Wall Street Women Melissa S. Fisher WALL STREET WOMEN Melissa S. Fisher Duke University Press Durham and London 2012 ∫ 2012 Duke University Press All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper $ Designed by C. H. Westmoreland Typeset in Arno Pro by Keystone Typesetting, Inc. Library of Congress Cataloging-in- Publication Data appear on the last printed page of this book. For my Bubbe, Rebecca Saidikoff Oshiver, and in the memory of my grandmother Esther Oshiver Fisher and my grandfather Mitchell Salem Fisher CONTENTS acknowledgments ix introduction Wall Street Women 1 1. Beginnings 27 2. Careers, Networks, and Mentors 66 3. Gendered Discourses of Finance 95 4. Women’s Politics and State-Market Feminism 120 5. Life after Wall Street 136 6. Market Feminism, Feminizing Markets, and the Financial Crisis 155 notes 175 bibliography 201 index 217 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS A commitment to gender equality first brought about this book’s journey. My interest in understanding the transformations in women’s experiences in male-dominated professions began when I was a child in the seventies, listening to my grandmother tell me stories about her own experiences as one of the only women at the University of Penn- sylvania Law School in the twenties. I also remember hearing my mother, as I grew up, speaking about women’s rights, as well as visiting my father and grandfather at their law office in midtown Manhattan: there, while still in elementary school, I spoke to the sole female lawyer in the firm about her career. My interests in women and gender studies only grew during my time as an undergraduate at Barnard College. Ul- timately, when I entered graduate school, all of these experiences led me to decide to study the pioneering first generation of women on Wall Street for my dissertation research at Columbia University. Powerful, elite women in finance during the nineties was not a conventional research topic to undertake within the discipline of an- thropology. In graduate school I was fortunate to find the academic support of a number of pioneering female academics in their own right. The initial research for this book took shape under the guidance of Katherine Newman, who recognized an anthropological project in the study of women’s professional mobility on Wall Street. Elaine Combs-Schilling, Jean Howard, Martha Howell, and Rosalind Morris guided me in thinking about gender and power; Saskia Sassen focused my attention on finance and global cities. In addition, Harrison White taught me a great deal about elite networks and the corporate arena. Their initial interest as well as enormous support from Wendy Mac- kenzie and Salvatore Pitruzzello provided the foundation of my re- x Acknowledgments search. I am also indebted to the Financial Women’s Association of New York City (fwa), the Women’s Campaign Fund (wcf), and the women and men on Wall Street and in politics who gave their time to this project, some of whom I have now known for over a decade and a half. I also want to thank my friends and colleagues from Columbia University who sustained me through graduate school: John Jackson, Greg Downey, and Paul Silverstein. The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Research Program on the Workplace, Workforce, and Working Fam- ilies; the Henry A. Murray Center at Radcliffe College Dissertation Award, the Department of Anthropology at Columbia University, and the (then-named) Center for Social Sciences at Columbia University provided the research funds that I needed to complete my initial fieldwork and archival research. The writing of my dissertation took shape thanks to the intellectual guidance and inspiration of my advisor, Sherry Ortner, at Columbia University. She has always believed in me and my project. I am in- debted to her sustained intellectual and professional support and owe her a special debt that cannot be repaid. Alice Kessler-Harris also pro- vided invaluable scholarly inspiration and support during my time at Columbia. While I lived and taught in Washington, D.C., I trans- formed the dissertation into this book. I especially want to thank my developmental editor, Laura Helper-Ferris, for working with me and helping me find the joy in writing. Her wisdom and advice were invaluable. I also thank my uncle Franklin Fisher, Professor Emeritus in Economics at mit, who provided intellectual, emotional, and fi- nancial support during the final write-up. In addition, I thank the faculty in and associated with the Department of Anthropology at Georgetown University for their interest in my work: Fida Adely, Denise Brennan, Rodney Collins, Rochelle Davis, Laurie King, Gwen Mikell, Joanne Rappaport, and Susan Terrio. I have been fortunate at Georgetown to have received a number of grants that allowed me to conduct follow-up research with the first generation of Wall Street