Toxic Women in IBD: Defense Strategies?

Ladies (!) and gents,

Opening this as I have serious doubts on all these gender policies which are applied across the street for the last years... Looking at it from a top tier BB M&A perspective:

Many women in my team actually seem to have a big fat career advantage simply as they perfectly fit corporate gender diversity strategy...

Skill gaps and even inappropriate social behaviour are forgiven and overlooked. It gets particularly toxic when women actually play their role in career advancement aggressively, like a male alpha but with asymmetric risk profile: Hitting other people hard but not willing to take any hits and dropping in a „victim of men“ mode in front of old male bosses (potentially with daughters...) once they actually start taking hits in reverse/as a reply.

I saw many top male performers getting frustrated from this and even quitting their jobs.

To all fair women and men out there: How can you make sure your career is not getting killed by a socially toxic, good-looking woman who knows how to play her cards but has no more than average skills?

45 Comments
 

"Looking at it from a top tier BB m&A perspective" "How can you make sure your career is not getting killed by a socially toxic, good-looking woman who knows how to play her cards but has no more than average skills?"

This has to be a shitpost

To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering.
 

Thanks. This IS a serious question and for many, it is a problem in finance which they fear to address as they don’t want to be put into that corner of politically incorrect... I think this topic deserves an open discussion as I know too many who complain about this behind the scenes... Your answer is anything but helpful or seriously linked to my question btw, and I won’t feel threatened by it...

 

If true, the answer is ridiculously easy: Do whatever you can to align yourself/ingratiate yourself to her. With her ability to generate/maintain relationships with seniors and/or clients and your technical abilities, it's a winning combination. If she depends on you and sees you as a friend or you prove to her that she can trust you, she will look out for you. Stop trying to compete and realize you both have things to offer each other.

 

I hear you man. One of my female partner at a boutique IB was a complete nightmare and heard something similar about a female VP at a boutique PE from a friend.

I guess if a man were to have the same shitty attitude we’d be more open to calling out his BS but have to be careful calling out a female boss.

This always happens, the polices meant to help a certain demographic gets abused by the outliers and doesn’t really help the ones it was actually meant for.

It is what it is.

 

Could not agree more. Appreciate your view, thx!

„It is what it is“ - That’s exactly my own motivation for this post... It’s a call for more experience with these situations...

 
"2nd Year Analyst in Investment Banking - Mergers and Acquisitions " There’s a female associate who fucked over an analyst on my team earlier this year. He pointed out her part of the model was flat out wrong and she got into bitch mode and literally told him to “just do what I say”. When he tried to explain it she went to the director and accused him of sexual harassment

Serious fucking wow

This Ultra Liberal Toxic Femininity is a serious issue

 

In all seriousness, try to find risque pictures of her online and share them throughout the office if she's hot. People will probably take her less seriously.

If not pay some graphic designer to photoshop one of her then share it saying someone sent it to you.

Pretty evil but would probably work if the office is mostly men.

 

Asking this non-sardonically - how is this person "killing your career" exactly? Specific actions? Or just by existing in their role?

I would handle this scenario exactly the same way you would if the person were male - you either tough it out and hope that the bad behavior stops or gets noticed by someone higher up the chain who can encourage it to stop, or you find greener pastures and leave the person off your references list.

 

Example 1:

"2nd Year Analyst in Investment Banking - Mergers and Acquisitions " Have you met people who are just plain power hungry and unsecured, who also realize that they can game the system by making small conflicts with people seem like “a sexist gender issue”? I have And I truly hope that when you run into one such individual, opening your heart to her and wishing for reconciliation would prove fruitful

Example 2:

"2nd Year Analyst in Investment Banking - Mergers and Acquisitions "

There's a female associate who fucked over an analyst on my team earlier this year. He pointed out her part of the model was flat out wrong and she got into bitch mode and literally told him to "just do what I say". When he tried to explain it she went to the director and accused him of sexual harassment

Serious fucking now

Both of these situations describe it pretty good unfortunately. Both of our roles are slightly more senior however.

 

Had a women i didn't get along with basically complain to higher ups so i didn't get promoted in the normal course. It just took one person, one angry bitch. She didn't even call me incompetent, just stated i was an asshole with an attitude problem. Karma eventually came around and they asked her to leave because she couldn't get along with too many staff people, but that took another two years after i got fucked and happened around the time i left the firm anyway.

My only advice, if you feel someone if going to f--- you over, raise some alarms with some trusted people higher up. A couple people said i should of reached out to them because we were not getting along and i could of got out in front of the situation.

 

Some thoughts:

The situation you describe is an outlier. Most women aren't like this in the workplace and the chance of a woman explicitly abusing affirmative action and gender equity policies is quite low.

Additionally, you already have the advantage at work... your seniors are probably mostly still male, you were raised in a male-dominant society, and the women in your office probably still don't feel like they 100% fit in to the banker br0 culture.

If you want to avoid these issues, try being nice, genuine, and helpful and have your teammate's back. Maybe that way if and when she advances ahead of you, you'll be the one that sticks in her memory as a great teammate to pull up.

Just my two cents.

STONKS
 

In the short term your career is a voting machine, in the long term it’s a weighing machine.

 

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