Team pages have like 2-3 women max. Are the women in analysts programs just not pursuing PE and opting for Corporate roles instead ? Can anyone share their experience or those of your female friends and the paths they take after their IB stints ?
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I preach this book
https://www.amazon.com/What-Works-Gender-Equality-Design/dp/0674089030
Implicit bias against women, and an industry that favors masculine traits
Zero percent surprised that you got more MS than silver for this post from this forum
Am a woman and currently a first year IB analyst, so wanted to chime in. I have thought about PE as a potential career path but having already had a brutal summer internship and getting worked pretty hard for the past couple of months, I don't think I would want to do PE for banking 2.0. I feel strongly about living a sustainable life, in terms of work life balance/stress levels, and I don't see this improving significantly if I continue in banking beyond my analyst years. A lot of my girl friends in banking share the same sentiment and have goals down the line, like getting married/having kids/building a family, that would be hard to sustain with the banking lifestyle and not being able to maintain a robust social life/relationship during your analyst years doesn't help much. I enjoy the work, but it's tough when you are already sleep deprived, tired, and low on energy - this is not sustainable at all. Some cultural aspects of banking also grinds my gears, especially some of the inefficiencies with comments, superficial pride of how many hours one works, and little visibility into upward mobility into higher level roles. I've noticed that some of my guy friends in banking are laser focused on money, which is fine, but I just don't resonate as much with that and value other things (family, health, relationships) as well and as much. Money comes and goes, but there are certain things in life that money can't buy - there is some truth behind this cliche.
Thank you for this thoughtful response, young lady. Hang in there during your analyst years. It will all be worth it in the end. You are building a foundation of knowledge that will serve you well for the rest of your career/life.
Now, can all the sanctimonious gender equality warriors go fuck off and stop vilifying the male gender and ruining society? Because this woman's response supports what every actual scientific study on this matter demonstrates: as a general rule men and women tend to have different priorities and attitudes because there are ineradicable differences between the sexes.
Women should have equal rights/opportunities as men and both sexes should be free to make their own choices. And given that, men and women, generally speaking, will tend to make different choices. It's called sexual dimorphism and it's ubiquitous throughout the animal kingdom. It's not a "social construct" and it doesn't give a fuck about anybody's feelings or ideologies.
I am so fucking sick of agenda-driven radical leftists pretending to honestly wonder why 50% of Fortune 100 CEO's aren't women and arguing that it's all "patriarchal discrimination."
Last time I checked, the women I've dated are loving and nurturing and concerned with people's feelings (and God bless them because society NEEDS that!) whereas I have barn door shoulders and steel wool growing out of my face, and I spent my high school years entertaining myself by playing a sport where I violently tackled other people and received special helmet stickers from my male coaches for hits that were especially brutal.
People really need to go on Youtube and watch the Jordan Peterson interview with Cathy Newman that went viral and got like twelve million views. He is spot-fucking-on about the differences between the sexes, especially as it relates to differences in career outcomes.
Friend A: Non-Target > JP Morgan Leveraged Finance > PE Fund > Apple BD; 1) believe that marriage and having babies make her happy, 2) need to accommodate her husband's schedule, 3) feel too old that it is about time to have babies, and 4) realize that career success is not correlated to having a successful husband.
Friend B: Ivy > Regular Finance Job > BlackRock Asset Management > Started her own fundraising company; 1) don't see that she is getting promoted - stuck at VP role, 2) want more freedom, 3) capture more upside, and 4) be entrepreneur. Marry someone who went to non-target, not really that smart guy but was helping to start that company with her.
Friend C: Ivy > Consulting > PE > IBD > Emerging Market - Entrepreneur. 1) feel glass ceiling as a woman, 2) did not have the drive to actually do well at PE - she was mandated to start a new country fund but that failed terribly, 3) wanted to have more time and freedom to do entrepreneurial, and 4) want to capture more financial upside.
All of them are married but have no children as yet but they are all trying to have children. All of them as Asians who lived in US and UK.
The common link is that 1) the workload is too much of a burden to have kids, 2) career stalled at VP level mostly due to the fact that they weren't capable of i) covering new market, ii) signing new LPs on their own, iii) or successfully execute a new fund, 3) they seek better work and life balance and at their PE job - the hours didn't get better.
Govt should make a law forcing women to go into PE.
It's just math.
IB doesn't have a lot of women to begin with. Of the few women that are in IB, some of them wouldn't be there without the special efforts that the banks make to hire women. So you have some women who are in IB on pure merit, and some who aren't. The latter group obviously doesn't go far in the PE process.
People need to accept that women as a whole are less interested in making it big. The classic example is Steve Jobs wife. Stanford Mba. Why would she ever want to work 100 hours a week when she can be the attractive intelligent wife of the guy doing that?
As a female IB analyst who recently accepted an offer in PE, I wanted to provide some color from experience.
There are far fewer women in IB: No rocket science here – if you start with fewer women than men applying for IB, you’re necessarily going to have fewer women at the end of the analyst program. I work in an industry group at a MM IB, and am the only female banker in my group, period. I never looked for “diversity” when I was applying to IB jobs (although this is really important to other women looking to enter the industry), but I liked the group culture and I was excited about the position. I got lucky, and the group I ended up in has a great culture and I didn’t deal with any discrimination or harassment during my time here. However, THIS IS NOT THE CASE FOR EVERY WOMAN. And if your experience in a male-dominated environment was challenging or disheartening, you would think twice before considering another male-dominated workplace. Compounding this – banks have actively looked to hire more women, and this can sometimes lead to a negative perception about the women who are in the industry. One of the things I hate most is when people assume I have a job in IB exclusively because I am a woman. I want to be judged for the quality of my work and the value I contribute, and sometimes there is a perception that women are not as qualified as their male counterparts due to affirmative IB hiring.
The lifestyle is difficult for women with aspirations for a family: Sure, having one parent/spouse working long hours is doable, but what if both parents/spouses are working 70-80 hour weeks and traveling? Most of my girlfriends at this age are getting engaged, getting married and thinking about starting families. Dedicating your life to a career in high finance is not the most popular decision for women in their mid-20s. I don’t plan on having a family until later in my life, but even then I’m not sure how you manage pregnancy with a job in PE or while pursuing an MBA, let alone how to raise a child. Women in banking have had a taste of how unsustainable life is in IB, and the stress/time involved in following the traditional PE track is not always compatible with having a fulfilling family life.
That said, take this with a grain of salt - my story is different than a lot of women in the industry. My career is very important to me and for the most part, I enjoy what I do every day.