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A significant subset of men I know who work on Wall Street (and some who do not) really love strip clubs. I know this not from some sociological study about the perils of testosterone but from covering Wall Street for 15 years, having dinner and drinks with various sources and then, particularly early in my career, following the gang to one of the many adult-entertainment establishments where drunken suits sometimes shell out $500 for table dances.
Why so many male Wall Streeters won't give up good-old-boy-style strip-club entertainment is a matter of debate. Many women I know who work in finance say that the male-dominated culture of the trading floor still encourages boorish behavior, and, in doing so, it puts women at a disadvantage when competing for jobs or promotions. I see a lot of merit in that argument, though I think there's more to the puzzle. For better or worse, strip clubs have been a traditional way for Wall Street guys to woo clients from out of town, who are mostly male and who sometimes expect the night to end at places like Scores or Tens—particularly if their investment banker is paying the bill.
This brings me to the latest strip-club controversies sweeping Wall Street. It began with a decision late last year by Morgan Stanley to fire four employees after it came to the firm's attention that the guys took some clients to Skin, a Phoenix-area strip club. The X-rated outing was in direct violation of Morgan's nondiscrimination policy, which bars strip-club activities. As the news of the company's swift action against the offending four made it way across Wall Street, other firms couldn't wait to let the world know that they too have a zero-tolerance policy when it comes to the evils of adult-entertainment establishments.
Mary Altaffer / AP
Allison Schieffelin (left) after winning a $54 million settlement (with 340 other plaintiffs) in a sex discrimination suit against Morgan Stanley in July 2004
Not long after the Morgan Stanley news hit, six female executives of the German investment bank, Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein, accused the firm of discrimination in pay and promotions and creating a hostile work environment by allowing men to attend strip clubs and not taking swift action against guys who used offensive language in the office. In the suit filed in U.S. district court in Manhattan last week, one plaintiff alleged that a male colleague routinely brought prostitutes into the office at lunch time. In a statement, Dresdner Kleinwort said that it "intends to vigorously defend this matter," and asserts that the company "fully complies with all applicable employment-related laws and is confident that any claims to the contrary are without merit." The Dresdner Kleinwort women are asking for a staggering $1.4 billion in damages.
Now I have no idea whether the allegations against Dresdner Kleinwort are true. But I do know a few new details about the Morgan Stanley case that suggest, at least to this reporter, that Wall Street's anti-strip-club policy has a lot more to do with politically correct hysteria than it does with creating a decent work environment for women. First, the client they took was a woman. And because the entire Morgan group in Phoenix was male, no woman at Morgan (in this incident at least), was placed in an uncomfortable position of having to attend a strip club just to get equal schmooze-time with a client. And though the accused executives were on a company-sponsored trip, they didn't expense their strip-club visit; they paid for it themselves.
High
