We’ve all got it - the mysterious text after a night out. It perhaps says something like, “your a** looked great in that skirt.” You were too drunk to give this nobody a fake number. But what if this admirer is no stranger, but your boss?
Such is the acerbic court drama evolving between a woman and her former boss at a Swiss Hedge Fund - a self-styled Romeo whose seduction act included texts like “You resemble Kate Winslet!” After a year of resisting his advances, she was fired – and awarded £65,000 in compensation by a court last week.
It’s a tricky situation. Saying “no” in our industry is not easy, as City boys are trained NOT to take “no” for an answer. As an only child, I have issues with the concept myself. But while resisting a pass can cost you your job, filing lawsuits will cost you your career, so most City Girls suck up inappropriate banter and try to get on with the job.
That’s not to say that the advances from colleagues are always unwelcome ... sometimes they are. We all have that Jude Law look-alike in the office that makes the drudgery of work wildly more interesting. What if you two get stuck in the elevator? Would you hold your breath, grab him by the tie and pounce?
Naturally, I’d love to think I’m the innocent victim of Square Mile predators. But the truth is that City Girls prey on the opposite sex as much as the guys.
When I was a lissom young trader, for example, I admired a beautiful older sales trader who seemed to have it all together. That is, until I found out she was sleeping with clients to get business. Though her tactics are somewhat abnormal, many City Girls nevertheless use the promise, but not the delivery, of sex to enhance our bottom lines. We’ve learned that mesmerizing men with hypnotic curls can be the perfect formula to close business deals. But I sometimes wonder - is trading my intimacy really worth the boost in salary?
On the surface, women seem to be winning City’s “battle of the sexes” with our dazzlingly long eyelashes. We aren’t. In most situations, there is an obvious difference: City Girls use their charms to tease what they don’t want. City Boys use theirs to harass what they can’t have.
So while sexual harassment can go both ways, it is still ultimately about power. Alas, that’s something City Boys still hold the lion’s share of.
Surviving in the City has never been easy. But I can’t help thinking that when it comes to “advances” – behind a desk or via text - abusing your prowess carries less shame than abusing your power.