Was the Economic Meltdown a Crisis of Masculinity Run Amuck? It's Time for Women to Step In

By Courtney E. Martin, AlterNet. Posted June 27, 2009.

Everywhere you look these days, someone is making a case for why the latest economic shake up could be a tremendous gift in the long run. No one is pushing that point of view more enthusiastically than feminists, who see a great opportunity for gender equality in these uncertain economic times. The big boys have been humbled and the women emboldened by the financial meltdown. In fact, a new report by the National Council for Research on Women argues that the economic crisis was caused by a perfect storm of things, but was in part, a result of masculinity run amuck.

As controversial as this claim sounds, it’s been made in the most mainstream of places -- including in the New York Times, where Nicholas Kristof wondered if we might all be better off if it were “Lehman Brothers and Sisters.” Barnard College president Deborah Spar even went so far as to call it a “one gender crash” in the Washington Post.

The report, titled Women in Fund Management: A Road Map for Achieving Critical Mass -- and Why it Matters, aggregates research on gender differences in investment style and makes the business case for diversifying women's presence at the top echelons of the financial sector. It cites multiple studies that conclude that women -- on the whole -- tend to make less risky, rash financial decisions. According to a 2005 study from the Center for Financial Research at the University of Cologne, for example, "women managers tended to take less risk and to follow less extreme investment styles (which are more stable over time), while male managers had a more active style, with higher turnover ratios than female mangers." And in another study, this one by the International Journal of Bank Marketing, "women process investment-related information more comprehensively than men in the same context."

These kinds of findings, and the policy extrapolated from them, make some feminists nervous. Miriam Zoila Perez, blogger and feminist activist, explains: "It's a slippery slope between noting trends along gender lines and making claims about how women's biology influences the way they make decisions. In reality, there is probably just as much variation within the gender categories as between them. Any statistical difference should be equated with society, not biology, and that isn't always distinguished in these kinds of reports."

The Council's report doesn't speculate on biological versus social sources for the gender differences in investment styles, nor does it assert that that risk-averse leadership is inherently good. Spar explains, "Women make financial decision differently than men do. They don't make them better. They don't make them worse. They make them differently."

And Maria Chrin, a Founder and Managing Partner of Circle Financial Group, explains: "What we have found is that the talent that women bring to the table is complimentary to a portfolio where there are already mangers who are willing to take a lot of risks." Those risk-taking managers, she attests after 20 years of experience interviewing the best and the brightest in the financial sector, tend to be men.

See more stories tagged with: women, economy, finance, financial crisis, goldman sachs, summers, geithner

Courtney E. Martin is the author of Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters: How the Quest for Perfection is Harming Young Women. You can read more about her work at www.courtneyemartin.com.

Liked this story? Get top stories in your inbox each week from AlterNet! Sign up now »