higher testosterone men are more likely to

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Speaker 1: reject money that was offered to them if someone else

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Speaker 1: was getting a larger share. So it's not only just

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Speaker 1: this risk taking, but it's also this competition with the

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Speaker 1: men around you. You know, the idea of giving up money,

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Speaker 1: just not accepting free money simply because you know, I

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Speaker 1: rejected a hundred dollars just because I knew you were

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Speaker 1: going to get two hundred dollars. It's kind of ridiculous

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Speaker 1: to think about. But um, I think that that's kind

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Speaker 1: of a good example of the irrationality that that does

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Speaker 1: exist in Wall Street when when you do when you

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Speaker 1: do have all of this financial risk at stake. And

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Speaker 1: he points out as well that a younger CEO, who

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Speaker 1: therefore has a higher level of testosterone, is more likely

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Speaker 1: to walk away from a merger um even when the

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Speaker 1: deal was in his company's best interests, just because there's

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Speaker 1: that competitive, highly competitive, cutthroat environment, that stereotypical gender norms

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Speaker 1: would say that women just aren't cut out for you know,

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Speaker 1: which you haven't handled it Russia. Burnham points out that

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Speaker 1: we might just have a role to play that's not

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Speaker 1: being well used right now, and he calls women the

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Speaker 1: big break pedal, so that if you've got that young

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Speaker 1: CEO about to walk off because he wants to prove that,

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Speaker 1: like his pile of money is bigger than another pile

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Speaker 1: of money, that a woman could be the person that having.

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Speaker 1: He says, all right, here's the quote. Having too many

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Speaker 1: men involved in business might cause them to take more risk,

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Speaker 1: and having more women would probably be good in lots

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Speaker 1: of settings because they can act as this stopper well

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Speaker 1: and going along those same lines, UM John Coas is

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Speaker 1: a Senior Researcher Fellow in Neuroscience and Finance at the

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Speaker 1: University of Cambridge and he has really examined the behavior

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Speaker 1: of UH stack traders and he says that these men

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Speaker 1: will display clinical symptoms of mania. He says their delusional, euphoric, overconfident,

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Speaker 1: have racing thoughts and a diminished need for sleep. Essentially,

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Speaker 1: they go insane for money and UM and he he

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Speaker 1: feels like UH, a lot of these volatile moods wings

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Speaker 1: that happen are really a male phenomenon, right, he says.

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Speaker 1: I mean, he makes the case that it's dangerous to

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Speaker 1: have males whose brains are so affected handling so much money,

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Speaker 1: which brings us to a pretty interesting figure in this

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Speaker 1: New York Magazine article, Doug Hershworn who calls himself a

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Speaker 1: peak performance coach to Wall Street traders, and he teaches

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Speaker 1: both men and women how to make better decisions and

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Speaker 1: avoid the destructive habits that can ruin the economy. And

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Speaker 1: it's it's sort of funny to read about the exercises

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Speaker 1: he gives the men. I mean, they essentially, you know,

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Speaker 1: he has to tell them, like, this is testosterone. You

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Speaker 1: need to curb it. You need to journal, you need

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Speaker 1: to you know, go take a kickboxing class. You need

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Speaker 1: to get out of your own head. It's it's almost

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Speaker 1: sort of the advice you'd expect a woman to get.

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Speaker 1: So on the flip side, the whole theory is that

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Speaker 1: if there were more women involved in the higher levels

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Speaker 1: in Wall Street, making the trades, pulling the levers, what

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Speaker 1: have you, uh, then they would balance out this kind

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Speaker 1: of testosterone fueled insanity that led us to this crisis

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Speaker 1: in the first place, because she starts off the article

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Speaker 1: by saying that people in the top tiers of the

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Speaker 1: financial sector will tell you that in order to succeed,

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Speaker 1: you cannot let your emotions get the best of you,

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Speaker 1: when in fact, a lot of the behavior that caused

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Speaker 1: the financial meltdown were fueled by very emotional responses to

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Speaker 1: these very competitive men who didn't want to be seen

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Speaker 1: as underperforming, who didn't want to be seen as not

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Speaker 1: risk taking enough. And if we had had more of

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Speaker 1: a level headed woman who just simply doesn't have the

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Speaker 1: same biological drives to be as aggressive, even if it's

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Speaker 1: an incredibly stupid idea, Uh, then we've been much better

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Speaker 1: shape than we are now. Molly. This is also we

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Speaker 1: have to take all this with a grain of salt.

