On International Women’s Day let's not be satisfied by #inspo alone. International Women's Day is a call to *action*.

My thoughts on the dilution of IWD messaging, how it intersects with pushback against DEI, and how to move from inspiration to action.

“Celebrating” International Women’s Day with meaningless hashtags and corporate platitudes feels dismissive of the levels of inequity we continue to face.

A refresh of the 4 threadbare themes from above:

1. Stop Fighting For (Just) Next-Gen Women

2. Stop Making Us Role Models for Surviving a Broken System

3. Stop Giving Women The Spotlight (Just) Because It’s Good For Their Careers

4. Fighting for Women’s Equality is Not (Just) for Women

You likely know someone - or several people - who have had an abortion. If you know me, you know at least one. Nobody owes anyone a public telling of their abortion story. But I want to share mine.

Being an ally sounds great, in theory, but many professionals have confided in me that while their intentions are good, they get stuck on what to say in the moment when their allyship is needed. 

Gen Z women tolerate far less harassment at work than women of my generation, and they are more likely to speak out about things they believe in. Because they are digital media natives who are accustomed to telling their own stories, they are shaking up the industry. I expect more of this to come in future years, and honestly, it's a breath of fresh air. 

A video message to my young women readers.

Succeeding in financial services takes skills, knowledge, and a network. In the same way you can offer access to those things for men, do it for women.

To my fellow white woman readers, I’m sure you know what it feels like to be the “only” in the room. The only woman on a team, the only woman in a management meeting, the only woman on a committee, or the only woman at a client dinner.

Of course, not only do you know how hard it is to be the “only,” but you also know how hard it was to get into that room. So now that you’re inside, use that leverage to hold the door open and welcome others in.

When I was a girl, I wanted to be President. A child of the eighties, I was told by family, teachers, and the media that if I worked hard, I could be whatever I wanted. I was in elementary school when I looked at the posters on my classroom wall and realized that our President, Vice President, and all the former Presidents and Vice Presidents were all men. I realized then that I couldn’t actually be whatever I put my mind to. The Presidency was for men only; women and girls did not belong.

A couple of years into working in finance, I had a similar realization. Though there were some women in executive roles, and I eventually became one of them, we were few and far between.

A year ago I sat in a now infamous conference session, trying to reconcile my presence at a CEO conference with the degrading words coming from the stage. I have been reflecting on why that day, and the following ones, have been so impactful on me, and whether the incident has had an impact on the industry.

Perhaps you’ve read studies showing that diverse organizations are likely to financially outperform industry medians.

Perhaps you agree with the moral imperative of working toward equitable and inclusive workplaces.

In either case, you may find yourself in agreement in theory, but struggling for how to move from theory to action.

The stories that landed in my inbox were horrifying and disturbing. Last March, I asked women in finance to send me their personal experiences with sexual harassment and discrimination. Examples of pay inequity, unwanted touching, vile comments, and even rape flooded my inbox. I relayed many of these stories in my Do Better series, which I published from October to December of last year.

I have tried to write this “conclusion” installment of the Do Better series at least a dozen times. I want to tell you what I've learned in collecting, writing, and publishing the Do Better series. I want to share what I noticed from readers. I want to answer the common questions I've received. But to begin unpacking all of that is far too much for one article. And it definitely feels like it is too much for me to get my mind around right now. Turns out that there's no way to put a tidy little bow on such an enormous issue.

As I’ve been publishing the Do Better Series, I’ve been receiving many messages from women who are grateful that this series is shining light on their lived experiences in financial services, and sometimes they share one or two of their own experiences with me. I’m sharing this anonymized note, with permission of the woman who wrote it, so you can see how wide reaching and frequent this issue is.

As I began publishing the Do Better series, many people reached out to me- friends, colleagues, journalists, strangers. The response was so much more than I expected that I slowed down the pace of publication so I could better manage requests and correspondence as they came in.

The most common type of correspondence I received was women sharing their own terrible stories with me. I read every story and replied to as many as I could. Some of the women were willing for me to share their anonymized stories publicly. The stories below are told by the women-in-finance who experienced them and are shared with their permission, in the words of the women who wrote or spoke them to me. I edited some submissions for clarity, length, and to remove identifying details of all parties.

Leaving a firm or a role at an inopportune time can be damaging to a career trajectory. Our industry often wonders why so few women make it to the C-Suite; women opting out of abusive workplaces is an overlooked factor.

The following stories are from women who left their jobs, changed roles, and interrupted their careers- not because they wanted to, but because they felt they had to leave a bad situation.