The Oldest Profession In The World

Banking. Prostitution. Which came first? and what’s the difference? Good question. Hot on the heels of a recent blog, about workplace inequality and how the UK is starting to tackle gender discrimination, another series of articles have crossed my path.

MP’s for the Treasury Committee, along with several equality groups for women are trying to eradicate centuries old prejudices in the city by getting to the root of the problem in the large financial institutions of Britain. And it’s been disclosed that senior city bankers are using prostitutes to entertain clients and generate lucrative business deals. Can’t say I’m surprised. Lap dancing clubs, “sex trips” to Japan, and uh, yes, that other erotic geographical zone – Scotland – were discussed, and testimonials given, but, as it turns out, the committee which was launched this summer only has one woman on the board, and thirteen men. Oh dear.

Former Bank of England policymaker Charles Goodhart has said that the recent financial crisis would have been averted had there been more women at the top of major companies, “Women tend to be more cautious and have a longer term outlook. I think that men can be more aggressive and prepared to take larger risks,” he said. “There would have been less likelihood of the financial crisis if we had a larger number of female chief executives in the financial sector.” Interesting.

So, men are more aggressive and take larger risks? Perhaps. But, lest we forget, Thatcher was hardly a docile tea lady, and the climate of large corporations is such that aggression breeds aggression – whether run by women or men. I agree unreservedly that there should be more balance in the upper and lower echelons of business, but gender profiling and the blanket assumptions of working methods are impossible to validate and, quite frankly, erroneous. In a pure business sense, equality should enable businesses to reach a lucrative market – one, which I understand is quite substantial. That market is, you guessed it, women.