women throughout the 2000s. My research assistant, Elizabeth Kee- nan, was invaluable in helping me prepare this book for publication. Notably, portions of my 2004 article ‘‘Wall Street Women’s Hersto- ries’’ informed parts of chapters 1 and 3 of this book. I have also benefited from the generosity of Christina Garsten of the University of Stockholm, who has provided scholarly inspiration and warm collegial friendship. I especially want to thank Christina and the Acknowledgments xi Department of Anthropology and Centre for Organizational Research at Stockholm University, Sweden, for providing me a home to begin writing my book. I also benefited from my time spent as a Visiting Fellow at the Lancaster Institute for Advanced Studies Program on the Knowledge-Based Economy. I am grateful for feedback from and con- versations with Angel Kwolek-Folland, Pamela Laird, Gregory Dow- ney, Kenneth Lipartito, Mary Yeager, Adrienne Sörbom, Linda Basch, Brian Hoey, Joyce Goggin, Marieke de Goede, Caitlin Zaloom, Karen Ho, Bill Maurer, Hiro Miyazaki, Douglas Holmes, Tim Maletfyt, Eric Lassiter, Annette Nyqvist, Linda Smircich, Marta Calás, Daniel Walko- witz, Jocelyn Willis, Helena Wulff, Marietta Baba, Tracy Lovatt, John Tutino, and Beverly Sauer. I was also fortunate to develop and share my work most recently at the Isenberg School of Management at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst; the Center for the Education of Women at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor; as well as the Conference on Critical Finance at the University of Amsterdam. I owe my family an enormous debt of gratitude. My mother, Joanne Hamburger; my father, Robert Wang; my sisters Deborah and Tova Wang; my aunt and uncle Franklin Fisher and Ellen Fisher; and my aunt and uncle Wesley Fisher and Regine Fisher have provided strength, nurturing, and love. I would also like to acknowledge my family members Joe Oshiver, Michael Oshiver, Jackie Oshiver, Roberto Hamburger, Francine Shapiro, and all my cousins and their children. Important friends and colleagues have supported me throughout the research and writing process. I am especially grateful for the warmth, understanding, and encouragement of my very close friend and col- league Laurel George and a very special group of long-time and loyal friends: Rachel Esner, Lisa Hajjar, Tara Susman-Peña, Melissa Cefkin, Debby Everett-Lane, Anna Maslakovic, Ashwini Tambe, Elie Cossa, and Sarah Lawrie. I am also deeply indebted to Courtney Berger, my editor at Duke University Press. Courtney has provided invaluable guidance and sup- port. I am enormously grateful to her as well as to Ken Wissoker, Editorial Director at Duke University Press; to Courtney’s assistant, Christine Choi; to the copyeditor Christine Dahlin; and to their col- leagues at the press, for their confidence in my work. Courtney’s enthusiasm and inspiration have helped make this book a reality. Finally, I am fortunate to stand on the shoulders of many other female pioneers, including my own Bubbe, Rebecca Oshiver. Bubbe xii Acknowledgments came to the United States at age fourteen to pursue a different kind of life for herself and for other women. She did not go to school herself, but she sent my grandmother Esther Oshiver to college and to law school at a time when few women attended such institutions. Every graduation for a woman in my family is a graduation for Bubbe. I dedicate this book to her. introduction WALL STREET WOMEN Patricia Riley and I sat in her small office in one of the major Wall Street firms in midtown Manhattan. It was March 1994, the first day of my fieldwork on the pioneering generation of women on Wall Street.∞ Patricia was one of the most senior women in global finance, a veteran with more than twenty years in the area of research. When she first entered the world of finance in the seventies, researchers were consid- ered to be support staff for investment bankers and traders, helping them make deals. But by the time of our conversation, which occurred within a bull market, research strategists such as Patricia were part of the ‘‘front office’’ and were among the most valued employees because they were understood to be generating revenue for the firm. Soon Pa- tricia and I were deep into conversation about her life, career, and why she and other women had been so successful in finance. Her account drew on the differences between men and women and risk taking: I think that when women look at stocks, they have a lot more respect for the concept of risk. This serves them well. Men are classics. I constantly get this—they are at a cocktail party, and they get a hot tip. If you suggest electronics, they want to buy it. But women will sit there and say ‘‘like my family’s ira account’’ or what- ever. The women want something conservative, something long term, something they can hold on to for a couple of years.