When Locker Room Talk is Office Talk and Women’s Bodies are for Touching
This is part 5 of a series of articles on sexual harassment, assault, and discrimination in financial services. You can read more about the genesis of the project, as well as the other installments to date on the series landing page.
Harassment and discrimination are a regular part of work life for many women. Some of the incidents are obviously gross and awful. Others may seem small, innocuous or just a funny joke. “Microaggression” is a term often met with derision by people who haven’t been on the receiving end of such comments. But these subtle acts of discrimination or harassment against underrepresented groups can make individuals feel unwelcome, less likely to contribute to a conversation, ask for support they need, take risks, or continue to work at an organization. A thriving business needs all of their employees to feel comfortable doing all of those things. One incident, alone, may seem like no big deal, but a week, year, or lifetime full of comments, jokes, and objectification adds up; and it’s exhausting.
Below are stories of day-to-day harassment in the financial services workplace. The stories are told by the women-in-finance who experienced them. The stories are shared with their permission, in the words of the women who wrote or spoke them to me. One of the stories is from a man who shared what he witnessed. I edited some submissions for clarity, length, and to remove identifying details of all parties.
Content warning- some of these stories include graphic descriptions of sexual assault and/ or harassment.
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I had a boss who asked me if I ever wondered why he didn’t make a pass at me. I said no. Despite that, he continued on and told me, “it’s not because you’re not attractive. It’s because I learned not to shit where I eat.” I didn’t know what to say.
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I had a colleague point blank ask me to sleep with him at one of our sales meetings. I literally thought he was kidding, his approach was so bold. I politely declined, saying thanks, but I’m married and I don’t roll that way. A few years later, I wound up reporting to him. He called me a “bitch” in a formal performance review. (Ultimately, he was “asked to resign” and now works in a management role at another firm).
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A financial service professional said he would give my company his business if I gave him a blow job.
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Me, 25 years old, naive, eyes wide open, walking into the trading room at 10 am to pick up some trade tickets for review only to see the traders watching porn. Me: “Can you please close the screen when you hear me come in?” I wonder how I would feel now if my daughters were in my shoes? No one was phased at the time.
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I was walking down the hallway inside the office. I heard footsteps behind me and turned around to wait for the head trader to catch up. This mid-50s, cheerful father-figure says, “That’s fine, keep walking, I am enjoying the view.”
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A supervisor told me, on various occasions, that my chipped nail polish was a sign of an easy woman.
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At one of the practices I worked with, the owners insisted on hiring an attractive woman for the front desk. They wouldn't hire a good administrative professional with a proven track record if they were over 40 and not attractive to them. Then they would constantly make comments like "Did you notice how cute [name redacted] looks today?" and "Did you see her skirt lift up when she reached for the plates on the top cabinet?"
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When I was new to the business, I had a client that just gave me the most uncomfortable feeling when we met. If it hadn’t been my first year in business and if I hadn’t been starving for income, I would have not taken him as a client. But I took him on and only met him in the office that had floor to ceiling glass doors. It was odd to meet in a giant conference room but it opened to the lobby and receptionist. It’s exposure made it feel safe enough to meet.
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I was a 25-year-old corporate banker working in my cubicle late one evening. An older male manager from a different department walks by on his way to the men's room. I want to be nice, so I say, “Hi” and say that I'm trying to finish up so I can leave. He changes his course, steps in behind me as I'm trying to work, and asks me questions. Then he puts his chin on top of my head, and smells my hair. I freeze, disgusted, and don't know what I'm supposed to do. I don't remember what happened next but he left. I told my manager the next day. The bank president interviews me about it. About 6 months goes by. He was not fired, but demoted to a special position with no direct reports. Previously he was in charge of a department with 12 female direct reports. This was good enough for me and he avoided me after that.
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Over a period of a few years, while working at a bank, occasionally men touched my butt and a male colleague pressed his body hard into me in a crowded elevator.
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A partner in our firm told me, as I was unpacking groceries for a client event, nice “melons.”
