Fempowerment

This year the International Women's Day is getting more exposure in the US, and it's all thanks to Trump, and women being up in arms about equal rights because of him. There was a movement to stay home from work today, although I'm not sure how widespread that was. I did not stay home, but I did wear red for support. Most of my colleagues seemed to be at work too.

Anyway, since I work in the financial industry, I was really happy to hear about what State Street Global Asset Management did to draw attention to the issue and put pressure on firms to include more women in their boards. There was a number of news articles out about this, but this piece from
Fortune is a good one.

SSGA sponsored a piece of guerrilla art in downtown Manhattan, a little bronze statue of a girl, placed opposite the charging bull on Broadway. The girl is staring down the bull in a power pose. A brilliant move by SSGA to highlight an important issue in a very creative way.

And since I work close to the site of the bull and the girl, I of course went to see it today. There was quite a crowd around it, taking pictures and checking out the little girl.

Now if only these large asset managers would put their money behind this as well, and stop investing money in companies that don't have at least one woman in their boards. It is a better business and investing decision as well - there is a ton of research that proves that companies with more diverse boards provide better returns and are more profitable in the long run.

There is still a long way to go to true equality, but I'm so very happy that this movement has taken foot.

Happy International Women's Day!