With the advancement of society women are becoming stronger and stronger. And there are many successful women traders in various financial markets including forex market which shows us that women have that analytical abilities to engage in successful trading. I believe for women forex can be a highly potential investment field since this market is more flexible than any other market.
Blimey Falstaff, I thought we were discussing discrimination against women.
Letâs not forget that anonymity at a trial can be granted to a victim or witness of any gender for any crime if there is sufficient reason for the judge to do so.But its obvious that men are going to be disproportionately represented in sexual assault cases. I am sure that the majority of these cases should definitely have been brought to court and that the majority of them were correctly handled.
Going back to the question of the greatest discrimination, perhaps its against the female victims of the cases which didnât even get reported, or didnât get brought to trial.
Thanks to Tommor, Falstaff, and Nathaniel for this lively debate on the issue of discrimination. Womenâs Day is today and is a chance for leaders and organisations around the world to draw the sums on progress made or lost on womenâs rights in the last twelve months, locally and globally.
Your debate here highlights just how complex the issues are, how even divisive they can be, and how coming to an agreement can sometimes be a difficult journey.
Thank you for your post @PipMeHappy You are right on so many counts, even some which are subliminal. For example we see âwomenâs dayâ when the pressure groups will lobby Governments to show that âmore needs to be doneâ - which of course will reach conclusions and impose even more âDutiesâ on Employers, to pay for âRightsâ to be conferred automatically instead of Earned.
I wonder if Anyone can actually say when âMenâs dayâ is ? 
I think it was @tommor who patronisingly said a few posts back âwomen want certaintyâ, which is pandering to the old stereotype of âmenâ being attracted to physical beauty and âwomenâ choosing a âGood Providerâ as husbands. [not neccessarily as Fathers to their kids though !]
Have you ever wondered why rich people tend to have physically attractive kids? (especially female kids)
These are clearly outdated stereotypes which should be thrown away along with the notions of men as âProvidersâ AND of women as âNurturersâ.
Everyone now must survive and thrive or fail, on their own merits - if any form of âEqualityâ is ever to be reached By Agreement.
Yet the discussion is and started around "Do we NEED more female traders ? " (Paid ones - not âself reliantâ )
Women on the one hand seem to demand equality and on the other hand continue to want to âPlay victimâ and those men of âThe old styleâ - whilst agreeing that âWomen are equalâ - also insist on âplaying protectorâ as per the Guardian Article on Bill Roache and indeed @tommorâs last post when having asked for specific evidence - then completely ignores that provided and says âthe real victims âŚâ, discounting entirely any possibity of cynical useage of âPowerâ granted by a clearly imbalanced legal system and offerring no thought or symapthy for those males already incarcerated under the harshest circumstances, solely because they did not actually have â40,000 textsâ to produce !
I heard another programme on R4 (Radio 4) a few days ago, where they were discussing why women were described frequently as âworking mumsâ - but never ever was anyone described as a âworking dadâ !
@Falstaff, I have listened to tons of debates on feminism and womenâs panels, and the conclusion is thatâŚthere is no firm belief system in place for contemporary women who just want to âfit inâ: if they want to work and not have children they are constantly asked âwhyâ - never a question asked to us men - and if they want to have children while working they still do face disincentives at work or even dismissal. Going on an unfair dismissal hearing at the employment tribunal is a time-consuming (and costly) affair, as is bringing a sex discrimination action against your employer, so unless you have time and money to challenge this kind of discrimination then your employer can get away with murder. That aside, of course there is discrimination against men, especially as fathers (think of Geldofâs Fathers for Justice group and you understand why he started it in the first place), however we are historically guilty of the majority of violent crime, including sexual assault, battery, child abuse, etc. Also, historically it has been fathers who have screwed around and then disappeared after they heard that someone was expecting, so for father like you and I, and @SimonTemplar, who have spent time with their children and growing them - a priceless yet financially unrewarding endeavour - have a lot of stigma from historically bad fathering to fight against. But overall men occupy the majority of power-making boards/levels in law, finance, politics, the military, and so on: this means that if they just want to recruit people similar to them the cycle of men-recruiting-men will perpetuate and diversity will never be desired, experienced, or achieved. Why is diversity important? It is important for the same reason, conversely, why it is inconceivable that there are so few male nurses, male primary teachers, male babysitters, and so on: these are the imbalances that we continue to perpetuate, yet the danger of closed groups in public bodies is that we are not talking about a private membersâ club, where you recruit whoever you like, but employers not recruiting on equal merit but on who they âthinkâ would fit into their peer group culture: if all women work in a hospital, recruitment will favour women even on equal merit with male candidates, as well as the other way round in an all-male work environment. Women too are guilty, in blind-applicant testing, of assigning more competence and leadership qualities to candidates with male names than the same exact cv/application with the name changed round to a female name. This level of bias means that it is so ingrained in men and women that for a woman to be perceived as competent when she is not trusted to be so EVEN ON EQUAL MERIT it is often an impossible task. I meet a lot of young girls in my teaching and they absolutely have not had experience of life, so their view of the world is very optimistic and do not think that there is a problem with the way that women are belittled or pushed down in the world: only a few years of experience into the world will make that view less optimistic for many women, sadly, as you can see from even just the latest example on this blog: everydaysexism.com It is mostly good men that go unreported, so it is up to us, normal/decent men to restore credibility in our gender, I feel, rather than for women to fight bad, violent, irrational men in the courts, alone and not believed. For these reasons I believe that this is a huge topic, and yet always one to debate anew because men and women will continue to have to live side by side and peaceful, respectful coexistence is not only the decent thing but a moral imperative.
