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Wall Street has come a long way since Muriel Siebert became the first woman to buy a seat on the New York Stock Exchange, in 1967. Shortly thereafter, Siebert, who has her own firm, became the first woman to trade on the floor of the exchange. Though only a handful of women have become partners at major trading houses, about one-third of Wall Street's younger professionals are now female.
As women have taken their place in management, both sexes have learned new ways of working together. Women have started taking more risks and competing more aggressively. Says Cathleen Black, publisher of USA Today: "Unfortunately, for a long time women were just grateful to get a position. Men, on the other hand, assumed that they were on the fast track." Women managers have also developed a more relaxed style, in contrast to the harsh manner of some of their predecessors. One reason for that change: men are becoming more comfortable with the new relationships.
Choosing a woman for a senior position used to be enough to spark speculation that the company was in trouble. Leanne Lachman, president of the Chicago-based Real Estate Research Corp. (estimated 1985 revenues: $7.8 million), recalls that her promotion in 1979 triggered such stories about her firm. Says she: "Appointing a woman as president was a high-risk thing to do at the time." Barbara Gardner Proctor avoided the problem in 1970 when she founded her Chicago advertising agency by naming it Proctor & Gardner. Some early clients, she recalls, "assumed that there was a Mr. Gardner who ran the business, and I was in sales. I did not dissuade them from believing this."
Women executives are now more likely to be judged solely on their performance. Says Madelyn Devine, a senior vice president at Wall Street's Oppenheimer & Co.: "The overwhelming objective is to make money. If you can produce, it doesn't matter what you look like or who you are." Susan Fisher, senior vice president of New York's Manufacturers and Traders Trust, agrees. Says she: "This bank wouldn't care if I was a purple frog. All that matters is what I can do for the bottom line." Atlantic Richfield Treasurer Camron Cooper manages $25 billion in company assets and insists that being a woman has nothing to do with her job. "I am the treasurer of Atlantic Richfield," she says, "not the female treasurer."
As the number of women managers grows, male views about them are changing. The Harvard Business Review in September published an update of a survey done in 1965 on opinions about women executives. While only 9% of the men questioned in 1965 said that they held "strongly favorable" attitudes toward women executives, 33% of those asked in 1985 said they held that view.
Similarly, the proportion of men who thought women were "temperamentally unfit for management" declined, from 51% in 1965 to 18% this year. Said one male corporate vice president interviewed for the survey: "Women run the gamut from poor to excellent, just as men do." Perhaps more significant, 47% of the male executives said they would feel comfortable working for a woman, compared with 27% earlier. Concluded the authors of the study: "Stereotypes once held as truth have begun slowly to crumble."