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Speaker 1: I mean, obviously a day trader's success doesn't just hinge

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Speaker 1: on his levels of testosterone, right, man or woman. Obviously

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Speaker 1: you've got to be smart and know what you do

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Speaker 1: in order to succeed. And you know we're not we're

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Speaker 1: not male bashing here. We have no idea if there

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Speaker 1: were a ton of women in charge on Wall Street,

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Speaker 1: if things would have been better. It's it's an unknown.

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Speaker 1: Maybe it would have been the same. Maybe we've been better,

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Speaker 1: maybe I've been worse. But you're right, there does need

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Speaker 1: to be some intelligence in this Christian and both men

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Speaker 1: and women are going to business school. The rates of

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Speaker 1: women enrolling in business school programs is on the rise.

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Speaker 1: As of two thousand nine, women made up thirty nine

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Speaker 1: point three percent of full time students in American business schooled,

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Speaker 1: compared to thirty four point one percent five years earlier,

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Speaker 1: according to the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools. But now, molly,

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Speaker 1: let us contrast that to industry numbers once we get

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Speaker 1: out of college. And this is according to the Harvard

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Speaker 1: Business Review, less than eighteen percent of corporate officers and

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Speaker 1: boards of directors of Fortune five hundred financial services firms

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Speaker 1: are females. So how did we go for making up

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Speaker 1: almost of the business school students to making up less

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Speaker 1: than of these high tier jobs. So it seems to

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Speaker 1: me that, you know, you can make that argument about

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Speaker 1: testosterone in biology all you want, but when it comes

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Speaker 1: down to it, it seems there's something very unfriendly in

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Speaker 1: Wall Street culture to women. It's very hard to integrate

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Speaker 1: into this old boys club. You know, we found one

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Speaker 1: uh historical article from the seventies about how when a

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Speaker 1: London stock exchange allowed women, and it was all about

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Speaker 1: how this was the last bastion of masculinity finally being

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Speaker 1: taken over. I mean it's, you know, for some reason

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Speaker 1: or other, whether it's just that ancient idea that men

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Speaker 1: handle money, men make the money, men deal with the money.

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Speaker 1: It's been a very hard stereotype to break, even hundreds

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Speaker 1: of years later. Yeah, I mean even in we have

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Speaker 1: a huge class action lawsuit against Meryll Lynch when only

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Speaker 1: six women were in charge in Meryll's one hundred and

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Speaker 1: forty branches, which made up four point three percent of

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Speaker 1: the total. And since the recession there's also been a

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Speaker 1: slew of sex discrimination cases is at a lot of

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Speaker 1: these larger financial firms from women who are saying that

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Speaker 1: they have been unfairly treated because they have taken maternity

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Speaker 1: leave or they have you know, come back after maternity

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Speaker 1: leave and wanted to you know, breastthrough their child or

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Speaker 1: what have you. Basically, once they once they want to

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Speaker 1: have a kid, they're screwed and their and their job

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Speaker 1: is slowly whittled away into nothing. And when there were

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Speaker 1: all the layoffs after the recession women had women faced

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Speaker 1: a disproportionate number of them. Essentially, a lot of people

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Speaker 1: got fired, but since women made up so few employees

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Speaker 1: to begin with, it hit them a lot harder. So

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Speaker 1: we have Zoe Cruz, who was alsted in November two

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Speaker 1: thousand seven as co president of Morgan Stanley. And then

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Speaker 1: we have Aaron Callan, who was demoted in June two

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Speaker 1: thoight a CFO to the now bankrupt Lehman Brothers. And

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Speaker 1: finally we have Sally Crawcheck, who resigned in September two

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Speaker 1: thousand eight, is chief executive of City Groups Global Wealth

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Speaker 1: Management Unit. And those three names come up again and

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Speaker 1: again because when they were first promoted to these sea

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Speaker 1: level positions, it was a big deal that finally women