1 Like
Falstaff - Firstly, I donât say that women demand anything: I was referring to what the woman from Schroders said on TV about women in financial services. I donât say sheâs right and I donât say these are my beliefs., I just report what she said. Of course, you can infer from the fact that I posted here on this subject that I think she knows better than I do what women want.
Secondly, when it comes to Bill Roacheâs case, it seems he was found not guilty on all charges. It seems hard to see him as a victim of discrimination when he was acquitted. Maybe he was, maybe he wasnât. Then again, maybe the women concerned were, or maybe they werenât. No way of being sure, and thatâs why he was not imprisoned - because he was held innocent as not proven guilty - which was just the opposite of your point I believe.
1 Like
"⌠Home > A sham battle of the sexes when it comes to investing
A sham battle of the sexes when it comes to investing
By: John Stepek
09/02/2018
2 comments
Mrs Watanabe had other ideas about gender roles
If women make better investors, itâs only down to adopting two simple rules that everyone could benefit from.
âWomen are better investors than men.â Itâs a headline you see trotted out every so often and the latest research to back it up comes from broker Hargreaves Lansdown (HL). According to The Sunday Times, HLâs female clients saw their portfolios beat those of men by 0.48% a year in the three years from 2015. It may not seem like much, but if they did it consistently it would deliver an extra 14% over 30 years.
Whatâs the secret? Women, it seems, prefer to play it safe, and donât tend to do rash things with their money. They âdonât want to take on too much riskâ, notes Sarah Coles of HL. They prefer âbuy and holdâ, adds Maike Currie of Fidelity, and, reports Boring Money, they lack confidence about investing.
Thatâs all very well. The problem is that, while advocates of these sorts of studies are usually trying to make a case for women becoming more engaged in investing, it all smacks of discredited, patronising, âMen are from Mars, Women are from Venusâ popular psychobabble â on a par with claiming that women canât read maps and men are permanently emotionally constipated.
To disprove the notion that women are inherently risk averse, you need only glance at the rise of âMrs Watanabeâ in Japan in the 2000s. This was the nickname given to the phenomenon of Japanese women turning to online currency trading and overseas investing in their efforts to earn a return in a zero-interest-rate world. The example shows that women are more than capable of becoming rather too fond of the dopamine hits to be gained from making leveraged spread bets on the FX markets when they get the chance. Several female traders (âclickety clickersâ) became famous and wealthy, notes Satyajit Das in Extreme Money, and in 2007 one telecoms chief executive even argued that it damaged Japanâs moral fibre. âThe sight of housewives trading stocks on personal computers undermines the education of children. Making money without sweating for it undermines the work ethic.ââŚ"
1 Like
It is indeed a huge subject and there is little doubt that the dynamics of interaction between the sexes is changing in itâs headline application, although you make an excellent point that the vast majority of men are âGood peopleâ and I make the assertion, that there are also a huge number of women who are very content with the status quo - some even being alarmed and financially disadvantaged by the consequences of current moves in legislation and social pressures.
Whether it is true that is it is
I take the attitude that as decent men we are entited to âPeaceful enjoymentâ of our lives and the recent demonisation of males makes no distinction. We are entitled to protection from blanket demonisation - are we not ?
