A man's game in need of women
Just as I was leaving my job in the derivatives group at Morgan Stanley in April 1995, the New Yorker magazine published a cartoon about the firm. It depicted a trading floor packed with jowly, balding men, one of whom glowered at the only female broker as she excitedly gripped a telephone handset. The caption read: "At Morgan Stanley, Ms Brimworth, we do not shout 'Bingo!'."
Not many people at Morgan Stanley laughed. The image seemed from a different era, perhaps the 1950s, when smug financiers such as Perry Hall ran the show, entertained clients at turkey shoots and told the firm's Ivy League recruits: "I'm interested in the man who can bring the business in." It did not resemble the trading floor I saw every day, where the old-timers were long gone and my boss was a woman.
At the time, Allison Schieffelin worked in Morgan Stanley's institutional equity division. Even Perry Hall could not have denied that she was bringing the business in. She was a successful saleswoman with seven-figure earnings. Could she really have been Ms Brimworth?
According to her recent sex-discrimination suit, she was. Ms Schieffelin alleged, on behalf of as many as 340 current and former Morgan Stanley employees, that she was denied promotion and later fired because she was a woman. She claimed colleagues excluded her from client outings to strip clubs and golf resorts. She was even reprimanded for the modern-day equivalent of shouting "Bingo" - being "snippy" at tense trading moments.
Morgan Stanley told a different story: Ms Schieffelin was not promoted because she did not deserve it. She was not a team player and was fired for insubordination after a "verbally abusive" argument with her boss, a woman.
The firm agreed to pay $54m last week, $12m of which will go to Ms Schieffelin to settle the case, but contended that it has "at all times treated its women employees fairly and equitably". Philip Purcell, the chairman, said Morgan Stanley was "proud of our commitment to diversity".
Both sides have a point. Ms Schieffelin was correct in objecting to rude behaviour and in noting that women were paid less than men and given fewer promotions. But the firm was correct in maintaining that it generally treated women fairly and strove for equal opportunity. While I was at Morgan Stanley the firm was downright prudish compared with other banks.
What lessons can one draw from this litigation? One is that the floodgates are open for sex-discrimination suits. There are high-profile cases pending against Merrill Lynch and Nomura, and more are sure to follow.
Another is that the focus on sex discrimination is misplaced. The most serious gender problem on Wall Street is not the kind of explicit discrimination prohibited by civil rights laws. Trading floors are not the hostile work environments they used to be, with breast-shaped birthday cakes and unremitting advances from male bosses. Instead, the problem is that so few women are hired, paid big bonuses and promoted even after banks have largely stamped out overt sex discrimination.
Why is investment banking still a man's game? Because it is the character of Wall Street that discriminates, even more than loutish men. Investment banking is dominated by men for some of the same reasons the Mafia and other gangs are dominated by men. The business attracts and rewards people with certain skills and predispositions - appetite for risk, willingness to bend the law, knack of cultivating clients while fleecing them - that are, or at least are perceived to be, more prevalent among men than women.
It might be nature or nurture but the facts support this theory. During the past decade, women have held 20 to 40 per cent of positions on Wall Street, but all the high-profile prosecutions for financial wrongdoing have involved male defendants. Paul Mozer of Salomon; Nick Leeson of Barings; Joseph Jett of Kidder, Peabody; Henry Blodget of Merrill Lynch; Frank Quattrone of various banks; John Rusnak of Allfirst Financial; and so on. Where are the women? Now that women occupy so many banking jobs, one would expect to find a few rogues here and there. But even the most criticised women, such as Mary Meeker, a stock analyst at Morgan Stanley, have not been prosecuted. Ms Schieffelin was undeniably a straight shooter, too. Indeed, one unreported aspect of Ms Schieffelin's claim was that Morgan Stanley employees engaged in illegal "stock parking" with one of her clients, something she apparently would not do. On July 2, just before Morgan Stanley agreed to settle the case, a magistrate judge ruled against the firm's request to submit expert testimony that the transactions were legal. Now the details of those allegations will remain secret.
Given this evidence, one might expect banks to want to hire more women. They do the opposite because financial wrongdoing helps their business. Banks say they do not condone illicit behaviour because they have reputations to preserve. But Wall Street has recently suffered every public indignity imaginable, yet profits and bonuses are skyrocketing. Banks can easily overcome negative publicity by waiting for memories to fade (and by spending a bit more on advertising and charitable donations). Banks treat reputation as a capital asset, investing in it only so they can deplete it later.
The consequence is that even if sex discrimination were eliminated, the numbers of men and women would remain unbalanced. Simply put, the nature of Wall Street's business favours men. For anyone who believes investment banking's culture could use a dose of professionalism, the prescription is obvious: hire more women.
