Lehman Sisters

Today the financial industry is popularly stereotyped to be masculine in nature – aggressively risk taking, fiercely competitive, motivated by self-interest and seeking short term profits.  It has made it only more natural to think that men ought to be hired to fill the positions of such a masculine industry. Women on the other hand are identified as the weaker sex being assumed as lesser competitive and lesser committed to their careers.

It is being speculated that the financial crisis arose by permitting young males to behave in an unregulated way. After the fall of Lehman Brothers, a popular question was being asked - ‘What if it had been Lehman Sisters?’ I feel that this question should be analysed through the two contrasting point of views- ‘men and women are different’ and ‘men and women are equal’.

On the onset though I would like to raise a few questions- do personal behavioural traits of the individual employees affect the overall financial industry in the first place? Towards this I feel a strong affirmative. I feel that success of financial industry is marked by the combined balance of economics, mathematics and behavioural finance. On a trading floor for example the human instincts play as pivotal role as the statistical calculations. Next, is it justified to analyse the topic in question through stereotypes? Over a large population, often when trends begin to be observed, although it is okay to analyse through the stereotypical averages it is still dangerous to suggest that an individual will have the traits of its group. So even if we were to conclude a definitive answer to our question through this approach, we still need to understand that we would be limited by the huge intra-sex variability.

Men and women are different

Having said that, I would now like to discuss the differences in the traits associated with men and women. As mentioned above, men are seen as risk taking, self-centred, competitive and impersonal. Conversely (and relatively benevolently), women are seen as risk-averse, protective, altruistic and warm. Women have also been observed to be more consistent long term investors. To a large extent men and women are hard-wired differently though evolutionary and cultural influences. It is tempting to picture that if there were to be more women in finance, it would lead to a gentler and more stable financial industry.

There are several studies that support this claim. In a 2009 article in Business Week it noted that according to the research, from January 2000 through May 31, 2009, hedge funds run by women delivered nearly double the investment performance of those managed by men. Furthermore, in 2008, during the height if the financial crisis, on an average, funds run by women were down 9.6 percent versus a a 19 percent decline in those run by men. Audur Capital, an Icelandic private equity fund wholly managed by women, is the only such fund to have made it through the crisis without a hitch. On the other hand of the spectrum, microfinance institutions (MFI) majorly turn to women to promote micro-lending. Women are assumed to use the money to advance projects while the MFIs are typically wary of what men might do with the money.

For benefiting from a large women workforce though, we would need a more supportive social environment. An industry demanding long working hours is practically a man’s world. It is ironic that in order for woman to be successful in finance today, she has to dwindle down the very qualities that mark her as feminine. Her emotional sensitivity, nurturing instincts and desire to spend more time with children and family are the very reason that is keeping her down on the Wall Street. So, to sustain a strong female workforce it is imperative to promote more women-friendly schemes like on-site company sponsored child care.

Men and women are equal

On the other side of the coin, I personally feel that innately men and women are equal and that the sex differences are widely exaggerated. Even though both set of genders may express their reactions to a situation differently, each of us is characterised by a common pool of emotions. For example, after a stressful call on the trading desk, a man may throw off the phone while a woman may resort to tearful sobs; but I feel that the inherent lust for power or the sense of responsibility are equally strong in both. Also as far as the quantitative skills are concerned both genders are equally matched. It is wrong to assume that women are only good for cleaning up the financial mess during a crisis and that men are excusable to create one.  

To conclude, the topic at hand poses a broad number of questions and to answer them we have to hypothesise a number of stereotypical assumptions. In my opinion it is unfair to quantitatively authenticate the loose qualitative popular images. But, still if we were to assume that the Wall Street were to look at both men and women as equivalent participants, certain characteristics commonly stereotyped as feminine (such as carefulness) would be encouraged industry-wide, and inappropriate male-locker-room and cowboy-type behaviours frowned upon, to the benefit of the industry and society.

Bucket- List

I came to IIT as a starry-eyed kid. I would be leaving it with an even bigger to-do list. I love day-dreaming Mr. Reader; hands down my favourite hobby! And when you dream, you got to dream the biggest, the absolute best. You got to escape to a personal paradise and mentally search the earthly means that might transport you there. There, that then is your dream. Then you got to dream it over and over again until you believe with all your heart that your paradise awaits you just a goal away.

This blog is also one of the passing-out specials in a way. I guess a few years down the line I would like to come back to this blog and chuckle. Mr. Reader, I am going to recite to you my to-do list of life.

To start with, I am still not sure of my immediate plans, but I think I would have them figured out by May end. So, I am going to drop the short term wish-list and go on to a long-term one. That is the more fun one, anyways!

#1: Before I joined IIT, I used to say I am going to study so much in life that when people write down my qualifications, it would fill a paragraph! No wonder I didn’t mind EP at first! Cut to the present, all I plan to do is a good MBA. A great MBA, oh okay a Harvard MBA (It is phonetically closest to Hogwarts!). A MS in Finance also looks lined up on the cards.

#2: Write a novel before 2025.

#3: How I would love to make it big on the Wall Street. You know Mr. Reader, I romanticised every word Mr. I-wish-was-Right ever said to me; 75 % of the time he spoke of finance. What can I say, he had a Midas Speech about him. Every word he spoke turned gold for me. I just got drawn down to finance you know.

#4: When I start earning, I want to buy clothes exclusively from Marks and Spenser; power clothing, simple yet elegant. I am not so specific about the shoes and the accessories.

