“She-Wolves: The Untold History of Women on Wall Street”

By Paulina Bren
c.2024, W.W. Norton $29.99
384 pages

You can’t.

Is that like a red flag to a bull, or what? For someone to tell you that you can’t, when you know fully well that you can, is a guaranteed challenge, a sure sign that you’re going to march right up and do that thing. As Paulina Bren explores in her new book “She-Wolves,” you know they’re wrong.

Four million shares of trading — that, says Bren, was a “good day on the floor” of the New York Stock Exchange in 1960, although “by 1967 it would be closer to 10 million.” Each of those stocks was traded by white men who actively resisted the presence of women on the floor.

Women, says Bren, “were not welcome on Wall Street,” but Alice Jarcho “just needed to pay her rent,” so she applied for a receptionist job at a small brokerage firm. Later, after doing the same job as many traders, she asked to take the licensing exam to trade, but the firm denied her request.

Applying to a firm was just one way for women in the 1960s to land a job on Wall Street. Attending business school — if they could get in — was another, although the eight women in Harvard Business School’s class of 1963 struggled to gain a foothold after they graduated. Most firms assumed that the women would work a short while, then get married, become pregnant and resign. Black women had it doubly hard.

Though by the early 1970s, as feminism took hold in America and organizations began fighting for women’s rights, Wall Street women endured groping, name-calling and other sexual harassment on the job. They were denied promotions, as lesser-qualified men rose in the ranks. Women were paid less, sometimes less than half of what their male colleagues earned.

But what could they do? Men were the ones who created the “rules” on Wall Street, says Bren, and if women wanted to succeed, they’d best just grow thicker skin…

As business history books go, “She-Wolves” can be a bit of a challenge to read. The number of names to follow and what feels like a scattered timeline can be hard to follow. Bren has a big story to tell — and at times, it feels like too big a story.

The best way to tackle this book, then, is to lean into the chaos. Bren’s account and the anecdotes she shares amount to a larger tale of steadfastness and bravery among a number of glass-ceiling busters — surprisingly, both men and women — and if you take each individually, you’ll eventually get a sense of the bigger picture. As in nearly every industry that ever was, men tried to keep women out. This book reveals one of them.

Avid stock traders and market watchers owe it to themselves to learn the women’s history behind their obsession — and the bravery of its pioneers. If you think you’ll enjoy reading “She-Wolves,” you will.

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