With a chancellor at the helm, and a woman in the executive suite of the European Central Bank based here in Frankfurt, Germany is thought to have slowly arrived. 63 years later, towards more égalité, things seem to move slowly.
Financial crises, new scandals and the general public perception of the financial industry are what keep women from starting their career path in this direction. Although the gap seems to have been gradually narrowing since the beginning of the 00s, many facts speak a very different language. Traditional norms and the all popular caste-based thinking unfortunately still pigeonhole people far too often,
– but CEOs like Christine Lagarde of the ECB or Mary Callahan Erdoes of J.P. Morgan Private Bank show us that this is paradoxical and only serves to confirm crudely constructed role models.
There’s no question that the financial industry is male-dominated and highly competitive. Thus, it is usually not even the perpetual prejudices that prevent women from taking the path in a different direction, but rather the incompatibility of the industry with their own moral standards.
The initiative “100 Women in Finance”, founded in New York, is committed to giving women a greater voice in the world of finance. It aims to enable women to fully realise their professional potential at every career stage.
The perpetual intention of it:
“A Mission to Realise our Vision”.
The members not only want to inspire, but also to equip -to champion a new generation of leaders. A generation in which women, as well as men, are investment professionals and leaders, equal in performance and influence. The ever-supporting pillars: Education, Peer Engagement and Impact.
Finance and women are therefore concepts that could not be more different. They do not go together from society’s point of view and cannot be defined as one, two aspects that just cannot be united, unless you let them.
The fact is: In no other country in the world do women have more freedom and are exposed to fewer prejudices, but: sometimes still not in their choice of profession. This should now change, also with the help of this great initiative.
More information can be found here.
Photo: Emiliano Bar/Unsplash
