Fertility protection, or “ovum freezing,” has been hailed as the newest breakthrough profit for ladies, enabling women to interrupt through Wall Street’s very thick glass ceiling.
With egg freezing, mommy’s leave will be delayed until women have a solid profession, as many successful women working in banking and commerce will attest. Wall Street may retain a more diverse pool of talent that will otherwise migrate to the green pastures of technology that began offering such advantages a decade or so ago.
Win-win, right? It seems so, but recently the other narrative has begun to emerge that egg freezing is not such an amazing addition in spite of everything. Fairly, this narrative suggests that it’s a subtle type of corporate coercion imposed on young women who can have concerns about not insignificant health risks or have religious reservations. They feel compelled to freeze their eggs and postpone pregnancy to show their allegiance to their work and organization in hopes of moving up the company ladder.
I’m not claiming to attribute the reality to those sinister motives, nevertheless it is something that some young women who work at large investment banks are discussing and deploring. Recently, through a banking source, I heard the story of a 26-year-old Morgan Stanley executive who believes that young women like her are being pressured to freeze their eggs in the event that they need to get promoted.
As she described it, the corporate can pay $1,200 for ladies to freeze their eggs for a yr (not one of the best deal on the road for something that may cost tens of hundreds of dollars); then the worker gets $100 a month. The true profit, nonetheless, is that going through the procedure (again, not without possible complications) shows organizational loyalty.
“Everyone knows that is something you want to do to indicate management that you simply are committed to the corporate and that you’ll push away having a family for a few years to return,” she said.
A 30-year-old Bank of America associate echoed these sentiments: “There’s definitely a quiet pressure from management.”
A spokesperson for Morgan Stanley, who doesn’t deny the specificity of its advantages, said: “So far as family is worried, we provide comprehensive worker advantages in lots of areas. . . Our Family Constructing Allowance takes into consideration the proven fact that families come into being in some ways and helps staff meet the prices of adoption, surrogacy and infertility treatment.”
Bank of America had no comment.
OK, I’m no expert on the broad subject of corporate maternity advantages, but like every good reporter, a few of my sources are. These are women who’ve broken through the male-dominated cultures of huge banks and have battle scars to prove their success. Here’s what they’ll say: First, every manager might be directly involved in knowing who’s who freezing their eggs is stomping on some uncertain HR and legal ground.
“Actually, it isn’t legal for the boss or management to ask who’s involved” in egg freezing, one former managing director of a significant bank and asset manager told me. But that person added: “Some women, especially younger ladies, feel the forced atmosphere, even when it’s more perception than reality.”
I see either side of the egg freezing debate. Previously, the medical care plans of enormous firms offered to freeze eggs only when crucial after cancer treatment. Recently, banks have realized that it is sweet for business to have talented women in top positions while fulfilling their desires to be mothers.
That is why BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, is giving all employees $20,000 to freeze their eggs. Goldman Sachs and plenty of other firms at the moment are doing the identical.
“Overall, egg freezing seems like a constructive and positive thing that offers women more opportunities to remain in roles longer; it’s harder to search out women in senior management positions,” said Eleanor Terrett of Fox Business, CEO of Whitney Group, an executive search firm. “It could possibly definitely have negative, possibly unintended consequences if women feel they must undergo this process to get promoted.”
Bud’s trance flavor
The dust hasn’t completely settled on the controversial Bud Light and Dylan Mulvaney ads, but after three weeks, there have been some predictable reactions.
A number of the left-wing media loved it and accused conservatives of going nuts over anything. Conservatives bemoaned this as an extra degradation of cultural norms. At Anheuser-Busch, Bud’s parent company, executives are debating whether promoting a transgender woman in a bubble bath sipping beer is a brilliant business move.
On the positive side: AB stock recovered from its initial sell-off. It must even be proven that any commercial is sweet commercial; Bud is a failing brand that hasn’t received as much attention because the early days of Spuds MacKenzie.
But short-term stock prices should never be a barometer of long-term value – and there are real long-term questions on Bud and Anheuser-Busch. For instance, whether the corporate has discredited too lots of its right-wing customers, as most beer drinkers do.
AB is owned by an organization referred to as InBev with Belgian-Brazilian roots. It’s partially controlled by a personal equity fund called 3G Capital. I’m undecided how much beer the 3G guys wish to eat or in the event that they have any idea concerning the beer drinking demonstration, but they have not been in a position to reverse the secular trend of falling Bud sales since they took over about 15 years ago.
Also they are known to be almost masochistic cost-cutters who like to squeeze the fat out of their portfolio firms and even their bones.
Sources tell me some clever marketing people got caught up on this cost-cutting and that is how we got Dylan Mulvaney right into a bubble bath with a can of Bud Light.