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When I was working as a junior advisor, one of the senior advisor’s clients tried to assault me right in front of him. Instead of protecting me, the advisor laughed about it. I think later he realized he'd done wrong and he told his wife some lie about what had happened. She called me to see if I was okay, and to say that he'd told her he was "so angry" the client had disrespected me that way.
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Besides the hundreds of times men at conferences have asked me who I work for (I own my financial planning business) I had a senior (meaning old) advisor call me Baby Doll and ask me if I needed help finding the conference room. I did not.
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A partner in my firm told a group of women the story of when he and his wife were propositioned to have group sex on her 50th birthday. I also learned that he played a game about “who in the office would rather sleep with him or the other partner.”
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I was working as a junior advisor for a guy who was presumably training me so he could retire and I could take over. We had to travel together sometimes. The first couple of times his wife traveled with us. On this trip, she did not go with us and I was nervous because he'd always been creepy. The first day we had successful meetings. As he was dropping me off at my hotel he said he'd pick me up again in an hour so we could wrap up our work. I was thinking Starbucks or a restaurant. He showed up with a 12 pack of beer. He knew I liked seeing new places so he said he had something to show me. This didn't sound like work. I had to struggle not to panic as he drove to what I can only describe as a "make-out point." We got out of the car and sat on a wall, looking out over the city. We started talking about work. We were planning a meeting with some people and discussing logistics. I pulled out my phone to show him the route from my house. I had on a casual blouse, but it wasn't revealing. He grabbed my phone, tugged at the collar of my shirt, and shined my phone down in it. I was livid. I stood up, got in the car, and demanded to be taken back to my hotel. The next morning before meetings he was very apologetic.
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In my first year in the business, a senior advisor at my office got drunk and loudly proclaimed he’d buy me a Porsche if I slept with him. I was buzzed and I very loudly told him to go f**k himself. I got a reputation of being the office bitch after that but no one ever messed with me again.
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I got my firm through a regulatory audit successfully. The CEO acknowledged my achievement by taking me clothes shopping at a designer store and then invited himself into the dressing room. “Nothing happened.” I have not accepted a gift from a man since.
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I used to sit next to a senior colleague, and one day I asked him a market question that apparently had an obvious answer. He answered me and finished the answer with “okay, you ignorant slut?” Everybody on my team heard it, and another senior colleague jokingly asked me not to go to HR. The other senior colleague (not the one who called me a slut) told me it’s an SNL quote. I really don’t care. That sucked, and it’s one of my most vivid memories of working there to this day.
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Early in my career, my firm’s Chief Marketing Officer used to leer at me constantly. He would literally stand behind me and watch me make copies. He once sent one of his underlings to fetch me so I could “model” new logo item clothing samples that he was trying to choose between.
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Now What?
In each of the prior installments in this series, I’ve tried to suggest further resources and solutions. For this particular piece, suggesting solutions was much harder. I don’t pretend to have all of the answers but below I’ve offered one idea to consider at the systemic level, and a couple at the individual behavior level. But before we jump to working on solutions, I urge you to first continue listening to women’s experiences to better understand the problem.
Systemic:
I don’t have great suggestions for systemic solutions. If you run a company that tolerates this type of behavior, you are allowing harassers and abusers to determine the culture of your firm, and you are most certainly losing top talent because of that. If you think this is happening at your firm, you likely need to solicit outside professional help to change the leadership and management culture.
Individual Behavior: First, the obvious. Please don’t act like the behavior in the stories. If you witness this type of behavior and you are a male peer or supervisor, please talk to the person behaving this way. “Hey, we don’t do that here,” is a good start. If you are not able to intervene in the moment, offer to help the woman document and/ or report the behavior if she chooses to. If you are in a supervisory role, and someone reports this behavior, take it seriously and act on it. Listen to women. Believe them when they tell you their experiences.
If your company is working on this issue, I would be happy to share learning resources, and I would be pleased to help you advance the conversation at your next conference or event.