The FCA seems to be taking a pretty proactive role in that regard - the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority now requires some of its licensed companies to disclose whether or not they meet diversity goals concerned with the representation of women and ethnic minorities in high ranking positions.
Personally, I think it’s a good think - the more people, the merrier.
Trading does not care about your gender, beauty, etc. It is a fact. Please do not mingle yourself with these things, if you want to become a succesful ( profitable ) trader. If you are serious about this, do not break your head about these things. Become succesful and pave the way for others you want.
Diversity goals are a tick-box way to score the recruitment performance of an organisation. But the percentage figures derived say nothing about the integrity of the organisation, the quality of its management or the strength of their internal policies.
In any case, what is the diversity figure? Is it simply a snapshot? For example, a company can say they have X% of people from Minority “A” working for them today. But how long do people of that minority tend to stay? How are they treated? Are they beneficiaries of targeted support? How were they recruited? How will they be developed and promoted? Let alone the questions concerning Minorities B, C, D, E etc. etc.
Its woke BS.
Why does trading need more female traders? How does that benefit trading?
Females are already free to enter trading in any reasonably well run democracy with up to date and respectful laws. If they don’t want to enter the process, that’s their decision.
As a generality you are absolutely correct - in fact the “Median woman” is pretty much exactly the same as the “Median man” - However do we really want “median people” (IQ = 100?) as traders being paid vast amounts of money for their modest abilities ? along th e lines being voiced by @mlawson71 In his FCA link ?
However the best evidence seems to suggest that as we (ALL) know men numerically exceed women at both ends of the “Bell curve” - ie there are more “idiot men” and also more “Genius men” - Why exactly evolution should have put that split in place nobody knows as yet - but we do know that “men are disposable” in the Evolutionary scheme of things and a number of men being refused participation in the “Breeding game” - because of their “idiot status” is more than compensated for (one suggests) that the benefits to the p[opulation as a whole of the hypergamy drive in women allowing relatively More of the “brightest men” to breed at a greater frequency. [ I make no value judgement as to the relative worth of individuals - as “people” here - just as “Resources” ]
The absolute best information I have as yet found comes in the form of This article ;
Hello everyone.
I started this thread and I have not
been on Babypips for about two years now,
however I received notifications today that
some comments were being posted on this
thread and I thought I should drop by.
Aside saying hello to old regulars such as
@Falstaff and @tommor I wanted to say
that, generally speaking, the purpose of the thread was twofold:
to raise awareness of the fact that there are
bad cases of s e x u a l harassment and
s e x discrimination against women and it should
be a case of taking this as motivation enough to
bring about better work practices that allow
people who are unfairly victimised to speak up;
to highlight names of women in finance (traders,
venture capitalists, investors, wealth advisers, etc.)
to inform and inspire female and male readers here,
and to show that it is not all bad news for women
intending to enter corporate finance.
I have not updated the thread for some time,
therefore all I can say is thank you to all of
you who continue engaging with this topic.
Best wishes
PipMeHappy
I absolutely support progress towards equal treatment of women in trading but in other fields also.
I’m really proud that discriminating against women in the workplace here in terms of pay, promotion, training, recruitment etc. has been outlawed since 1975. (I’m not quite so proud that it took so long.)
My full support goes to equality of opportunity. I am absolutely opposed to quotaism.
While I don’t think the space will be at all harmed by more female traders and I’d love to see more women in the space, the rationale for championing it in this instance is misplaced in the TIME article as you rightly point out.
One more thought: it is my personal view
that quotas, loved and disliked in equal measure,
are sometimes necessary as a last resort:
where there are capable applicants from a
protected category (in this case: women)
who do not even get invited to interview
because the company directors cannot see
past a name that does not meet their
expectations of ‘a good fit’, then this
sort of indirect discrimination will not
end if left to good will.
Other less blunt measures, such as blind CVs,
can also help to force the hand of companies
who only want men not based on inherent
merit of male applicants but on the fact that
they cannot maybe envisage working under/alongside
female employees. We all have these unconscious
biases, none of us is immune: the important thing
is to try and mitigate the more noxious effects of
such biases (often based on stereotyping) at company
level through the adotpion of virtuous practices.
Blind CV’s are a fine initiative.
But although this should ensure that candidates are only appointed on their merit, this won’t satisfy the champions of various minorities. They will only point out that the sifting process is biased, and that the minority candidates have already been handicapped by their inability to obtain employment experience and promotion elsewhere. And they could be right.
Perhaps what might be effective would be putting the pressure on the managers in control of recruitment and interviewing. Making them accountable for poor appointment choices or for failure to retain staff should pretty quickly have a beneficial effect for everyone. That would also include the majority candidates and employees too.
I wasn’t aware this was a thing. Very interesting. Has that been a common practice in your neck of the woods?
I used to work in a small company, about 50 staff max. The only time I was called on to help with interviews we did do this so I assumed the HR specialist noted it was standard practice.
When we interviewed the short-listed candidates we also had a standard set of questions that we were compelled to ask and then a scoring sheet so we could grade their answers. There was an absolute prohibition on asking anything about religion, marital status, sexual orientation etc. The candidates could talk about what they wished of course but if they had introduced these topics that would have counted against them.
