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Tales
from the Boom-Boom Room: Women vs. Wall Street by Susan Antilla Rating: ••• (Recommended) |
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Click on title or picture to buy from amazon.com |
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Explosive I read Susan Antilla’s book, Tales
from the Boom-Boom Room: Women vs. Wall Street, to confirm my
understanding about how bad it was for women to succeed in jobs on Wall
Street. After finishing the book, I concluded it was worse than I ever
imagined or observed. The Boom-Boom Room refers to the basement of a stock
brokerage office in Garden City, that had more characteristics of a male frat
house than a place of business. It provides a great title and image for a
book that chronicles some of the totally inappropriate behavior women who
worked for Wall Street companies have had to deal with. In Tales,
Antilla follows the class action lawsuit of one group of women, including Pam
Martens (whose name headed the case), and the bobbing and weaving of lawyers
on all sides. Here’s an excerpt (pp. 43-5): Few
things came easily to the women who worked on the Street – something Pam had
thought little about in her zeal to become a broker. It was not just the pay
disparity or the gender-specific nuisances such as Siebert’s long treks to
the latrine. Those who invaded male bastions frequently suffered other
disadvantages beyond unequal pay and bulging bladders. Sometimes
the inequities had to do with the cost of becoming qualified for the job.
When Patricia Clemente joined the Los Angeles office of Shearson in 1981 as a
sales assistant, she learned about some of the benefits that assisted only
the men. In a statement later entered in court, Clemente said that while her
male counterparts were given time off to study for the Series 7 test, she had
to use one week of her vacation time for her cramming. Brokers must pass the
Series 7 test in order to get a license to sell stocks to the public. Little
wonder that when the men in the office learned that a woman was scheduled to take
the test, they laid bets on whether she would flunk. Forty
percent of the women who took the test during a period studied by the EEOC in
late 1994 and early 1995 failed, compared to only a 27 percent failure rate
by the men. The EEOC took the opportunity to suggest that gender-based biases
might exist in the test questions, but the fact that men got more support and
study time may provide a better clue. Although
the system did not tend to support its female test-takers, many studied and
excelled nonetheless. Lacking equal support, however, it could be a struggle. Court
filings asserted that Clemente worked in an atmosphere where brokers gave
bonuses to sales assistants who were willing to give men neck massages."
She complained that her manager once arranged a career advancement seminar
whose agenda was instruction in hair styling and makeup application."
After Clemente protested about the hair-styling confab, the meeting was
canceled." Years
after Clemente received her invitation to attend the hair styling seminar,
Jennifer Alvarez joined the company that by then had merged with Smith Barney
in Berkeley, California, and experienced still other injustices related to
getting her brokers license. She said later in court documents that the men
got study time, but she squeezed in her studying for the Series 7 after she
got home from work. The documents said the men got study books for free from
the company, but she paid for hers. At an "appreciation lunch" for
sales assistants, the branch manager said he didn't hire men for sales
assistant positions because men are too ambitious. "That's what I like about you
women he
said. "You're lapdogs. You're content to stay put."" Alvarez said in a 1999 Statement of Claim against
Smith Barney that before she quit in 1995, she routinely endured workplace
confrontations in which one of her male bosses spread his legs and told her
to "get on your knees and give me what I want." The statement of
claim said that the same broker tried to convince her that there was a
tradition at office Christmas parties she should know about: sales assistants
like Alvarez were supposed to flash their breasts to him. Alvarez complained
to the female operations manager, but the manager responded that the broker
was "just flirting." In fact, the woman added, he'd treated her the
same way. Lydia
Klein, who began as the assistant to the branch manager at a Shearson office
in Manhattan in 1981, advanced farther than many of her peers, working her
way up the ladder to portfolio adviser to high-net-worth clients.
She got there, though, at a high price, and would tell the story of a
demeaning environment in her 1999 Statement of Claim against Smith Barney,
which merged with Shearsons brokerage operations in 1994. In
1982, two men—a trader and an officer in the municipal bond department—sent
her a calzone shaped like a penis, with ricotta cheese seeping from a hole in
the pastry. The harassment Klein says she experienced was constant and
public. The same trader would stare at her breasts and ask "How they
hanging?" He approached her at a business dinner making lewd remarks as
he hung a banana outside his pants zipper. Another man—a supervisor—would
stare at her breasts and say "Oooh, I love them, booby booby
boo."" A male coworker once bit her ankles at work, tearing out
patches of her nylons." A wire operator in Walnut Creek, California, was
told she couldn't become a broker because "Your dick isn't hard enough.”
According to court documents, a broker in Colorado grumbled about
discrimination only to hear her branch manager respond that she couldn't quit
"because you are my token bitch." A broker in New Jersey would
arrive at work to a male brokers query as to whether she masturbated in the
morning and then washed "that thing" before she got to the office.
The same broker took his penis out of his pants in front of female colleagues, put it
in his drink at a party, and told them "Its thirsty."
Another male broker at an office in California cornered a wire operator against the
wall, placed his right hand against the wall, his left hand up her skirt and
on her buttocks, and told her "This is going to be so good, I've wanted
to do this for such a long time." He then rubbed his erect penis,
through his pants, up and down her buttocks. When the branch manager learned
of the conduct, he said the broker should be left alone because he was
"going through a mid-life crisis."" In the late 1990s, when a
psychologist surveyed women who said they had been harassed at the firm,
seven out of ten said they feared retaliation and that filing a complaint
would hurt their chances of advancement. Of those who complained, only 2
percent said the person about whom they complained was punished. Courts would
later say that employees who failed to use the company's complaint system
didn't have a valid case. These incidents and allegations of discrimination and
harassment, from Pain's Garden City office to Patricia Clemente's in Los
Angeles, were legion at the time Pam was training for the job, yet the women
were unaware of the similarities in ill treatment from one branch to the
next. It was thus with utter ignorance of this side of the brokerage business
that Pam Martens signed on as a trainee in the Class of 1985 at
Shearson/American Express. Lawyers will enjoy reading Tales
from the Boom-Boom Room to see how some strategies produced great success
for companies whose practices were despicable. While some of the episodes of
sexual harassment described in this book are Neanderthal, it’s amazing to
note how recently this behavior was encouraged. Many say it’s a different
time on Wall Street. Perhaps more time will tell. In the meantime, read
Antilla’s account of Tales
from the Boom-Boom Room. Steve Hopkins, April 19, 2003 |
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ã 2003 Hopkins and Company, LLC The
recommendation rating for this book appeared in the May 2003
issue of Executive
Times URL
for this review: http://www.hopkinsandcompany.com/Books/Tales
from the Boom-Boom Room.htm For
Reprint Permission, Contact: Hopkins
& Company, LLC • 723 North Kenilworth Avenue • Oak Park, IL 60302 E-mail: books@hopkinsandcompany.com |
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