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Women Scorned
If only someone had listened when two bold women—Brooksley Born and Sheila Bair—sounded alarms, much of the current meltdown could have been averted.
Our country’s history is littered with the bodies of women whose important works were dismissed, ridiculed, and otherwise diminished. Although women make up the majority of our population, the bold ideas of women are frequently silenced by men who disagree.
Today we find ourselves facing the country’s greatest economic challenge since the stock market crash of 1929. The culprits are many for our current financial mess, but the main cause is a little corner in the finance world called derivatives.
Women who attempt to raise the alarm are hysterics, meddlers, busybodies, and worriers.
The implosion of the derivatives market and the subsequent collapse of many of our prominent financial institutions could have been averted. Back in 1998, there was a clear and unequivocal warning. A woman by the name of Brooksley Born, then chairwoman of the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission, warned Alan Greenspan, Robert Rubin, and Larry Summers of the risks inherent in not regulating derivatives.
Michael Greenberger, a senior director at the commission at the time, noted: “Brooksley was this woman who was not playing tennis with these guys and not having lunch with these guys. There was a little bit of the feeling that this woman was not of Wall Street.”
Summers, then deputy to Rubin, took it from there: “In early 1998, Mr. Rubin’s deputy, Lawrence H. Summers, called Ms. Born and chastised her for taking steps he said would lead to a financial crisis,” The New York Times reports.
That’s the same Larry Summers who a decade later has been rewarded by President-elect Obama with an appointment as director of the National Economic Council (a position that does not require Senate approval).
The same day he appointed Summers, Obama announced his pick for treasury secretary, Timothy Geithner. Within weeks of his appointment, Geithner elected to summarily dismiss and silence another woman who had spoken out: FDIC Chairwoman Sheila Bair.
Bair has numerous advocates on Wall Street. Unlike the disastrous Troubled Assets Relief Program (“TARP”) put forward by Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson and Fed chief Ben Bernanke, Bair has a bottom-up approach that deals with the root of the problem, foreclosures.
Under TARP, within weeks $350 billion of taxpayer money had been dumped into buying up stakes in certain chosen banks—unfortunately, this did nothing to unfreeze the credit markets. Bair had sought a small fraction of that amount to stem the tide of foreclosures. As reported in Barron’s last week: “The FDIC leader was turned down by Treasury when she sought $25 billion of the government’s $700 billion TARP plan to provide a federal guarantee and loss-sharing on approximately two million modified home mortgages. But Bair’s idea clearly had merit.”
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Paul Schrodt is a writer living in New York City. He has contributed to New York magazine, Radar, and Esquire.com.
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Annie2013
This is the world I know, too. I write about professional nursing and its absence from the healthcare reform table across all venues. Media refuses to cover professional nursing issues, and so the public doesn't know how it directly affects whether they live or die - or recover more slowly and with preventable complications, harm and suffering. But no one reads what I write, let alone pay attention to what I've uncovered.
I'm also a whistle-blower and have been blacklisted out of my profession. Progressive, neocon - it's all the same: women's voices are oppressed, suppressed, demeaned and degraded.
http://revolutionredux.wordpress.com
rocketman528
My mother was an intruder in another "man's world" -- computer programming and system design. There are some huge failures there too, albeit not as sexy. I wish we would learn.
My business partner is a wonderful lady and I rely on her to keep me in line:)
Concordian
Sexism is a profoundly destructive force in this country. The recent election of the nation's first black President is the culmination of centuries of effort by all Americans to include blacks. The same effort must be made on behalf of women. Women must support one another and step up to the front lines to challenge sexism, which is most grossly manifested in women's exclusion from what Barney Frank rightly recognizes as boys clubs. Women must stop being afraid to speak up and denouce sexism when we see it. From the constant comments on our appearance to the dismissals of our ideas, sexism is happening to us all the time. We need more articles like this. It ought to be just as socially unacceptable to be sexist as it is to be racist. No more sexism in polite society!
This comment has been removed by The Daily Beast's editors.
lurker
no, pangloss. The implication is not that women are better, more honest, or smarter than men. The well-founded implication is that when wise words are spoken by women they are more likely to be discounted and ridiculed than the same words spoken by men. Because the the smart women in this article are *women* they were told to shut up and dismissed as being out-of-the-club, reaching beyond their place, and hysterical.
kluivertus
@lurker
This article has serious merit. I profoundly disliked Mrs. Siskind's last article on the DB and said as such. However, I get the implication that women should be included simply because they're women. In the new Administration's case, I'd like to believe he's simply choosing who he thinks is most qualified (and the Summers pick is especially polarizing, given his past comments).
cruccia
Annie 2013----come join us at The New Agenda, www.thenewagenda.net. Your voice and experiences will be heard and valued. You have a chance to turn your bitter experience into an opportunity to help other women avoid the harrowing treatment you have endured.
