EEOC interim chair Andrea Lucas has urged white men who feel discriminated against at work to file a federal complaint. “Are you a white man who has been disadvantaged at work because of your race or gender? Then you may be able to get money back,” Lucas said in a video. Act quickly, is the message.
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is the federal watchdog in the United States that oversees equal treatment in the labor market. Men, too, are entitled to protection under civil rights legislation, according to Andrea Lucas, who was appointed acting chair of the commission in 2025 by Donald Trump.
Anyone who still thinks gender relations in European corporate life are old-fashioned should take a look at the US. Especially in the financial sector, the battle between male and female bankers has by now become downright laughable.
That was recently confirmed once again on Wallstreetoasis.com, the online outlet for finance professionals in New York. A young female banker wonders: “Women in the workplace, are all men gay?” In a post, she described how colleagues behave bluntly and dismissively, purely because of her gender. “If you despise women so much, why do you hire us or advocate for diversity?” she asked older men in the sector.
The most liked response came from a first-year private equity associate: “This kind of bullshit is exactly why nobody takes women seriously.” Almost as popular is a response from a banker who said he is “not gay” but “just tired” of “female whining.” Thirty digital bananas—Wallstreet thumbs—follow.
According to a friend of mine, who began her career in New York at one of the world’s largest banks and now works in private equity, this is no isolated incident. The newest generation of financiers, she said, consists largely of MAGA men—Make America Great Again. “Women are treated as second-class citizens,” she said. According to her, older bankers have seen so often that women left after becoming pregnant that they no longer invest in their career development. “We won’t get rid of this problem for another hundred years.”
And that is reflected at the top. Although banks have been hiring roughly equal numbers of men and women for years, and more than half of all American banking employees are women, nearly 70 percent of top management positions are held by men, according to the EEOC. Only 7.5 percent of banks have a female CEO.
According to consultancy McKinsey, women worldwide already fall behind at their first promotion to manager, despite ambitions and performance equal to men. In a book published in 2025, the consultancy calls this “the broken rung”: “a phenomenon that more often than the glass ceiling holds women back in their career success.”
One person speaking out against this is Jennifer Caruso-Jones. The former managing director recently sued RBC Capital Markets for structural discrimination. She allegedly earned less than male colleagues for years and missed out on a substantial portion of her bonus because of maternity leave.
RBC denies the allegations. According to the bank, Caruso-Jones herself proposed to leave and was offered severance pay of more than 1.1 million dollars.
This is typical female behavior, according to future—male—managers and directors on Wallstreetoasis in response to the news. “Women can sue a firm because it’s run like a frat house for entitled boys, but men can’t sue if it’s run like a Montessori preschool,” said a male first-year banker. The website crowned the response the most helpful contribution.
Max Severijns is a journalist and lives in New York. He is a correspondent for Investment Officer. He studied communication and Japanese and earned his master’s degree in international relations at the University of Milan.