Why You Should Care About "Bro Talk" On Wall Street

By Sallie Krawcheck

In this weekend’s The New York Times, a former bond trader at Bank of America wrote of the pervasiveness of misogynistic “bro talk” on Wall Street; he spoke of the negative impact it has on women’s careers, and the harmful ripple effects for women beyond that.

When I first saw the article on-line, the only comment I could think to add when I tweeted it was: “Oof.” That’s because, having spent my career on Wall Street (including running Merrill Lynch at Bank of America), I felt like I had been kicked in the stomach. I’m not a naïve woman, but really? Seriously??? That much of that is still going on?? In this day and age?

So, it’s clear why I would care about this; Wall Street was, after all, where I built my career. Here’s why you should care, rather than brush it off and move to the next thing:

1) Because, even if you’re not a woman, I’ll bet you have a woman you love: your mother, your spouse, your sister, your friends….your daughter. And women shouldn’t be treated like this, even if they aren’t in the room. How would you feel about someone saying these things about your daughter?

2) Because financial crisis. None of us really think the financial crisis would have been worse if there were more women – or other types of diversity – on those Wall Street trading floors or in management, do we? The research is pretty clear that homogeneity leads to greater trust, which leads to greater risk. So greater diversity will have the opposite effect.

3) Because the retirement savings crisis is a women’s crisis. This is in part because women live longer than men do (nursing homes in this country are 80% female); it’s also because women retire with less money than men do. And that’s in part because of the not-much-talked-about-yet gender investing gap; women do not invest to the same extent that men do, which can cost them a great deal of money over their lives.

What does the gender complexion of Wall Street have to do with this? Well, it’s likely not a coincidence that the investing industry is so male, and it does a better job for men than women. It’s likely not a coincidence that women leave their husbands’ Financial Advisors at a rate of greater than 70% in the year after their husbands’ death. And it’s likely not a coincidence that, when I was speaking to the (male) CEO of a large bank about the opportunity in building an investing business targeted to women, his response was “But don’t their husbands manage their money for them?” (No; women in the U.S. today control $5 trillion in investable assets. That’s control, not jointly control.)

As a result, Wall Street investing initiatives for women tend to refract through a lens of what men think women want (think Chardonnay at cocktail parties and discussions of the emotional components of investing), rather than taking into account the real differences between men and women in investing (such as planning for women’s longer lives and respecting their greater risk awareness).

What to do about this?

To the CEOs: Wall Street simply needs to bring more women and diverse individuals into the business. Just friggin’ do it. I promise you, the solution isn’t more training sessions on unconscious bias or a new diversity group, though they are nice. It’s not another speech at the annual townhall on how important diversity is. It’s to just hire more women. And, more importantly (because this is NOT solely a pipeline issue; there are plenty enough women who start out on Wall Street), it’s to simply promote more women. That’s true even if the manager tells you he’s fairly certain that the guy will do a better job because he reminds him so darn much of himself.

To the Boards of Directors of the Wall Street firms: this is getting past the point of being funny. It represents real risk to the companies.

To the regulators: way past the point of being funny. Same reason.

Sallie Krawcheck is the CEO and Co-Founder of Ellevest, a digital investment platform for women. You can request an invitation here. She is also Chair of Ellevate Network, the global professional women’s network. She is the former CEO of Merrill Lynch Wealth Management and Smith Barney.