“Just one of the guys”…

I grew up with older brothers who after dinner, would go outside to play basketball on our driveway. I was the little girl who, five years younger than my closest brother, would end up sitting on the steps watching.   Then one day when I finally had enough time sitting,  I asked them if I could play.   I was told that if I wanted to play with them I would receive no special treatment because I was joining their game and the rules were the rules. I walked onto the court (the driveway) knowing the terms. I hardly ever got the ball and ended up with a lot of bruises and scrapes, but I was playing the game and that was all that mattered.

When I finished college and walked onto that first trading floor I went with the same assumptions. I did not expect special treatment and planned to live by the rules of the floor.  From that first day, I was trying to be “just one of the guys”, to learn the business and to be successful.   It was “their court and their rules”.   I assumed we were a team.  It never occurred to me that I would be treated differently.   Given the lack of women around me or anywhere in leadership roles, being “one of the guys” seemed like it was the only option.

After a few years, I was able to swear with the best of them. I had grown immune to just about any word or gesture the “guys” could possibly come up with. I would roll my eyes at the women who would make a fuss about the antics on the trading floor.  I would often say to the guys around me “you will never see me pull the “woman card”.   In those years I genuinely thought if I didn’t make waves and showed them I was one of them they would treat me equally. In some ways, it worked. I was asked to join them at lunch or after work.   I got copies of the jokes going around and I would hear all about their golf game, custom shirts, demanding wives or latest conquest.  But later in my career when it came down to things that really mattered, I was not treated equally.  I was definitely not “one of the guys” then.

During the early years when I was sitting there with my feet up on the desk, tossing a ball over the screens with “the guys” I was doing nothing to help the women around me, or myself, as it happens.   In fact, I was working against “gender equality”. Behaving like a guy and discounting women who made waves wasn’t equalizing anything.   In reality, I was endorsing the boys club. My acceptance of all of that absurd behavior allowed the men to say – “well “__” is okay with it. Why aren’t you?” to the women who would challenge them.  Rolling my eyes and frowning upon women who stood up for themselves actually made be a big part of the problem.

Smart women with high standards were walking away from the “Floor” to pursue work in other less hostile environments and industries.   Young girls coming from University on internships were overwhelmed by a football field sized room full of men waving their arms, yelling into phones and behaving badly.  The smattering of women they did encounter were often less than welcoming.   These interns, if they made it through the program would rarely return after graduation.   I wasn’t paying attention to the effect the trading floor dynamic, and my own behavior was having on the women around me.  Given my comfort level on the floor and my degree of success, it was up to me to pave the way for these women, but I didn’t.   I kept tossing the football, dropping the “f” word, and laughing at the dirty jokes.

A few years ago I finally put it together. I had become the “only woman in the room” at the senior leadership level because I had chosen to be “just one of the guys” all those years ago.  My actions then directly contributed to my “problem” now.  There were no women in the room to support me and with a unique perspective on many things,  I was not “one of the guys” anymore.

So when you are sitting there laughing at jokes you wouldn’t tell your mother, using words you hope your children never do, or listening to “one of the guys” tell the gory details of his last conquest,  take a walk;

• Go to other departments and introduce yourself to the women there, let them know they have a female colleague on The Floor.
• Find out if your firm has a women’s group and begin to participate. If they don’t have one, start one.
• Get involved in a mentoring program where you can help younger women chart a path to your field/industry.
• Contact your Human Resources team and tell them you want to participate in the recruiting process so you can tell young women that trading and financial services careers are exciting and rewarding, even for women!
• Take an interest in the work that the senior women in your firm are doing and see if there is a way you can support them.

You need to get more women in the seats around you. If you don’t someday you may find yourself the “only woman in the room”  while the battle for gender equality rages on.