FLASH FRIDAY is a weekly content series looking at the past, present and future of capital markets trading and technology. FLASH FRIDAY is sponsored by Instinet, a Nomura company.
Today there are many women leading exchanges including Adena Friedman, chair and chief executive of Nasdaq, and Lynn Martin, president of NYSE Group. However, just over five decades ago, women were not allowed on the floor of the London Stock Exchange.
On 27 March this year the London Stock Exchange was opened for trading by Hilary Pearson and Susan Shaw, two of the first female members of the LSE trading floor, to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the admittance of women.
In 1973 the Council of the London Stock Exchange finally voted to admit women members to the trading floor from 26 March of that year, after repeatedly rejecting their applications. The Financial Times reported that some of the excuses used to reject women working on the floor included them using their ‘female charms’ or short skirts to get better prices, that they would be physically incapable of making their way through a crowded trading floor and one man complaining that his wife did not want him to talk to attractive women. The catalyst for the change in the vote was the LSE’s merger with the UK’s regional exchanges, where women were already commonplace.
In a subsequent letter to the newspaper, Cedric Feather, a former partner at JM Finn, highlighted the case of Diana Laird Craig who went to work on the floor and was welcomed by the majority of market makers. However, after she wore trousers she was banned from the floor for “unbecoming attire.” Feather wrote that after the story was in the press “it was noticeable that the more sensitive institutional clients insisted that their orders were executed only by Diana. It is regrettable that 50 years on, women are still a rarity in trading roles in the LSE.”
The progress that still needs to be made was highlighted in a report the LSE commissioned for the anniversary from the Centre for Economics and Business Research to analyze the contribution of women in the finance sector to the UK economy between 1971 to 2022.
Julia Hoggett, CEO, London Stock Exchange plc, said in the report: “Yet half a century later, our sector has not fully redressed the structural inequity and imbalances that characterized the experience of women – and barred them from professional growth in our sector – fifty years ago.”
Hoggett called attention to the report finding a near three-fold growth in gross value added to the UK economy by women in finance over the past 26 years.
“An increase in women’s ability to participate and, as a result, their wages and productivity – leading to a higher value added per worker – should make every politician working to solve the UK’s productivity puzzle sit up and take note,” she added. “The £1.12 trillion ‘gender diversity dividend’ delivered to the UK economy since 1997, by the incredible work of innovative, dynamic and dedicated women across the UK finance sector, should not be overlooked.”
As women have reached the upper echelons of the exchange industry, it is unlikely to be overlooked in the next 50 years.
