I received an overwhelming response to my column last week addressing the “colour of the City” and how black people were not adequately represented in the world of finance.

It touched a nerve with many readers. Some were admiring, calling it “a witty and powerful indictment of the lack of black representation in the City”, while others were derogatory, objecting to what they called its “tired ­racial stereotypes”.
This begs the question: are “positive” stereotypes racist too?

For example, I stated that the City would have better dancing if there were more black people. This was meant to be tongue-in-cheek, in keeping with the tone of most of my columns, but I accept I crossed the line and apologise to anyone who was ­offended. The bottom line is that racial stereotyping, even when “positive”, can be misleading – it prevents us from discerning the complexity of cultures.

Positive stereotypes can affect City girls as well, as women are often considered ­better at building relationships and communicating than men, and, as a consequence, are pushed into sales roles and ­client-facing positions, which are less ­lucrative.

I have been the victim of this myself. Sometimes when I tell people at a noisy bar that I’m a trader, they look at my figure and reply: “You’re a personal trainer?” Stereotyping hurts all of us.

The figures on City girls speak for themselves: women make up just 2 per cent of senior positions in the top 100 companies, and there is still a 20 per cent gap ­between the pay levels of men and women doing the same job. Yet, while stereotyping and sexism still thrive in the City, women are ­beginning to stick up not only for themselves, but the sisterhood in general.

All those managing directresses and highly-paid City girls have swung hard to break the glass ceiling, but it will almost certainly take two or three generations to disentangle the City’s old-boy network. It’s easy to forget, but there were laws enacted more than 30 years ago to prevent women from being discriminated against.

But in our testosterone-fuelled City reality, women are still being humiliated, sexually harassed and discriminated against on a daily basis. The guilty know who they are, and as far as those cat-calling, skirt-chasing City boys are concerned­… off with their headsets.