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Speaker 1: were starting to get a foothold in the financial sector,

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Speaker 1: and then all of a sudden, the recession hits and

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Speaker 1: you have, you know, three of the lead women in

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Speaker 1: the industry. All of a sudden they're gone. Now some

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Speaker 1: people have gone back and said, well, they were completely

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Speaker 1: enpt and shouldn't have been in those jobs in the

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Speaker 1: first place. But I think it's um, you know, kind

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Speaker 1: of a an example of what seems to be a

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Speaker 1: gender imbalance in the firings that have happened as a

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Speaker 1: result of the recession, the recession, because without naming names,

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Speaker 1: it seems there are some inepped men who kept their positions.

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Speaker 1: Oh yes, it's true to put it politely, to put

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Speaker 1: it politely, yeah, but then uh, you know, even in

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Speaker 1: the lower tiers, Like I said, there have been all

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Speaker 1: of these lawsuits that have come up, um that we

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Speaker 1: read about in Forbes magazine where again and again, these

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Speaker 1: same types of situations were happening to women who had

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Speaker 1: proven themselves as very able, high achieving employees, who at

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Speaker 1: some point would take the quote unquote off ramp as

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Speaker 1: it is termed to have a child. Then they would

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Speaker 1: come back and their job would be gone. And you know,

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Speaker 1: they keep calling at the off ramp, Kristen. But some

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Speaker 1: of these some of these women barely took the exit.

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Speaker 1: They talked about one woman who was in labor and

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Speaker 1: came to the office so that she could answer questions

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Speaker 1: before she started her maternally. I mean, these women are

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Speaker 1: going out of their way to make the situation where

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Speaker 1: they're not you know, they're not checking out for years

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Speaker 1: at a time. This is these are very brief maternity

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Speaker 1: leaves um and you know, then they'll come back to

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Speaker 1: work and they just want the opportunity to breastfeeds somewhere

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Speaker 1: and they're getting, you know, the runaround from the male bosses.

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Speaker 1: But even when these cases come up, a lot of

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Speaker 1: women understandably are nervous about um taking part in these

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Speaker 1: clash to action lawsuits but for fear of being ostracized

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Speaker 1: in their job and the same thing happening to dint

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Speaker 1: to them. For instance, in this Forbes article talks about

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Speaker 1: in the summer two thousand seven, uh, there was a

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Speaker 1: forty six million dollar class action settlement with Morgan Stanley

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Speaker 1: on the basis of sex discrimination. And Alice Hughes, who

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Speaker 1: was one of the people who was you know, helping

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Speaker 1: to settle all of these claims, said that a lot

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Speaker 1: of the women who could have cashed in on that

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Speaker 1: forty six million dollars suit chose not to say anything.

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Speaker 1: She says out of quote sheer fear that even if

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Speaker 1: they kept their jobs, they might be excluded from benefits

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Speaker 1: like getting a chunk of business when another broker left

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Speaker 1: the firm. And then she goes on to say, I mean,

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Speaker 1: and they're right about it. You know, they probably made

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Speaker 1: the right decision if they wanted to hang on to

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Speaker 1: their job, because even if they ended up leaving the company,

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Speaker 1: they would be blacklisted from working at any other major firms.

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Speaker 1: So while all this is going on, though, Molly, I

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Speaker 1: think we would be remiss to not mention though some

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Speaker 1: of the women who are in very prominent positions UM

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Speaker 1: in the financial sector, especially in government positions. For instance,

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Speaker 1: we have Treasure of the United States Rosie Rios. We

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Speaker 1: also have Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Chairman Sheila Bear, who

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Speaker 1: Fortune Magazine named as the second most powerful woman in

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Speaker 1: the world. That's pretty good, pretty impressive. UM. And then

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Speaker 1: we have Securities in Exchange Commissioned Chairwoman Mary Shapiro and

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Speaker 1: Small Business Administrator kar Enge Mills. You know, they're definitely

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Speaker 1: they're all these women, I mean that those were just

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Speaker 1: those are just government positions, but you know, and they're

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Speaker 1: also women UM in the higher ranks obviously as some

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Speaker 1: of these major firms that we've mentioned UM, but there