Ah yes, common here too. I took “blind CV” to mean something like the sex of candidate was somehow masked, so perhaps the name was hidden during the initial review of the candidate pool before actual interviews.
Yes, that’s it. The candidates were only identified at the application stage by a reference number provided by HR. Only identified when the shortlist is drawn up.
Hello everyone!
I have now finished editing the video of my fifth interview as part of my series on women in trading and finance. I have posted this separately on the Trading Discussion forum, but also wanted to include it here (and @Ananais may want to do another Q&A thread on this, maybe):
Enjoy.
PipMeHappy
Thanks for the like, @Penelopip !! Hope you had time to listen to this. 
I have more interviews lined up…
Thank you for sharing this insightful interview with the community, @PipMeHappy. We appreciate it!
We look forward to seeing more of you on the forums!
All the best,
Penelopip
There’s no scientific evidence in this article. Potentially, women could be better at a lot of things. But it’s not in female nature to do them. Sure, potentially, women could be better at bricklaying or plumbing. But they generally don’t do it.
Let’s not pretend that men and women are equal. That argument was never valid. Men and women have different natures and different preferences.
Same with trading. Women may be more cautious and perhaps they wouldn’t have caused the economic bubble. But they probably wouldn’t have much economic growth either.
I think the ‘bricklayers’ argument, a favourite of Jordan Peterson, is a bit one-sided: just because men do not want to be hairdressers in larger numbers than women, it should not prevent them having open access to that area, or we could talk about women in boxing, or men in ballet and nursing, etc. There are lots of frankly weird micro-cultures that make no sense at times, but dictate what people should and should not do, from a young age, according to gender norms. But that is just what we know, and what we know is not always good for us.
If indeed, as you say, women are less risk-prone, then why not put forward the argument that this would moderate, multiplied over thousands more women entering investment-bank/fund money-management positions, the tendency toward massive gambles that inflate asset prices? Sure, prices are the result of many factors, let us not oversimplify - global factors, for one - but you get the point.
At the bottom of it all, though, is that there are cultures where men are not part of them but are still welcome and respected; however, it is not quite the same when you reverse the scenario and have a woman entering an all-male space/culture, even though on paper she has every right to be there (e.g. on merit). There is no doubt a palpable sense of hidden threat for a woman to be in a room or workspace full of men, which may be veiled or overt, manifesting through looks, jokes, ‘banter’, sometimes evolving into humiliation, harassment, unwanted touching, etc. This is why we need to talk about sexism in finance (and in other work environments) but specifically male-to-female.
I hope this helps.
I understand what you’re saying. Social norms shouldn’t dictate what a person can or cannot do, right? I agree. But the # of people going against those social norms are a minority. They’re more the exception than the rule. I’m sure you’ve heard that argument before.
People should have the right to do what they want, but they have to understand the consequences of going against the norm then trying to be accepted by the majority.
And it’s not just female victims. There are male victims as well. If a man joins an all-female hairdressing class, it’s possible those women start to use him as an at-work boyfriend. They are taking advantage of his affection/attention. And they may playfully bait him to flirt and engage in an extra-marital affair, to the end of making her husband jealous or just so she can get her jollies. Her baiting him is abuse.
You could say it’s not the same because men sexually harass women if women enter male-dominated fields. Well, yeah. Men are aggressive creatures. What did you think was gonna happen?
It’s a difference in nature because men are more aggressive. This is the reason why economies grow the way they do–because men lead. And the reason women generally don’t lead these movements, it’s because they don’t WANT to.
Any Jordan Peterson interview can demonstrate that. Or you can just look at the people around you in your city and see how men and women naturally fall into certain roles.
There’s nothing wrong with women entering finance. There are many great female investors. But saying we need more women in finance is nonsense because if women wanted to go into that field, they would. Peterson noted that the more options you give women, the more specific choices they make. That’s because the clarity of the choice is amplified by the mere quantity.
If someone thinks we need more women in finance, fine. Let a woman start a fund, and she can focus on recruiting female traders. Let’s see how many empty desks she’ll be left with.
Men are just different. If there were an all-male business office, there are certain things that men do that women don’t. For example, if there’s a bathroom down the hallway, but closer there’s an old drinking fountain that no one drinks from and guys pee in there because it’s half the trip, hey, that’s just what men do.
But, if just one female joins that office, those guys can’t pee in that fountain anymore. They’ll also have to change a lot of other habits. Why wouldn’t they resent a female joining?
And yes, there’s sexual harassment. Men are more sexually aggressive. Hence, the posters of girls in bikinis, the sex jokes, the profanity, etc. Asking men to curb those things is asking them to curb their masculinity. They could, but why should they?
But, I understand. We’re in a civilized society and women want to enter certain environments. There will be clashes, however. And where do you draw the line? Should an entire office culture change just because ONE female joined? In some instances, it’s best to not hire a female.
If a female wants to join the office, and men have to make concessions, then she should make concessions as well: she cannot wear make-up, and she cannot wear any revealing clothing, and all her clothing should cover up to her wrists and ankles.
Such female concessions will help provoke sexual harassment less.
Or they can just work separately from the men.
There’s no way we’ll agree on this, haha. Let’s just agree to disagree.