I found another interesting piece in âthe Guardianâ, which seems to be a fair(ish) discussion of - well read it and see.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/mar/09/men-after-metoo-masculinity-fundamentally-toxic
A part of the article says ;
"âŚ
Perhaps all the moment requires is for men to shut up and listen, something many clearly find hard. But watching the hashtags accrue â #menaretrash, etc â itâs often hard to discern any positive role for men, beyond apologetic retweeters of feminist memes. And thereâs a wider defensiveness around masculinity. The comedian Robert Webb titled his memoir How Not To Be A Boy: a negative inversion of Caitlin Moranâs celebratory How To Build A Girl. âIf you want a vision of masculinity,â Webb writes, âimagine Dr Frankenstein being constantly bum-raped by his own monster while shouting, âIâm fine, everyone! Iâm absolutely fine!ââ
But as we know, men are not fine. Boys get worse grades than girls. Suicide is the biggest killer of men under 35; men also report significantly lower life satisfaction than women. According to statistics compiled by the Menâs Health Forum, men make up 76% of all suicides, 95% of the prison population, 73% of adults who go missing and 87% of rough sleepers. A key part of this is menâs reluctance to seek help. Last yearâs cross-party Jo Cox Commission described male loneliness as a âsilent epidemicâ: more than one in 10 say they are lonely but wonât usually admit it.
âOne of the problems is that in the last 10 years or so, the world hasnât really been interested in the psychology of gender,â says the psychotherapist Nick Duffell. âWhat weâve been interested in are transgender issues and free choice and pronouns and gender as a social construct and abuses of power. But one of the things Iâve been working with is how powerless men often feel in the private sphere.
âŚ"
[Edit = apologies, my quote appears twice - but only once when I try to edit my âpasteâ out - Sorry for inconvenience ]
2 Likes
Excellent post, Falstaff.
Is that acceptable in this context ?
In this context (even if not in wider ones), apparently not only âacceptableâ but even âinevitableâ,
1 Like
I think that a small group, rather than a public body, can be by invitation only: men-only groups exist in abundance. If you had women running the only golf course in an area, with a clear public profile, who excluded male membership, then that would be sexist and it could be challenged.
However where a group is under-represented generally it is not applying reverse discrimination when it excludes majority members: think black-only groups, or minority language groups, where the âopen to allâ policy would actually negate the groupâs goals to facilitate socialisation of people within a minority group.
Groups of this kind as they grow in size will open up to more diverse membership, but they are not obliged to. There is nothing wrong with a male-only group, for example, but if you had the only gym or golf-course in miles excluding female members (especially where these was clear female demand) then that would become difficult to justify.
That is my opinionâŚ
I donât think it really matters that much in honesty. When the indices are trending, all sorts of âShare clubsâ pop up and they disappear again when times revert to normal and âTrend tradingâ stops working in the same way.
I know it is mate - and itâs your prerogative to hold it.
I am getting closer to the expiry of my âallotted spanâ every day and Iâm very content that my generation probably had the most free and unrestricted times to ever be recorded, in history or the future. I have worked with and for both men and women and although I have worked with some very difficult personalities, have never really encountered âsexismâ in the workplace, except in 3 cases I can remember, when women have deliberatly used their sexuality to gain promotion in advance of far better qualitied and experienced males. (This i not âRecentâ either. ) . I have trained both male and female graduates and a tendencey towards decreased attention span and apparent lessening of the capacity for original or indeed critical thought apart, I cannot say they are very different, except the lads know they are âstuck workingâ, for life and have a desire to understand and progress.
As I tried to poiint out a few posts back, the situation has now progressed so far towards an Orwellian âDystopin futureâ that there seems to be no âfairâ way of return to the median in prospect.
In the face of the massive Feminism Industry, where every other female and a LOT of males are all âmaking a living out of âinequalityâ redressâ, appeal to reason and logic are pointless - lads nowadays have little hopeof a decent future, as far as I can see.
In a similar way to the massive Global warming industry, the juggernaught has too much momentum now to be slowed and itâs roll downhill at an ever increasing velocity is destined to âend in tearsâ.
Iâm quite interested to see how the newly emerging âEvangelising Veganâ movement progresses - it seems to be rolling in much the same way - But there may be enough âaccellerationâ potential left to present some major opportunities here for an enterprising lad to make a fortune !
I donât suppose I shall be around to witness the full horror of the results of the Feminism industry, but I believe that one will probably turn out to be the cruellest of all and I suspect the passage of time will show many of those males âpushing the busâ could end up âfalling under the wheelsâ.
That is my opinion
In the olden days I subscribed to the notion of separation of the sexes. Back then I was chairman of a men only social club, the club was strong, there was a push to allow women in and finally it happened, but as guests only.
Then the 21st century hit and all gender restrictions were abolished - and the club thrived.
