Gender problems that equal pay policies and quotas do not solve by themselves
Like most of us, I grew up with a certain blindness that prevented me from perceiving the nuances of gender that society imposes on us. Everything seemed to be a matter of merit and reward, putting only personal effort into achieving success!
For me, if I wanted to be successful in an industry dominated by men, it would be enough to understand how things work in their heads and act a little more like them, and then I could be anything and do whatever I want.
In 2012 I started working as an intern at the trading desk, a financial market sector where transactions involving the purchase and sale of shares, fixed income securities, derivatives, commodities and currencies take place. The very direct questions I was asked during the interview spurred me on, like “Would you feel good working in a place where everyone can tell you to fuck me at any time?”
I was also struck by the way they praised me in the interview “you did well as a woman”, I noticed these situations and accumulated anecdotes from that working environment.
Some things I’ve heard in my experience include people saying they don’t hire gay people in the area because it would be a “legal risk” as employees make a lot of jokes about homosexuality, as if the offended person was the problem and not the offender . I’ve heard from other companies that they don’t hire women, because “they don’t want to weaken the operating table”, and that if they hire one, they should be alone and childless because “a woman after getting married must pay attention to the family”.
More women in the area
After just over a year of working as a tradesman and having replaced one of my bosses during his time off, I received a good review and commented that we could have had more women in the same area. In response, I felt it was silly, that I was an exception and that not all women could be there.
Maybe I was naive to believe that I would show men that any woman with interest and commitment could occupy that space, but that’s what I thought when I was 22 and was very frustrated that I couldn’t achieve my goal of changing this mindset in the future. short term. I decided to leave and focused my last two graduate years on researching the topic.
To understand the situation of women in the financial market, I first had to understand the context of women in society, in the family and in accessing formal and financial education. Constructing the woman’s place as caregiver, emotional facilitator, and unseen work manager (both domestic and in the office kitchen) helped me understand why they were always the ones who demanded to serve the coffee and welcome the feelings of the team. The barriers and hesitations imposed on women to pursue careers considered to be masculine and to achieve financial independence helped me understand why there are so few of us in the capital market.
The anecdotes began to “make sense”
The more I studied the macho mentality of society, the more the anecdotes I had accumulated made sense and acquired anthropological contours. For example, by saying I would “do well for a woman,” the interviewer was not only giving relative and inaccurate praise (since I was eventually hired and therefore performed well overall), but was also demonstrating how much low were his expectations of the woman. performance of a candidate.
Interviewing women and men who held corporate positions in investment banks and brokerages, I realized that my experience was no exception, although perhaps in some cases it would have been more explicit verbally. All the women I interviewed went through situations where their gender was perceived negatively, either in their day-to-day work when they received requests to speak “more rudely” or when they received their annual bonus when they received feedback “even if you were the best performer”. , we cannot give the maximum value because you would have had 4 months of maternity leave and you would make a bad impression with the rest of the team ”.
A surprising finding in the research process was that many men are also dissatisfied with the misogynistic work environment, because anything they do outside the box of masculinity is rejected. For example, going out a little early to take the child to the pediatrician and being told “your wife must take him”.
There were also those who dreamed of having a child and could spend more than 5 days at home to establish a bond with the family, but were afraid because the boss hadn’t been away even 3 days in the same situation and discouraged the others by saying “don’t I have more to do at home, my wife is breastfeeding”, as if this were the only job to adapt a newborn.
Forbes poll
In 2013, when I began my gender studies, women made up 25% of publicly-registered CPFs, according to B3, while CFA-certified financial markets professionals made up less than 10% of certificates. Forbes conducted a survey of the sexiest occupations by wage gap, and believe it or not, truck drivers are in tenth place, while personal investment advisors are in first place and stock and commodity traders in second.
Ten years later, the news is no better: in 2023, women represent 23% of CPFs in class B3 and only 11% of CFA holders in Brazil. In this period we have had the fourth wave of feminism, characterized by women’s movements against sexual harassment and violence, in favor of equal pay and parental rights, as well as the extensive use of social networks to mobilize these demands.
In the financial sector, banks and associations have launched programs to increase the recruitment of young women and also to prepare them for leadership positions, such as YouWin and Dn’A Women.
Recently, there has also been the increased involvement of political and business leaders in the diversity and inclusion agenda, in which a series of institutional changes have begun to take effect, such as the passage in the Senate of the bill overseeing equality compensation and the new B3 rules for publicly traded companies to include at least one woman and one person from minority groups on their boards of directors.
All of these measures are urgent and necessary from the outset, but they are not enough to match the opportunities in the face of the real picture: The foundations of gender inequality run far deeper than organizational coups can reach.
Harvard Business Review study
A good example of this depth is the Harvard Business Review study of annual performance reviews, which shows that women are 1.4 times more likely to receive negative subjective feedback. This means that, comparing a professional woman with a man in the same position, with the same salary and level of education, women have an even greater chance of receiving an unfavorable subjective evaluation, since it is in subjectivity that, for example, the prejudice of usually have the perception that “João feels more comfortable than Carol in dealing with the customer”.
The hardest part of the challenge is not the institutional design, but the social organization, the way of seeing the world and the role of men and women in it. No matter how many waves of feminism we create or how many policies we manage to pass in society or companies, if people’s mindsets and cultures don’t change at the same rate, we will always be drying the ice in relation to gender equality.
is an economist, angel investor and director of Potencia Ventures.
Source: Terra
Rose James is a Gossipify movie and series reviewer known for her in-depth analysis and unique perspective on the latest releases. With a background in film studies, she provides engaging and informative reviews, and keeps readers up to date with industry trends and emerging talents.
