Were you operating under the assumption that Wall Street needs more government regulation to prevent reckless, risky decisions that might make thousands of Americans lose their home, or zero government regulation because the free market takes care of itself, you naive Ayn Rand worshipper? Well, you are all wrong: according to a fella at Forbes, the problem is that we had too many women traders. And getting rid of women traders will reduce risk-taking and all of its negative consequences.
I'm completely serious. Forbes contributor Tim Worstall just published a story titled "The Banking Commission Gets it Wrong: We Need Fewer Women Traders, Not More." It's hilarious.
The backstory: on Wednesday, the UK Banking Commission issued a statement that encouraged more ladies to get on down to the trading floor and wave their trade tickets in the air like they just don't care. Both the Commission and the IMF's President Christine Lagarde agree that women, who tend to be more averse to risk, might be able to minimize the high-risk culture that has occasionally caused a considerable amount of harm. "Excessive risk taking...[is] one of the core problems with our current banking system," writes Worstall.
But Worstall believes that mixed-gender environments actually cause more risk, because when women and men are around each other, their hormones make them do stupid shit to impress each other. His best moment comes here:
Which leads to me a mischievous suggestion that I’ve made several times over the years. Banking began to become more risky in the 1980s. That’s also about the time that women started to be anything other than merely secretaries in that banking environment. Now, given what we newly know about risk taking and mixed gender environments, there might well be a link between the two. It is exactly the entry of women into banking that has led to the greater risk taking. At which point the answer is obvious. Rather than encouraging more women into this world we need to ban them from it. Or alternatively, ban men from it. Either way, that’s the only method of reducing the increased risk taking brought on by mixed gender environments.
MISCHIEVOUS! Worstall, your sexism is so charmingly impish!
So essentially, male traders just wanted their commodities to boom and get into some predatory lending to impress the lay-days, and that is why the average American suffered incredible financial losses in 2008, and beyond.
Tim Worstall might have just crawled out of the 1970s, but he does make a valid point about society, which is not very profound, but whatever: we do things all the time to impress people we want to bang. For instance, I'm wearing a tight dress today to make a guy's housing bubble pop.
However, his "mind-blowing" revelation that correlates the rise of risk in the 1980s to the rise of female traders and thus, erections, is stupid and ignorant. And to blame women and their sheer presence on the trading floor is slut-shaming at its laziest. Couldn't Wollster come up with a legitimate example of how risk taking is a product of #OccupyAVagina?
Right now, we need the best talent, best intentions and best morals to occupy every trading floor - whether that comes from a man or a woman does not matter.
Photo via Richard Drew/AP