Modern day Ireland is a little like that, St Patrickâs day and our Taoiseach (PM) proudly marched in NY with his partner, LGBT was banned on this parade until recently.
Times are changing fast, the separatist mindset is being sidelined, the younger generation believe in live and let live, us oldies will indeed get run over - be that for the good or bad only history will tell.
Great replies, @Falstaffand @peterma âŚMy thread had become a bit of a monologue until you stepped in to offer different angles.
I would also like to welcome @AH to this thread if she would like to contribute.
Regards
PipMe
1 Like
Good afternoon all.
Sorry to have been away, but I am trying, now, to be back on BP, so will hope, also, to return to this thread as I come across things of interest. This has always been an interesting subject in our house, or at least one where we note with interest, together, when current affairs focus on it - my wife and I met at University, and on graduation each joined a graduate training scheme (UK Civil Service for me, private sector for Mrs Templar). We find the whole subject interesting, partly because it is simply interesting (and very important!), but also because our lives have strayed across many of the issue and prejudices present in society. However we do have a (mostly) positive experience of negotiating our way through the various aspects of discrimination between the sexes. When we first started our career jobs (in 1996), there was only a pay difference of just over ÂŁ1000 between us (I earned ÂŁ16,707 initially, Mrs Templar ÂŁ18,400), and we were each on a two year graduate scheme within our respective employers, and followed a similar pace of progression (in terms of seniority) over the next decade - we had both progressed into management roles, and were moving towards the top of our chosen specialisms. I left to work for myself and look after our children after 11 years, in part because the T&Cs were so strong for my wifeâs work (a yearâs full-pay maternity leave for her, as against two weeks for me, wildly better pension, more paid leave, plus the core salary had jumped way beyond what the Civil Service could pay me - Mrs Templarâs last salary while I was still working for HMG was a third of my salary, and I was the equivalent of a Colonel in the British Army), and Mrs Templar has continued with the same employer, albeit now working largely from home, with two days per fortnight either in London or overseas. Weâre both very happy with the decisions we have taken overall, although we each have tactical frustrations - I walk into a dinner party and have people think that I have no career, must have failed at my old career, and âjustâ look after children, while Mrs Templar has people openly wonder how she could work rather than care for the kids (theyâre now all in full time school, and working from home we eat as a six for both breakfast and tea most days, but people still judge).
So I know all about cracking into groups aimed at âmumsâ, about people approaching me in the supermarket when my child is crying and saying âdonât worry, mummy will be here soonâ (and these are strangers!), and my wife knows about missing school Assemblies (although she is a school governor) and daytime performances, but our take is this:
It works for us, weâre very happy, we know that had I remained in my old profession we would not have been able to move away from London, and would not, have been able to have as many kids (we have four - 5, 8, 11 & 13), our earnings would be well down (my wife now makes substantial money, plus an annual bonus, plus my trading income moved well beyond what I made working for HMG some years ago, plus leaving has afforded me the opportunity to dabble in property), plus our gang of six spend an awful lot of time together, more than any other family we know, we are a real unit, with a lovely lifestyle - we have a very large period country house, a number of rental properties, and a second home in Portugal (weâre off there on Sunday!), detached with its own pool, I trade from there for one month each year and pay for the trip while Iâm on it.
In 2007 it was a very bold decision we took, against the wishes of both of our families, and with much trepidation. Nearly 11 years on, and history has entirely vindicated it, on all levels, from family to career to lifestyle to money, all of it.
My wife has been very lucky in never encountering any serious gender discrimination and now having reached senior management. I encounter more day-to-day discrimination (most people donât believe that trading is a real job, so presumably just assume that my wifeâs salary is double what it is, or that weâre drug dealers!), but itâs fine Our choices work for us, our kids are being raised in a very balanced way, with no preconceived ideas on gender split (we have three boys and a girl), so for us thank goodness it all worked out. Iâm 43, so delighted that we took a strong position early, ignored the naysayers (on everything from my resigning from a career to my taking up trading to paying for a course to my wife returning to work after her first maternity leave and many more). But Iâm very interested in the issues present in this thread, and hope to join the debate going forwards.
Apologies for the unsolicited potted bio - not trying to start a discussion, but I thought as many of my experiences are relevant to the issues raised here that I might as well mark my return with a positioning post. Feel free to ignore all of it!
If I come across any women among my trading circle Iâll lob them in here.
ST
1 Like
Great post, @SimonTemplar !!!
Very happy that you are back and posting, and really glad that you made the right decisions!!
1 Like
