Fertility coverage, aka “egg freezing,” has been hailed as the newest breakthrough profit for ladies to interrupt through Wall Street’s very thick glass ceiling.
With egg freezing, mommy leave will be delayed until women have established a solid profession, as many successful women working in banking and trading will attest. Wall Street gets to retain a more diverse talent pool that will otherwise migrate to the green pastures of tech, which began offering such advantages about a decade ago.
Win-win, right? Seems that way, but recently, a counter-narrative has begun to emerge that egg freezing isn’t such an incredible perk in spite of everything. Fairly, this narrative suggests, it’s a subtle type of corporate coercion placed upon young women who could have concerns concerning the not-insignificant health risks involved or have religious objections. They feel compelled to freeze their eggs and delay pregnancy to display their fealty to their job and the organization in hopes of advancing up the company ladder.
I’m not saying I ascribe truth to those sinister motives but it surely is something that some young women working at major investment banks have been discussing and lamenting. Recently through a banking source, I heard the story of a 26-year-old woman executive at Morgan Stanley who believes there’s pressure on young women like herself to freeze their eggs in the event that they need to advance.
As she described it, the firm can pay $1,200 for ladies to freeze their eggs for one 12 months (not the very best coverage on the Street for something that may cost tens of hundreds of dollars); after that, the worker kicks in $100 a month. The true profit, nonetheless, is how going through with the procedure (again, not without possible complications) demonstrates organizational loyalty.
“Everybody knows that is what it is advisable to do to indicate management you might be committed to the corporate and that you’re going to push off having a family a few years down the road,” she said.
Reportedly, one firm can pay $1,200 for ladies to freeze their eggs for one 12 months.REUTERS
A 30-year-old associate at Bank of America echoed those sentiments: “There’s definitely a silent pressure coming from management.”
A spokesman for Morgan Stanley, who wouldn’t deny the specifics of its advantages, said: “In terms of family, we provide comprehensive worker advantages in a spread of areas . . . Our family-building profit recognizes that families are formed in some ways, and assists employees with the fee of adoption, surrogacy and fertility treatments.”
Bank of America had no comment.
OK, I’m no expert on the broad subject of corporate maternity advantages, but like several good reporter, a few of my sources are. These are women who worked their way through the male-dominated cultures of the massive banks and have the battle scars to prove their success. Here’s what they’ll say: First, any manager getting directly involved in knowing who’s freezing their eggs is treading on some shaky HR and legal ground.
“It’s actually not legal for a boss or management to inquire about who’s participating” in egg freezing, one former female managing director at a significant bank and asset manager told me. But this person added: “Some women, particularly young women, are feeling the coercive vibe even when it’s more of a perception than a reality.”
I see either side of the egg-freezing debate. Prior to now, medical-coverage plans by the massive firms offered egg freezing provided that it was needed following cancer treatments. More recently, banks got here to appreciate it’s good for business to have talented women in top positions while fulfilling their desires to be mothers.
That’s why BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, provides all female employees $20,000 to freeze their eggs. Goldman Sachs and plenty of other firms now do the identical.
“Overall, egg freezing feels like a constructive and positive thing that offers women more optionality to remain in roles longer; it’s harder to search out women in senior management roles,” Gary Goldstein, CEO of the Whitney Group, an executive search firm, told Fox Business’s Eleanor Terrett. “It will possibly actually have negative, perhaps unintended consequences if women feel like they need to undergo this process so as to move up.”
Dylan Mulvaney’s Bud Light sponsorship has split liberals and conservatives.Instagram
Bud’s trans aftertaste
The dust hasn’t totally settled on the controversial Bud Light-Dylan Mulvaney ads, but now three weeks in, there have been some predictable reactions.
Many lefty media types loved it and accused conservatives of freaking out over nothing. Conservatives bemoaned it as an extra degradation of cultural norms. Inside Anheuser-Busch, Bud’s parent company, executives are debating whether a promo of a trans woman in a bubble bath sipping beer is a great business move.
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On the positive side: A-B shares have recovered after their initial sell-off. There’s also a case to be made that any publicity is nice publicity; Bud is a declining brand that hasn’t gotten this much attention for the reason that early days of Spuds MacKenzie.
But stock prices within the short term should never be a barometer of long-term value — and there are real long-term questions on Bud and Anheuser-Busch. Like whether the corporate dissed too lots of its right-leaning customers, as most beer drinkers are likely to be.
A-B is owned by an organization referred to as InBev with Belgian-Brazilian roots. It’s controlled partially by a non-public equity outfit named 3G Capital. I’m unsure how much beer the dudes at 3G prefer to devour or whether or not they have a clue concerning the beer-drinking demo, but they haven’t been capable of reverse the secular trend of declining Bud sales since taking control about 15 years ago.
They’re also referred to as almost masochistic cost-cutters who like to squeeze fat out of their portfolio firms and even some bones.
Sources tell me some smart marketing people got caught up on this cost-cutting, and that’s how we got Dylan Mulvaney in a bubble bath with a can of Bud Light.
