A feminist analysis of women’s work experiences in finance

Kristina Keampfer, 7 May 2018

Kristina Kaempfer began her talk with a description of an ad recently run by Commerzbank. In it a woman is shown travelling while the history of the bank is described; the ad has the twist ending of the woman entering Commerzbank showing that she is an employee there. This symbolic depiction of Commerzbank’s commitment to gender equality seems contradicted by the reality that only 1 in 7 of the bank’s executive board members are women. In the advisory board things are slightly more equal, with 6 women out of a total of 22, as it is required by German law that 30% of advisory board members must be women.

In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis many have lamented that, had the financial sector had a higher proportion of women, this crisis could have been avoided. These comments come from an assumption that women are naturally more thoughtful and less willing to take risks. While such statements about women may have been positively intentioned, Kaempfer suggests that depictions of women as saviours have the effect of disempowering women.


Kaempfer reported her initial research, what she discovered through speaking with female financiers in Frankfurt. Throughout her conversations it was clear that finance is a particularly gendered work environment. Women were all aware of gender-based assumptions placed on them, with some lamenting the situation and others describing how they were able to leverage their gender, as playing up their femininity made their superiors more sympathetic. Others do not see the bright side of the industry’s conservative gender-roles, complaining that it is difficult to feel like just another employee when men make a point to hold doors for them or wait for them to be the first to exit the elevator. While most women acknowledge that gender stereotypes and inequality of power is an issue, there is disagreement between junior and senior women as to how this should be handled. Senior women are in favor of women’s networks devoted to providing a woman-only space and advocating for the promotion of women. Junior women are skeptical of this: some of them believe that in order to make any real progress men need to be included to avoid the criticism that said networks are doing the same thing as the patriarchy which they claim to oppose, promoting one gender, thereby excluding the other.

by Soloman La Piana