#5: I am also not specific about a dream home, except that it has to be 50 shades of pink! And if I have girls, I would build a wardrobe full of barbies!

#6: I have always nurtured a little entrepreneurial spirit in me. My favourite shops are Aromas and Crosswords. Putting two and two together, I would love to run a franchise of Aromas and Crosswords. Actually, Crosswords I feel is, well, you know, too sterile! In my tastes, a bookshop has to be much cosier. Have you watched Beauty and the Beast or You Have Got Mail, Mr. Reader? A bookstore has to be like the royal library from Beauty and the Beast or Meg Ryan’s bookshop in the latter! May be I will mix the shops in a combo, that seems to be a popular fashion these days.

Well actually, if it has to be something entrepreneurial and dreamy, then I would go with my own Hedge Fund! (And come to IIT Bombay for recruitment! Ha! That would be fun! )

#7: Watch Federer play! Watch a Wimbeldon Final and an Olympics 100 meter race. Catch a concert of Adele. (They are all some sort of live shows)

#8: Take cooking and spa classes (short-term goal) and find a way to monetize the hobbies (long-term).

#9: I have never been much of a social work enthusiast and I guess my accumulated guilt would only be growing larger with time. So, I plan to turn a philanthropist eventually. I would love to do some charity work in life.

#10:  Find a Mr. Right who would love to be a part of my wish-list :-) 

Senti

Shit! I don’t want to go! Shit! I just want to run away! How can one place steer so many emotions in you? How do I even attempt to sit down and reminisce about IIT?  How is IIT suddenly on the verge of dissolving into past? Wasn’t it supposed to be forever? Wasn’t it supposed to be where I lived? Wasn’t it supposed to be my home?

For good or for worse, one thing is certain- IIT changed me. I came here as a naive girl (even by the standards of a freshie), I gained (weight?) and lost (hair tresses?), laughed and cried, spent a chunk of space-time of my life, and now suddenly I am about to leave. I may not have attended half the lectures at IIT that I was supposed to, but it seems that IIT has none the less been successful in teaching me some valuable wisdom after all.

I still haven’t decided where I will be going from here on, probably somewhere far-off, into the unknown (Europe; that’s how much I have figured out yet). If you know me, you would probably understand just how much of a joke it seems- me alone, out of India, in a random European nation, into the corporate world of finance (I don’t drink, I am a vegetarian, I can’t even cook, I am extremely lazy by all standards, extremely unadventurous and coward by all standards, the perennial damsel in distress, oh come on- I am me!). How can all this be happening to me?  If ever there was anything as going out of your comfort zone, it couldn’t get bigger than this! The enormity of the upcoming future strikes a ringing fear and excitement in my heart!

On reflecting, all I can do is laugh, laugh on each time that I have laughed or cried. Everything that seemed so important once looks incredibly silly now. In my sophie year, I cried in Malhar, for they wouldn’t let me participate because I had lost my I-card. Fuck! And I had cried! In Xaviers! In front of like 20 people! Oh man! I had jumped in joy when I was made the editor for department blog! Even big days like placements and break up somehow look like a sarcastic joke of Destiny. And you know a good one- even as I am writing it, I am still getting frenzied over the upcoming endsem on Monday! Life is funny, Mr. Reader! Everything comes to a pass. Don’t take life too seriously, for the Divine Ruler of Life has some impossible sense of humour.

I can’t do senti people-wise, for there are uncountable many who have touched my life. Probably we haven’t even spoken, but I have learnt a thing or two just by learning about you. And then there are some of you who have impacted me so deeply, that no words could do justice to the feelings I have for you. All of you, people, take care okay? Each one of you is a rock star in your own right! And thanks, big time, big big time! And don’t you forget to miss me, okay? I may not be leaving behind any mark of mine at IIT, but IIT has sure sealed a big royal stamp on my life. 

Easy There, Green Soldier!

I have never much appreciated the pro - nature lobbyists. I have always found them fake, their followers fake and their propagandas fake too. What do you want to save so dearly anyways? Animals? Trees? Rivers? Seas? ‘Mother’-Nature?

Do you really think ‘Nature’ is some motherly God? Well, I don’t! For all I know it was the very  same ‘Mother’ Earth who was once nothing but a hot ball of dust spitting venomous gasses out if its pits, who never even knew a water molecule let alone the rains. Once it was nothing more than the billions of other lifeless planets like it. It is not the propaganda of Nature to sustain and build life! If it was then we wouldn’t be the only life-forms, on a planet, less than the size of a dust speck on the scale of the universe.

And what evil could the Human Species evoke in the Universe anyways? Provoke a global warming that melts the glaciers? Well, they have melted and refrozen a number of times before. Extinct a few endangered species? Dont you know how countlessly many species have died out in the course of evolution anyways? Do a nuclear war? Well, there are billions of a billion nuclear reactions happening every second in the Universe!

The point I am trying to make is that Humans are too inconsequential in the grand scheme of things. Our planet is going to die someday; I won’t say it would be a nice thing, but only that the apocalypse is a surety anyways.

I can still understand the concern behind developing a sustainable progress because well it affects us and our future descendents directly. Striving for ground water-harvesting or fuel efficient cars is alright I guess. But let us not mock each other for building towering concrete jungles, mighty industries or bringing about a global warming. Also definitely appreciable would be people not raising a bandwagon against Diwali crackers or Ganesha Murtis! For, if hedonism is not the ultimate goal of the ‘made in Nature’, ‘selfish genes’ then I don’t know what is!