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Authors: Mika Brzezinski
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doctor, go to a female doctor because they have to work so much harder to get where they are that they’re probably better.’ ”
My favorite senator, Claire McCaskill of Missouri, has spent decades proving herself in the male-dominated world of American politics. When I ask which areas of the economy could benefit from a greater number of women, she tells me, “It is my observation that the women who have done well have been hyperprepared. Being prepared means completely understanding what you’re doing. I’ve always
had the feeling someone is going to tap me on the shoulder and say, ‘What are you doing here?’ So I wanted to be prepared when they did; I wanted to know the answer. And if there’s anything that the Wall Street meltdown showed us, it’s that a lot of people were engaging in complex financial interactions that they didn’t completely understand. My observation is, perhaps if there were more women on board saying, ‘Wait a minute, are we sure we understand what this actually is?’, then maybe it might have slowed down the train.”
There’s also the feeling that women, especially when they’re in the minority, offer fresh perspective. As I interviewed highly successful women in finance and government, I began to wonder if being in the minority might sometimes work to their advantage.
That’s often the case on Morning Joe . On days when I’m outnumbered by men, when, for example, Donny Deutsch, Dylan Ratigan, and Lawrence O’Donnell get on a testosterone-fueled roll, I’m the one to say, “Hold on, big boys.”
The absence of women in the top spots on Wall Street was blatantly obvious at the height of the financial crisis. If you turned on the television news in the middle of it all, you’ll probably recall that iconic scene of the seven heads of the biggest banks hauled before Congress. One couldn’t help but notice the total lack of diversity in that line-up.
Some behavioral economists believe there are biological reasons men make crazy bets. Joe Herbert, a neuroscientist
at Cambridge University who studied the effects of testosterone on stock traders, told New York magazine, “The banking crisis was caused by doing what no society ever allows, permitting young males to behave in an unregulated way. Anyone who studied neurobiology would have predicted disaster.”
Headlines such as New York magazine’s “What If Women Ran Wall Street?” and the Washington Post ’s “In Banking Crisis, Guys Get the Blame, More Women Needed in Top Jobs, Critics Say” promoted the idea that we all might benefit from having more women in positions of power on Wall Street.
Would Wall Street have crumbled in 2008 if women were running the show? I ask both Brooksley Born, former head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, and Sheila Bair, current head of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. Both are rarities in the world of government: they’ve held powerful positions overseeing the banking industry, they famously clashed with Wall Street during their tenure as financial regulators, and both are well-known for displaying political bravery in their (ultimately unsuccessful) attempts to warn the country of looming threats to the American economy. As head of the CFTC during the Clinton administration, Born was among the first to call for greater disclosure and regulation of the rapidly growing market in financial derivatives. As head of the FDIC, the government agency which regulates banks and insures depositors, Sheila Bair has been a prominent figure in the current economic
meltdown and was also recognized for her early attempt to get the second Bush administration to address the imminent subprime mortgage crisis.
Neither is willing to categorize women as less likely to be risk takers. Both point to the fact that women in the finance world are outsiders, however, and to some degree that fact helped them bring a new perspective to bear on the industry’s problems.
Born says, “You
My favorite senator, Claire McCaskill of Missouri, has spent decades proving herself in the male-dominated world of American politics. When I ask which areas of the economy could benefit from a greater number of women, she tells me, “It is my observation that the women who have done well have been hyperprepared. Being prepared means completely understanding what you’re doing. I’ve always
had the feeling someone is going to tap me on the shoulder and say, ‘What are you doing here?’ So I wanted to be prepared when they did; I wanted to know the answer. And if there’s anything that the Wall Street meltdown showed us, it’s that a lot of people were engaging in complex financial interactions that they didn’t completely understand. My observation is, perhaps if there were more women on board saying, ‘Wait a minute, are we sure we understand what this actually is?’, then maybe it might have slowed down the train.”
There’s also the feeling that women, especially when they’re in the minority, offer fresh perspective. As I interviewed highly successful women in finance and government, I began to wonder if being in the minority might sometimes work to their advantage.
That’s often the case on Morning Joe . On days when I’m outnumbered by men, when, for example, Donny Deutsch, Dylan Ratigan, and Lawrence O’Donnell get on a testosterone-fueled roll, I’m the one to say, “Hold on, big boys.”
The absence of women in the top spots on Wall Street was blatantly obvious at the height of the financial crisis. If you turned on the television news in the middle of it all, you’ll probably recall that iconic scene of the seven heads of the biggest banks hauled before Congress. One couldn’t help but notice the total lack of diversity in that line-up.
Some behavioral economists believe there are biological reasons men make crazy bets. Joe Herbert, a neuroscientist
at Cambridge University who studied the effects of testosterone on stock traders, told New York magazine, “The banking crisis was caused by doing what no society ever allows, permitting young males to behave in an unregulated way. Anyone who studied neurobiology would have predicted disaster.”
Headlines such as New York magazine’s “What If Women Ran Wall Street?” and the Washington Post ’s “In Banking Crisis, Guys Get the Blame, More Women Needed in Top Jobs, Critics Say” promoted the idea that we all might benefit from having more women in positions of power on Wall Street.
Would Wall Street have crumbled in 2008 if women were running the show? I ask both Brooksley Born, former head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, and Sheila Bair, current head of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. Both are rarities in the world of government: they’ve held powerful positions overseeing the banking industry, they famously clashed with Wall Street during their tenure as financial regulators, and both are well-known for displaying political bravery in their (ultimately unsuccessful) attempts to warn the country of looming threats to the American economy. As head of the CFTC during the Clinton administration, Born was among the first to call for greater disclosure and regulation of the rapidly growing market in financial derivatives. As head of the FDIC, the government agency which regulates banks and insures depositors, Sheila Bair has been a prominent figure in the current economic
meltdown and was also recognized for her early attempt to get the second Bush administration to address the imminent subprime mortgage crisis.
Neither is willing to categorize women as less likely to be risk takers. Both point to the fact that women in the finance world are outsiders, however, and to some degree that fact helped them bring a new perspective to bear on the industry’s problems.
Born says, “You
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