The politics of 2008 have made it crystal clear that we need a new fix on sexism.
Benjamin A. Barres, a member of the faculty at Stanford Medical School, is a transgendered man. He has said that since he's become a man, the men in charge listen to what he has to say. They have even told him that his work is superior to his "sister" Barbara, which is who Benjamin was before his gender change. Google him and read what he has to say about gender in a very scholarly way.
If anyone still believes that sexism doesn't exist in America, or that it is harmless, or ok, WAKE UP!!! The women's voices mentioned in this article, if heeded, would have put us in a much better position than we are today. If you still don't see the sexism, you need to do some soul searching.
flickdog
I left the following post on The New Agenda site, regarding her organizations demand that 52% of President Obama's cabinet must be female, as well as her relentless antagonism towards him:
Amy,
Wouldn't it be fairer to wait until all the cabinet positions are filled before declaring the percentage is less than Clinton or Bush?
A question that strikes me about this blog is:
Is The New Agenda truly about advancing women's issues, or about nursing a seemingly infinite well of resentment against President-Elect Obama for having the audacity to defeat Hillary Clinton in the primary season?
Now that the "Candidate of your lifetime" has joined the team for the good of the country, it would be great if we, as Americans who are members of historically excluded groups, display a keen interest in how Obama's actions will lead the country forward, even while keeping one eye on the group's particular participation interests.
The point of this election was that ISSUES do still matter. Even though Obama's close alignment on major issues with Hillary seems to have no impact of the feelings toward him at The New Agenda.
But this Blog seems to have abandoned all substantive issues so that you can pursue "The Narrow Agenda" of gender, to the total exclusion of issues that "Divide women." Well, issues are what divide EVERYONE, black, white, male, female, young, old. The only way to avoid dividing any group is to essentially be about NOTHING substantial, except chromosomally-defined group identity.
Issues are why I, as an African-American, was thrilled to see Obama elected, but would NEVER have voted for Alan Keyes, Clarence Thomas, Larry Elder, or any number of blacks who I disagree with on the issues.
Most blacks, and the vast majority of women for that matter, are not so tunnel-vision determined to see a member of their group in power that they don't care what the candidate thinks. Not at all. Which is part of the reason Sarah Palin had such low support among women, and much higher support among men.
When I read this blog, I see support for Hillary Clinton often being transferred to Sarah Palin. That's two people who have ONLY gender in common. I wonder if you'd be just as happy to see Phyllis Schlafly, Michelle Malkin, and Barbara Boxer appointed to the same cabinet. They'd all apparently be lauded here, because they'd go into the right hand column on your 52%-of-the government-or-bust-chart.
I respectfully submit that you have allowed the understandable pain and disappointment of Hillary's loss to narrow and warp your focus in a counterproductive way. That's my opinion. I'm sure it will probably unleash a flood of ire and name calling.
I support the ERA. I support Equal Pay For Women. I support Reproductive Freedom for women. I support women's rights.
But I don't support the approach your organization is currently taking. Your blogs drip with Obama bashing, and quota-centric demands, with little regard for anything else.
You are intelligent, passionate, and dedicated. You can do better.
DL Scott
____________________________
Here was Amy Siskinds response:
DL,
After all the cabinet positions are named, then it will be too late to speak out - that is the point.
Perhaps this is not the organization for you? No organization can possibly hope to make every American citizen happy. Perhaps for the type of thing you are looking for you should consider NOW, The White House Project or Emily's List - these organizations seem much more content to accept the status quo and take what they can get from President-elect Obama. That is NOT what The New Agenda is about.
It was nice having you at our site. When you return from your break, I think we would prefer that you take your energies elsewhere.
_____________
She then proceeded to block me from leaving comments on her blog. This was the first comment I had ever made there. I've since discovered that she intercepts and deletes all comments that aren't wildly positive "atta-girls!"
I think that probably says more than I ever could about Ms. Siskind and The New Agenda.
Shrill, close-minded rage seems to be her reaction to anyone who doesn't agree with her one-hundred percent. Dialogue is impossible. Disagreement on any point makes you an enemy.
No doubt her's will remain a tiny fringe movement because she behaves in a hysterical fringe way while trying to give the appearance of calm reasonableness. A person afraid to engage others in a respectful discussion of ideas, and intolerant of being intellectually challenged, is not to be taken seriously.
DL Scott
GinaPera
Thank you, Amy. I've been waiting to read something like this.
Great job.
cruccia
D.L.----yours is quite a rant as well. The New Agenda has little to do with Obama bashing and everything to do with women's rights, gender parity, and filling a gaping hole in the women's rights movement.