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Speaker 1: still seems like there's not enough enough women. She's sort

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Speaker 1: of between the sea level and the entry level to

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Speaker 1: get those women up, get them from the off ram

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Speaker 1: of off ramp if they want to take it back

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Speaker 1: to the on ramp, provide mentorship and lead them through

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Speaker 1: the trenches and really um close this gender gap on

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Speaker 1: Wall Street. Perfect rest. So we want to hear from

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Speaker 1: all of you on this issue, especially if you happen

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Speaker 1: to work in finance. Uh, maybe you can give us

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Speaker 1: a viewpoint from the trenches, what it's like to have mentors,

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Speaker 1: not have them. Who you see, who you don't see?

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Speaker 1: Does it? Does it suck? Yeah? I mean because we

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Speaker 1: were giving a very broad overview. I mean, the financial

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Speaker 1: sector covers, you know, so many different types of firms

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Speaker 1: and positions and and jobs, and we're just kind of

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Speaker 1: giving a broad brush of the whole thing. So we welcome,

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Speaker 1: you know, any more, any more details you would like

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Speaker 1: to share with me and Molly and our email addresses

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Speaker 1: mom stuff at how stuff works dot com. And now

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Speaker 1: we're going to read a couple of emails. First up

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Speaker 1: is one from Liz on our Political Quotas podcast. She writes,

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Speaker 1: I very much disagree with the idea of having these

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Speaker 1: gender quotas anywhere, but especially in government positions. Our Congress

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Speaker 1: may only be seventeen percent women, which is obviously a

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Speaker 1: smaller percentage we make up in the general population, but

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Speaker 1: I doubt Hispanic or African Americans make up their share

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Speaker 1: of Congress either. I don't have the sets to back

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Speaker 1: that up, just a feeling. Why I stop at gender?

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Speaker 1: Are we going to break up the entire population into ethnicity,

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Speaker 1: social standing, religion, income, and then place quotas on each

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Speaker 1: of these groups. I believe someone should be elected to

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Speaker 1: office because they're absolutely the best handa possible, not because

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Speaker 1: there's a position to fill that matches their genetic makeup.

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Speaker 1: The old white hair men in Congress are probably not

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Speaker 1: going to make it easier encouraging for women, but that

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Speaker 1: that's not something a quota is going to fix. All right, Well,

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Speaker 1: I've got one here from Bill, and he says, as

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Speaker 1: a dad with three daughters and a lovely wife, I

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Speaker 1: love your work and never miss an episode. Thanks Bill.

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Speaker 1: But however, I have one, admittedly knit picky thing that

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Speaker 1: drives me nuts. You guys is a term that bugs

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Speaker 1: me when addressed to a group that has females in it.

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Speaker 1: I realize that it's very common these days, but I'm

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Speaker 1: doing my best to stamp it out. When we go

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Speaker 1: on a restaurant as a family, and we were addressed

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Speaker 1: as you guys. I'm always tempted to say there is

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Speaker 1: only one of me. So far I've resisted that temptation.

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Speaker 1: Oh be a good idea, Bill, It's very easy to

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Speaker 1: simply drop the guy's portion. Are you ready to order?

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Speaker 1: Sounds so much better than are you guys ready to order?

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Speaker 1: I realized this is a little thing, but I had

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Speaker 1: to do my part to rid the world of this

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Speaker 1: annoying yet pervasive habit. And I gotta say, Bill, I

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Speaker 1: catch myself saying you guys all the time as well.

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Speaker 1: That's why I think that Southerners have it right when

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Speaker 1: we just say y'all. I agree. And on that note,

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Speaker 1: y'all can check out our Twitter, y'all can check out

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Speaker 1: our Facebook, y'all can check out our blog, and y'all

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Speaker 1: can check out our our homepage, our homesite, people who

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Speaker 1: pay our bills. How stuff works dot com for more

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Speaker 1: on this and thousands of other topics. Does it how

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Speaker 1: stuff works dot com? Want more house stuff works? Check

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Speaker 1: out our blogs on the house stuff works dot com

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Speaker 1: home page. Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand

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Speaker 1: twelve camera. It's ready, Are you