Gender-dominated environments are not good... particularly in the financial sector where there are too few women. In gender-dominated environments, men have a tendency to... show how hairy chested they are, compared with the man who's sitting next to them. I honestly think that there should never be too much testosterone in one room.
Interpretation
Gender imbalance in professional settings, especially finance, leads to unhealthy competition and dynamics.
Christine Lagarde emphasizes the detrimental effects of environments dominated by one gender, particularly men, in sectors like finance. She suggests that excessive masculinity can foster unproductive rivalries and stifle inclusivity, advocating for a more balanced representation of genders to cultivate healthier workplaces.
In practice
In a discussion about workplace equality, this quote can be used to highlight the importance of gender balance.
In the 2013 Economists Program, we hired 51 percent women, 49 percent men. And the reason for that is that we have a draft from all over the world, and we've hired, for instance, in that group, a good number of Chinese economists - highly qualified, all Ph.D.s from the best universities of the world. And guess what? They're all women.
Tackling climate change is a collective endeavour, it means collective accountability and it's not too late
I have lived with extraordinary women, whether it was my grandmother, my mother. My father passed away when I was 16... I was witness to a woman who single handedly brought up the entire family and managed to do everything... She was an extraordinary role model for me.
I'm of those who believe that excesses in all matters are not a good idea, whether it's formation of bubbles, whether it's excess in the financial market, whether it's excess of inequality, it has to be watched, it has to be measured, and it has to be anticipated in terms of consequences.
You know, when I sit in meetings and things are very tense and people take things extremely seriously and they invest a lot of their ego, I sometimes think to myself, 'Come on, you know, there's life and there's death and there is love.' And all of that ego business is nonsense compared to that.
Very often as a little girl, then as a young woman, I have suffered my lot of discrimination. I was brought up with brothers; I grew up in a boys' world. You have to elbow your way in. When you come with that sentiment of having been in a minority for a long period of time, then you are much more attentive to minorities.
Rich cultures, patriarchal cultures, value thin women, like ours; poor ones value fat women. But all patriarchal cultures value weak women. So for women to become physically strong is very profound.
They say that women talk too much. If you have worked in Congress you know that the filibuster was invented by men.
Men cannot count, they do not know that two and two make four if women do not tell them so.
We still live in a world in which a significant fraction of people, including women, believe that a woman belongs and wants to belong exclusively in the home.
Like it or not, women are always subject to criticism if they show too much feeling in public.
We know in our society, women are valued for their sexual desirability and not necessarily for what they have to say.
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