For many years, any markets[1] job was more-or-less a ‘boys club.’ Jenny Andrews, co-host of tastytrade’s The LIZ & JNY Show, recalled her early years on the floor of the Chicago Board of Options exchange: “I felt like I was back in high school – just the screaming boys and the jokes, it was a lot of fun. Everyone was best friends but everyone was they were enemies too because no one wanted you to get on a trade because you were taking money from someone else.”
In a sense, that reality hasn’t changed: in 2011, studies suggested that women represented 31% of all workers in finance and trading, and by 2018, that number held steady at 31%. For economics, roughly 34% of workers are women, a figure that has slowly edged higher over time – but not materially.
Income inequality is prevalent as well. For all three fields, women have been making roughly 87% of the salary that a man makes for doing the same exact job, according to 2018 data. This is a modest improvement from 2011, when that figure was closer to 83% - but it’s still not good enough.
Alas, the topline numbers don’t tell the full story.
Everything in economics, finance, and trading boils down to the numbers. Math does not discriminate: if you’re bringing money in the door, you’re a valued member of the team.
Math Does Not Discriminate
Dallas Federal Reserve former advisor Danielle DiMartino Booth[2] hammered this point in an interview with DailyFX: “One of the greatest lessons I took away with me is that the best way for a woman to level the playing field on Wall Street[3] is to be in sales. That is the one