The writer is a professor of law at the University of San Diego and author of 'Infectious Greed: How Deceit and Risk Corrupted the Financial Markets (Times Books)
华尔街：男人的游戏需要女人
1995年4月，正当我要离开摩根斯坦利(Morgan Stanley)的金融衍生产品部门时，《纽约客》(the New Yorker)杂志刊登了一幅我们银行的漫画。漫画描绘的是一个人头攒动的交易大厅，里面挤满了双下巴、秃顶的男经纪人，其中一人对着唯一的一名女经纪人怒目而视，原因是她兴奋地紧握电话听筒。漫画的标题是：“在摩根斯坦利，Brimworth女士，我们不会大叫‘宾果！’”(译者注：Bingo因意外成功表示兴奋的叫声)
大多数摩根斯坦利的员工都不会觉得好笑。这幅漫画展现的似乎是一个不同于现在的时代，大概是20世纪50年代。那时，诸如佩里?霍尔(Perry Hall)等自鸣得意的金融家们操纵着银行的一切，和客户们外出一起打猎火鸡，并告诉毕业于常春藤联盟的新员工：“我对能为银行带来生意的人有兴趣。”这幅漫画与我每天所看到的交易厅迥然相异。现在，那些老前辈早已不见踪影，我的老板则是一位女士。
当时，爱莉森?席佛林（Allison Schieffelin）供职于摩根斯坦利的机构证券部。即使佩里?霍尔都不能否认，她为银行带来了生意。她是一名成功的女销售员，年薪高达七位数。她真的能成为Brimworth女士？
从最近她的这起性别歧视案来看，她的确是。作为340名现在和过去摩根斯坦利员工的代表，席佛林女士称，银行因为性别歧视而不肯提升她，而后又将她解雇。她声称，银行男同事带着客户去脱衣舞俱乐部和高尔夫球场时，她都被排除在外。她甚至因为叫了一声如今常用的口头禅“Bingo”而遭到严厉斥责，指责她在紧张的交易时刻“言语粗鲁”。
摩根斯坦利的说法则截然不同。席佛林女士没有获得提升的原因是她不够资格。她缺乏团队合作精神，遭到解雇是因为不服从女上司的领导，并在争论时“恶言相向”。
上周，摩根斯坦利同意以5400万美元和解，席佛林女士获赔1200万美元，但声称银行“始终公平公正地对待女员工”。董事长菲利普?珀塞尔(Philip Purcell)说，摩根斯坦利“为我们对恪守用工多元化的承诺而感到自豪。”
双方的说法都有一定道理。席佛林女士向粗鲁的行为提出抗议，并指出女性的薪酬比男性低，升职机会也较少，她做得很对。但摩根斯坦利认为银行基本上做到了公平对待女员工，并努力争取均等机会，他们的辩解也没有错。我在摩根斯坦利供职时，与其它银行相比，它实在是显得过分拘谨。
从这起诉讼中，我们能吸取什么经验？第一，性别歧视诉讼的闸门已经打开。引来舆论一片哗然的美林证券(Merrill Lynch)和野村证券(Nomura)性别歧视案正在审理过程中，更多此类诉讼必将接踵而至。
另外一点是放错了性别歧视的重点。华尔街最严重的性别问题并不是“人权法”明令禁止的那类性别歧视。股票交易厅的工作环境不像从前那样恶劣，例如胸部造型的生日蛋糕和男上司无休止的骚扰。但现在的问题是，即使银行在很大程度上消除了公开的性别歧视后，银行雇佣的女员工还是很少，她们获得高额奖金和晋升的机会也是微乎其微。
为什么投资银行业仍然是男人的游戏？这是由华尔街歧视女性的本质所决定的，这甚至比粗鄙的男性有过之而无不及。投资银行业由男性一统天下，其原因在某种程度上与黑手党和其它帮派受男性主宰如出一辙。投资银行业吸引并嘉奖的是那些具备一定技能和性格倾向的人，例如爱好冒险，变通法律，掌握结识客户的诀窍，并懂得如何哄骗他们。这些是或至少被视作是在男性中更为普遍的特点。
这可能是本性和教养使然，或是火星-金星（编者注：指男人-女人）兼而有之，但事实证明这一理论是正确的。在过去的10年中，华尔街女性职员的比例为20%到40%，但在所有引起轩然大波的金融不法行为的起诉中，涉及的被告均为男性，包括所罗门(Salomon)的保尔?莫泽尔(Paul Mozer)；巴林(Barings)的尼克?利森(Nick Leeson); 基德尔?皮博迪(Kidder Peabody)的约瑟夫?杰特(Joseph Jett); 美林证券的亨利?布洛杰特(Henry Blodget); 供职于各大银行的弗兰克?夸特罗内(Frank Quattrone)；全先金融(Allfirst Financial) 的约翰?鲁斯纳克(John Rusnak)等。那么，女性被告在哪里呢？既然女性占据了这么多银行职位，那么在这里或那里就总能找到一些女性的不法之徒。但即使是遭到最多非议的女性，比如摩根斯坦利的股票分析师玛丽?米克(Mary Meeker)，也没遭到起诉。不可否认，席佛林女士也是一个诚实坦白的人。事实上，席佛林女士起诉案中有一个方面未作报道，即摩根斯坦利的员工与她的一名客户参与了非法的“股票假脱手”(“stock parking”)，而她显然不会这么做。7月2日，就在摩根斯坦利同意和解前夕，一位地方法官驳回了银行提交专家证明交易合法的证词的请求。现在，这些辩解的细节仍属机密。
鉴于上述证据，我们可能以为银行会萌生雇佣更多女性员工的想法，但他们的做法恰恰相反，因为金融丑闻对银行生意有所帮助。银行表示，他们不会宽恕非法的金融行为，因为他们需要保护公司名誉。但最近，华尔街遭遇多事之秋，许多公司因此名誉扫地，但它们的利润和红利却大幅上升。通过等待丑闻慢慢被人淡忘（以及增加广告和慈善捐款的投资），银行就能轻而易举地摆脱负面的公众形象。银行将名誉视为固定资产，需要对它进行投资，能让它将来消耗。
最后得出的结论是：即使消除了性别歧视，金融业中男女比例仍然不会平衡。简而言之，华尔街的行业性质对男性更为有利。对于任何一个相信投资银行业的文化能通过一剂专业药物治愈的人来说，药方显然就是雇佣更多的女员工。