You are among many who were so enamored with Obama that you completely missed the raging misogyny of this campaign season. I honestly don't understand why your type of Obama supporter ended up being so myopic about sexism. It has been a sad day for many men and women to watch our beloved Democratic Party become worse in the sexism department than the Republicans have ever been.
Maybe you can explain why, since you brought up the Obama obsession, you and so many normally sympathetic people simply closed your eyes and said that the sexism didn't exist and doesn't exist. Since you purport to speak for most African-Americans and most women, please explain.
I for one will probably never get over what you and so many others did in being so silently complicit in allowing it to happen. And no, we are far from a fringe group. If you need to think of it that way, it's your problem. Another close-eyed avoidance of reality.
Havblue
So they were singled out not because they were whistleblowers but because they were female whistleblowers? All those male whistleblowers out there must be living the good life.
megnmac
The sexism we face today is under the radar - it is not men saying 'no girls allowed' - but it is the keeping women out by still having networking on the golf course and not inviting the female associate. It is shutting the woman down, saying (and believing) she is hysterical, not as rational as her male counterparts. Not even realizing that we spin and judge with a gender lens.
The problem is the pervasive beliefs that men and women are different. Racism has been countered over the years by showing that we are equals, that there is nothing that makes one race smarter or more capable just because of their race. People don't believe that about men and women. We are told girls are more verbal, boys are math or science. We reinforce girls to be sweet and boys to be aggressive and competitive...
And, yes, these are generalities, but isn't that the problem? That because people embrace generalities about gender, women are left either fitting a sweet, nurturing template or are shunned for not fitting into it. We are diverse, just as men are, and need to accept it and be accepted for it.
Women shouldn't have to choose - value should be placed on nurturing fields (like nursing and education) that have been designated 'women's work' - and women contributing to Wall Street and male dominated areas should also be valued for their contributions.
Right now, aren't more women graduating from higher ed and graduate degrees? It will bring change.
Women shouldn't be shunned for being strong in their fields, but they also should be held accountable when they act badly or when they act just as morally reprehensible as the men that were closing them out.
I am just asking for equality. In someday terms. By starting a dialog, that faded when Hillary was out, but needs to be had.
Because it is so accepted we are different, we have never really discussed as a culture the effects of prejudice, and whether or not it is really an acceptable bias.
spinozareader
To DL Scott-
Your post does appear to reveal a disturbing resistance to dialogue on the part of Ms. Siskind. Unless you shrewdly edited it, I found nothing in your commentary inflammatory or dogmatic in quality. It read as reasonable points reasonably offered. And unless you're some serial blog-stalker who was guilty of writing relentlessly to New Agenda insisting that yours is the only point of view, I don't understand her dismissive "un-invite" to you. (And wasn't it helpful of her to suggest that you might be a better fit with NOW--because "they're more content to accept the status quo and accept what they get from President-elect Obama. Ouch!) To be fair to her though, maybe it's because women haven't been treated reasonably for so much of history that she's tired of being bloody reasonable.
arleenny
I asked about this DL Scott. Apparently, he was attacking the other members on the site. Apparently, he is a "stalker" of sorts. Rather disturbing. Apparently, he has been asked to leave several websites. Just what I heard. I looked at old posts by Ms. Siskind.He seems to be on all of them. Obsessed?
Anyways, great article Ms. Siskind. Thank you for speaking out for the women of this country once again.
SHMills
Larry Summers fired Derivatives whistleblower at Harvard Management Co. (HMC)
Harvard alum Iris Mack, MBA/PhD requested a meeting with Larry Summers to express her concerns about how her HMC boss Jeff Larson used derivatives to manage an HMC portfolio. Larson eventually left HMC to start Sowood hedge fund with hundreds of millions of dollars of Harvard alums' donations. Sowood was one of the first hedge funds to blow up during the subprime mortgage derivatives crisis.
Dr. Mack communicated with Summers' office regarding such derviatives trades. Perhaps, she could have saved Harvard alums hundreds of millions of dollars if Summers had bothered to continue to hear her out before forcing her resignation. There is a wealth of information describing this derivatives whistleblowing case: correspondence between Dr. Mack and Summer's office (emails, faxes, snail mail, phone records, etc.); legal documents; reports from FBI and DOJ interviews, etc.
Given all this, you have to wonder whether Summers was either too
(a) corrupt and wanted to coverup up something(s) at HMC.
(b) arrogant to think that Dr. Mack had anything of value to tell him about mathematical finance and derivatives. Please recall Summers' comments about women and math. Also, please note that Dr. Mack has a doctorate in Applied Mathematics from Harvard and a Sloan Fellows MBA from London Business School.
(c) incompetent to understand what Dr. Mack was trying to warn him about regarding derivatives trades in HMC portfolios.
Did Summers try to silence Dr. Mack the way he, Rubin and Greenspan tried to silence Attorney Brooksley Born of the CFTC?
Thank you.
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