"There's a new fall gal in town. She's Ina Drew, the 55-year-old J.P. Morgan executive at the center of the bank's recent $2 billion loss on risky trades. She's a woman who stands to get $14.7 million (she'd been with the company for 30 years) upon her resignation; she's a woman who was one of the highest paid employees of the bank. Oh, and did we note that she's a woman. Which is one thing that Drew has in common with Rebekah Brooks, who was charged Tuesday with "perverting the course of justice" in the investigation of News International's phone-hacking scandal. Does being a woman mean the punishments are harsher in these sorts of crimes? And why does it seem that woman must take the fall for their male bosses, in these cases?"
Rebekah Brooks committed crimes. Ina Drew did not break any laws. Ina Drew wasn't taking the fall for her male boss, because she's the boss. Rebekah Brooks chose to commit crimes for a corporation she was employed by. You cannot be ordered to commit a crime against your will.
"This is especially sad as Drew appeared to work to support and mentor women. In The New York Times, Nelson D. Schwartz and Jessica Silver-Greenberg write that Drew's resignation is part of "an effort to stem the ire that the bank faces from regulators and investors." Some of her male traders are expected to go as well. She made bad decisions, perhaps, but has been described as "a person of the highest integrity." Does the punishment fit the crime? “'This is killing her,' one of the former JPMorgan executives said, adding that 'in banking, there are very large knives.'”
She works to support and mentor women, but not to avoid massive losses on bad trading, of which she is in charge of. "She made bad decisions, perhaps, but does the punishment fit the crime?" Again, no criminal activity, but does seven billion dollars in losses warrant the termination of your employment? We'll let people currently employed at real jobs decide this one.
"In The Telegraph, O'Neill goes on to explain that the censure of Brooks is a class thing, too. Where did Brooks, the daughter of a gardener, come from? A man, on the other hand, would likely be complimented for pulling himself up by his bootstraps; Brooks is doubted, not trusted, and considered a possible phony. "The animosity towards Brooks is only partly motivated by her role in phone-hacking. A bigger chunk of it is driven by disgust for women who are “terrifyingly ambitious”, especially those who come from the wrong side of the tracks," he writes.
Drew, too, was ambitious—she'd have to be—and was a woman in a male-dominated world. But she was attempting to shift that, and what for Brooks is characterized as raw female ambition seems a kinder, gentler sort (in so much as people are quoted) in Drew."
Ambitious woman commits phone hacking crime. Ambitious woman oversees loss of seven billion dollars in bad trading.
It stands to reason that as more women win leadership positions in companies and in business, some of them would end up making mistakes there—men have been doing the same in the business world for years. But when they do, we can't help remarking on these women as women. Remember when Martha Stewart went to jail over insider trading charges? Somehow, the fact that a blonde professional home-maker would be behind bars was a bigger deal than, say, the imprisonment of your average Wall Street crook. Women are supposed to be the "gentler" sex, stereotyped as nurturing and good: They're not supposed to be the ones behind phone-hacks and bad trades. When that does happen, do we punish women more than we would men who did the same thing?
The "men" who fired Ina Drew did so because of her astronomical fuck up. The writer of this article is really obsessed with their gender, and the gender of those who fired her, who by the way, happen to be a mix of both sexist men and beautiful, ambitious women. Men and women should be equally punished for crimes and mistakes they commit. Neither Ina Drew nor Rebekah Brooks should get a get out of jail free card for being female.
"Weirdly, there's a possible bright side here. Perhaps Brooks and Drew's comeuppances can be seen in some ways as sign of progress. If there are more women on the top, it stands to reason that some of them, like men, would fall. When they do, the best we can do is to not focus on how they look, but instead, talk about what they actually did wrong."
K, so when can we start?
