Over the weekend, Muriel "Mickie" Siebert, 80, succumbed to cancer. She will forever be remembered as the first woman to buy a seat on the New York Stock Exchange and the pioneer who opened the doors for women to occupy every role on Wall Street over the subsequent decades.
Her stoicism and sense of humor made her a favorite among her peers, evidenced by the attached photo of her standing beside urinals in a men's room. Much hay was made in 1967 over the fact that the New York Stock Exchange trading floor didn't even have a ladies room, and that traders were notoriously course, so how could she possibly buy a seat?
“There was all manner of concern for my delicate ears -- with several articles postulating that a woman couldn’t handle the rough language of Wall Street -- and many comments about the absence of a ladies’ room on the Stock Exchange floor,” Siebert recalled in her 2002 memoir, “Changing the Rules: Adventures of a Wall Street Maverick,” written with Aimee Lee Ball.
“Not since I was a baby had so many people been so interested in my bathroom habits,” she wrote.
She figured out the game early on. As a college dropout, she lied about having a degree to land a job in ER at Bache & Co for $65 a week. Six years later she was a partner at Stearns & Co. She didn't come clean about not having a degree until she was forced to when she became the first female member of the NYSE.
She went on to found one of the most successful discount brokerages of the 1980's and 90's. Always a champion of the little guy, she offered half-price commissions to individual investors and spent the latter years of her life trying to get personal finance curriculums introduced in high schools across the country.
Mickie Siebert was a trailblazer, and when I occasionally ran across one of her clients, they were always satisfied and unwilling to leave her firm. She kicked open a lot of doors for women on Wall Street, and she did it in such a way that the Old Boys network didn't mind having her around.
She will certainly be missed.
I am willing to bet she learned more in her first four years of work then she ever could from four years of college.
RIP. What she accomplished under those circumstances took a lot of guts.
Its really inspiring to see stories like that. Even though the atmosphere today is pretty bad (as generally seen in the comments on this site), women succeeded before when the environment was completely horrendous, so its certainly doable today.
i think that if you really emphasize or focus on "Oh, I'm the only female/minority/young person/person who likes skittles/whatever" in the room, it makes it a much bigger deal than if you just go with it and act respectable, professional, and like you belong. I'm not saying you should just try to blend in. I don't think you should act like you're not what of those categories. But there is no need to make a huge deal out of it.
Disclaimer: I belong to multiple of the above categories and I have been in many such situations. Also, I'm still in college.
Please don't make this lovely tribute post a flame war.
I get what you mean...just get in there, do your job well, and act like you've been there before. If you get into the habit of being treated/acting like a cause, then you will simply be the firm's mascot...rolled out and displayed for PR without ever being taken seriously for your work, or respected for that matter. The victim mentality becomes a self fulfilling prophecy if you use it as a crutch.
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