#MeToo finally hits Wall Street
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"What the Point72 Lawsuit Says About Wall Street: Steve Cohen’s firm is part of an industry in which swagger and jerkdom are conflated with trading aggression" — Barron's "Streetwise" column, by Mary Childs(subscription).
Why it matters: "Like the civil charge that finally stuck after years of government effort to prove his firm traded on insider information, Bonner’s suit outlines a failure to supervise, a tolerance of bad behavior. That would be Cohen and Point72’s responsibility, and yet it can’t be pinned on them alone; they’re part of a culture in which testosterone-laden swagger and jerkdom are conflated with trading aggression and market conviction."
- "People in finance, that great meritocracy, have been telling one another that they have been spared from #MeToo because they already went through all this in the 1980s and 1990s."
- And yet. For an industry based on math, it doesn’t add up. A Preqin study last year showed that women account for 26% of junior employees at hedge funds. That figure falls to 11% for senior positions.
- "This past week, an employee at Steve Cohen’s Point72 Asset Management sued the firm, alleging gender discrimination and pay disparity. "
- "Executives 'refuse to hire women,' Lauren Bonner’s complaint says, because 'their wives won’t let them.'"
- "A spokesman for Point72 said 'the hundreds of women at Point72 are vital members of every part of our organization' and that its female investment professional workforce exceeded 'published industry averages.'"
