They broke down the doors of Wall Street’s old boys’ club, finding their first foothold in small brokerage houses before making their way into investment banks and exchange floors. With a thick skin and a dash of humour, as needed, they pushed back against those who said they did not belong. Until they finally made it. Introducing the Women of Wall Street. First came the secretaries who struggled to get past the typing pool. Then came the first Harvard Business School grads who were laughed out of interviews. But by the 1980s, with markets in turbo-drive, women were playing for high stakes in Wall Street’s bad-boy culture by day and clubbing by night. In She Wolves, historian Paulina Bren tells the inside story of how women infiltrated Wall Street, from the swinging sixties, a time when ‘No Ladies’ signs hung across the doors of its luncheon clubs and (more discretely) inside its brokerage houses and investment banks, up to 9/11. If the wolves of Wall Street made a show of their ferocity, the she wolves did so with subtlety & finesse, navigating a bawdy subculture where unapologetic sexism and racism were the norm. As engaging as it is enraging, She Wolves is a fascinating behind-the-scenes deep dive into the collision of women, finance and New York.
