Anne-Marie Slaughter writes about a scummy comment made by a hedge-fund billionaire who said that women are bad traders, because babies are a distraction. She points to research that finds that women are better traders, because they weigh risks better than men do. Others have said that the lack of consideration of risk led us to the Wall Street meltdown a few years ago. I have my own two cents on the matter.
Wall Street is made up of more than traders. While women may not make up the majority of traders, they dominate other areas of the business. Who is writing up all the contracts for those trades? Women.
Also, traders and other high fliers on Wall Street are unhealthy individuals. 14 hour day. 1 hour of drinks with boys after work. 1 hour commute. Stumble into bed drunk. Five hours of sleep. Rinse and repeat. After a few years, you age faster than a war-time president, and you don’t know your children’s names. I can’t imagine that unhealthy people can be a productive workers.
The problem with Wall Street and other intense careers is the belief that a worker must give 110% to their job. If women don’t want to do that, well, then they’re the smart ones. But I also don’t want to group all women together in one package, like that asshole hedge fund dude. Because there are plenty of women who do just that. While that isn’t the right road for me, women are perfectly capable of putting in the 14 hour days, especially if they have tons of paid help or a stay-at-home spouse.
The notion that “babies are a distraction” is bigger than just Wall Street. If you think that women can’t be effective traders, than you probably think that women can’t be effective scientists, principals, accountants, or engineers. That’s a problem.
Apt. 11d 
Traders are a necessary evil tolerated because they make for a smoother functioning market for people trying to do something useful. I don’t understand how they all got this big idea that they are somehow exceptionally vital to society or the economy. Theologically speaking, I guess babies are also at least part evil in the end, but not while babies.
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I still enjoy pointing out to lawyers in civil practice that they are best categorized as a transaction cost.
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Perhaps we can rephrase the question: “are ridiculous expectations for paid work a distraction from a reasonable family life?”
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*like*
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I laughed when I saw your *like* because I often go to *like* tweets, etc. Cross platform confusion!
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From Ann-Marie Slaughter’s article: “Tudor Jones responded, essentially, that only women who do not choose to have babies will make it.”
Hard to differentiate Tudor Jones’ false conclusion from Anne-Marie Slaughter’s own prior problematic – and wildly popular – Atlantic piece in which she incorrectly concluded that All Mothers Everywhere Cannot Have It All (Because She Herself Could Not).
Nice to see Slaughter’s opinions have finally evolved.
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“She points to research that finds that women are better traders, because they weigh risks better than men do.”
I remember vaguely reading something about how women are on average better investors because they move money around less.
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