Intern complaining about sexism in the office

I find it hard/bordering on impossible to believe that women account for less than 10% of your office at a BB

I'm a guy, but if that's true than I wouldn't be surprised if she had a real case. Odds are this is fake

Yes, this is true. In my experience it’s easier for males even as interns to get along with other males in the office. For example we would have male interns go up to associates and VPs and even higher be like “hey man. Lets get coffee or a drink”. Whereas a female is not able to pull that off especially as an intern because it’s not like the interns do real work where the work can speak for itself. But yes I have seen it happen all around me. The guys have a bro code but the girls don’t have a girl code and don’t just go up to others and be like “hey girl let’s do this”. I just thought that since majority of the office is males it is easier for them to connect. My group had about 20 or so males mds and 2 females. AN1 were split bw gender. But after that as you kept going up the chain female numbers diminished.

Damn this thread is fairly eye opening to how relatively gender equal my bank is. I'm on deals with multiple female senior bankers including a great MD and there are women on all my clients' exec teams. So the effect is every meeting I've dialed into as an analyst included women and was at least partially led by them. It definitely contributes to a calmer more PC vibe in the office, though. At my old bank we'd really shoot the shit all day but here the rapport is a little muted. I don't really care either way since my class gets out on weekends to blow off steam regardless.

This why you avoid hiring girls (and guys) who put pronouns in their LinkedIn. They're fucking nut jobs who ruin everything and put up stinks to HR all in the name of eQuALiTy

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As a minority guy, lots of good points made by reasonable women here and starting to see things from your perspective. Not exactly the same thing, but I sympathize as the ethnic/cultural minority experience is somewhat parallel when you walk into an office where 90% of people (men & women) are white and share certain backgrounds. I don't think any of this is intentional, but as OP points out would fit into "micro" agitations. Like talking about super expensive vacation destinations their family "has a house on" and it seems the jewish girls/guys all have some childhood connections going all the way back from NJ/NY (I know, jewish is also a minority but we all know this is not how it works in finance).

I had a great balanced experience in my first IB job where my group class had a 50/50 gender split. We all hung out together and the guys rarely excluded the girls from any nights out. But I think this only worked because the girls were willing to let it loose - we talked casual dating/sex, getting blacked out, talked sh*t about senior bankers, etc to bond with each other. We would all go out to dinners and bars and absolutely get bombed (a few different pairs eventually hooked up). I like to think it was a good experience for the girls (now I gotta ask them) but I wonder if they were doing something uncomfortable for themselves to fit in. But I honestly don't think so. 

Subsequently, I've worked in mostly male-dominated groups on the buyside. And especially white male dominated. The environment was noticeably different and the few women in the office seemed to reserve themselves into a more quiet/proper/overly professional role. There was zero female voice at the top, although a few MDs that were considered stars. This was overall a stifling experience for even myself who as a guy got invited to all the bro-ey stuff outside the office. It wasn't particularly raunchy, even the guy culture there was pretty stuffy. I think this was more of a function of me graduating from an "analyst class" peer group to a broader, older age demographic team. Most of the 30+ guys just wanted to go home and talk about their kids (just stop).

This experience made me realize how special I had it with my IB class group. Still good friends with all of them, but naturally hang out with them less. I'm sorry for some of the women here that were not as fortunate and sounds like got placed in more of the latter culture. What I've noticed is, it's usually the boomer/stunted maturity/balding guys with zero integrity (proud to cheat on wife, etc) that perpetuate a form of misogynistic culture by openly bringing up topics that women find uncomfortable. Most of the time, these are not the guys on the fast track or widely respected members of the team. Just some people who hung around forever, probably has some personal/professional frustrations and insecurities where their only outlet is trying to assert dominance in their misguided ways at work. I think for the most part the 20s/30s guys avoid these topics when unprompted, but once someone lets loose and makes it "ok" to be this way in a work setting, it unleashes even some of the younger guys who's stuck in their frat glory days to participate. On the women's part though, it is kind of annoying when someone seemingly gets offended by every little thing and are self-righteous and not let others be themselves. I tended to avoid these women at work even though I have nothing against hanging out with them. I do think it helps to be willing to be "chill" (I know, horrible term but for lack of better expression) even though whatever is being said is not agreeable with you. Just let others be others, you don't have to subscribe to their views. I think it helps to form alliances with reasonable guys who are also part of the "in-group" and try to be the girl that rallies the other women in the office to participate and have fun together. I think most younger/mid-level men in the office are not necessarily misogynistic by nature.

Some comments here- I bet with great insight. I've been in the industry for 20+ years. I have one word for you: hell. It's absolute maddening hell full of sexist shit.. maybe when I'm not so tired I'll answer with real stuff as this is a good question and what your intern mentioned was real world things that happen to women in banking and it's a huge issue.

This is tone deaf. We are in the age of women. The age of men is over. Firms try desperately to hire, promote women even over 1st / 2nd gen immigrants. No hate men had it good since the dawn of humanity so I get why there’s some spreading of the wealth. Comical to read some 22 year old’s example of why they don’t feel “super comfortable and stuff” when the winds are so strongly blowing in their direction overall

This is pretty interesting. I hadn’t thought about this really until a few months into my job. I work in real estate debt originations at a large bank so it is a bit differnet as it’s much smaller than M&A teams. But, out of all the originators (director level and above), there are absolutely no women across all offices. Like there are probably 20 originators across the country, and none are women. Commercial real estate is even more of a boys club than IB sometimes so it makes sense, but I still find it pretty nuts that there are no women in those high-earning origination roles.

