Women to take over the Banking System
May 8th, 2009Great piece in the Herald looking at how things might or could have been different if women had been in charge of the financial system. Harriet Harman has floated the idea in the UK of appointing more women to the boards of banks in order to soften the the testosterone fuelled activities of the current lot.
The macho culture of traders has been studied of many occasions focusing primarily on testosterone. Of course this is a popular fall guy for any over the edge activity that men get themselves fired up on. But research shows this to be true.In fact some researchers go as far as to blame the credit crunch on over pumped up Gordon Gekkos.
There is no doubt that this type of beahviour has a strong causative effect on bubbles and general winning of big bets. It’s a natural high…..who hasn’t felt it when winning a bet at the races, or getting something right in a quiz or a great result in an exam.
The good news is that women are no so affected by these grand illusions preferring to focus on the basics like how much money is in the account and other boring details like that.
We’ve yet to read a bout a female “rogue trader” so maybe Harriet is onto something here. But I don’t think it’s an equality issue, it’s more about skills. Women have skills that we need to use in all areas and money is a pretty crucial one as everyone is now finding out.
Imagine banking for the people……the service of providing money. As opposed to banking…….punting huge amounts of cash in the global casino.
Something tells me they are onto something here. Let’s face it…women have run the household budgets forever…they are the true oikonomists.
More and more women are getting into the money business…….how about the ladies at Wokai? i really like their style and approach. As i have noticed before nearly 80% of my loans on Kiva have been to women. Maybe i figure they are more likley to knuckle down and pay it back 
I’m sure there are some great examples of women in this line of work or ones up and coming. I invite you all to nominate your favourites and let the bandwagon roll on.
Tags: banking, boards, credit crunch, directors, empowerment, equality, feminism, financial crisis, harriet harman, kiva, microfinance, money, wokai, women
May 8th, 2009 at 8:18 am
As luck would have it NZ Global Women (NZGW) is about to be launched. It’s an networking organisation for high powered businesswomen which has a goal of increasing the representation of women in the boardroom.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10570822
Also mentioned in despatches is Cactus Kate, our rather prickly HK legal eagle, who when not dishing out the prickles, provides astute observations of our economic setup.
http://www.asianinvasion2006.blogspot.com/
Maybe they should give Harriet Harman a call.