Me and my fellow analyst (male as well) were talking about it, and I honestly feel like our bosses just don’t interview women. We haven’t had a woman on our team in 8 years according to my LinkedIn searches. I feel like we could hire a woman but she would need thick skin with the types of jokes the MDs like to make. Idk I just think it speaks to the underlying culture across finance. Very male dominated by nature.

As a female summer intern in a more male-dominated coverage group, I cannot agree more with some of the things that are being said here. The work is tough, yes, but the amount of mental stress I get from not being able to blend in/connect well with most of the male full-timers due to the aforementioned "male get along much better with male" was much more anxiety-inducing than the long hours or the work itself. I can't help but feel ignored and helpless when for example almost all the male bankers come around to the intern area to just exclusively talk to the male interns and they seem to have become really good bros in such a short amount of time while I was still figuring out the ways to approach them. I also became frustrated when I repeatedly asked for more meaningful work from staffer but the male intern sitting behind me was put on something new because a male analyst asked him to be on his deal and I was not approached by any at all because I just can't seem to build that rapport with them. I also have to quickly adapt to the drinking culture in order to be a better "fit" for the group. The few female analysts/asso in the group have expressed similar things about them not being respected as equally/their work not as appreciated/the guys went out drinking themselves and they were left out...In the end I still got feedback about being too shy but honestly I tried my best (what is wrong with being shy/reserved? with the culture I grew up in reservedness is a virtue) The sexism never comes explicitly; our group even hosted some events for female bankers in the group to talk about this issue LMAO. The seniors do seem to care about this at least on a surface level but such implicit sexism/subconscious bias is hard/impossible to eradicate. imo having a balanced gender ratio from junior to senior level is the first step that shld be taken 

Can confirm. Interned at a top BB in a large group this summer where 90% of the group was male but most of the interns were female. It is a male club that is very tough to navigate as a woman especially when you don't have any credentials as to why people should even care about you. We were seen as entertainment; it took me a while to realise but I did learn to play the game eventually. The only way I could get staffings or help was to essentially flirt with my analysts and associates so that they would pick me over the other interns. Throughout the week they would mostly ignore us and talk to the male interns but when it came time for team drinks and clubbing the female interns were always the top priority. I would dress up super well every day and always look my best and that definitely played a part as to why the team liked me more than some of the other interns.

I could get some of them fired over the comments they said throughout the summer but never said anything because in the end that is how you play the game. Yes, it is completely unfair and demoralising and not a sustainable method in the longer term but I think this was the only way to succeed in my group. The job itself was nothing compared to the politics and challenges presented by the gender dynamics. Will not be going back and overall I am very glad that I got to see the true nature of banking as before the internship I was definitely naive and thought that there would not be any issues with gender equality 2022. 

Just a note to all some of male analysts/associates out there: I am sure you know it as well but in the real world there is no way that the super attractive female interns would be hanging out with you when you behave like that. 

I'm a white preppy male from CT who's worked at banks with "fratty" cultures and honestly, I find the way the older men act pathetic. I can't tell if the MDs think they're impressing us by making sexist jokes and saying things like "Woah, she sounds hot" to us when on conference calls but it's just weird.  I've been really shocked by the immaturity of senior men at the firms I've worked at. You can tell they've been losers they're whole life but are now "second time cool" - so act like a college student would and assume people like me would be receptive 
 

There are a lot of really sad people in finance and my guess is the sexist men mentioned above are actually intimidated by women / or don't like women. Additionally, many of these senior dudes "work" all the time, but for some it seems like they're just avoiding their families! I've seen it on numerous occasions, older men joke about missing anniversaries/kids birthdays. Almost like it's cool to miss occasions like that to work on a dumb pitch!! The job isn't just their careers but also their social lives - so many are more comfortable with the "boys club"

Most senior woman in my group is a second year associate. It’s pathetic.

This job is basically impossible unless you’re willing to be a shitty parent and men just have an easier time doing that, particularly the terrible and insecure people this industry tends to attract (the responses in this thread for example).

Reading some of the responses on this thread, it’s clear your parents failed in raising you since they never instilled a sense of empathy.

(Ignore the title, I’m an AN2 at an EB).

I was the only woman on my team when I joined two year ago. I think whoever this intern is that had these experiences likely had a “case”. By case, I mean valid reasons for having these complains.

It can be difficult as a women when all the men in the office are deeply involved in each other’s lives, go out together on the weekends, their girlfriends are friends, and they’re buddies with the MDs. This aspect of it doesn’t necessarily mean they’re doing anything wrong… it’s just really easy for the environment to become exclusionary. It’s hard to fit in with a “fratty”culture, and therefore makes it more difficult to form the same personal connections with senior staff and get put on the best files.

In my experience, many Directors/MDs don’t believe that a diverse workforce helps them despite the fact there is statistical proof. However, there continues to be pressure from C-Suite across all banks to hire diverse candidates. This also leads to problematic hiring processes where women can feel they’re just being hired simply because they’re a woman… and trust me, no one wants to feel like they’ve been hired for any reason other than their intelligence and potential.