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In the article titled Men want more testosterone, the world needs less in the Globe and Mail on Sep. 27, 2011, Margaret Wente states:

Perhaps you’ve noticed that not a single woman was involved with the reckless speculation that led to the debacle of 2008, and to the European banking crisis of today.

I think, to be clear, that "involved" ought to be limited to those who were making decisions that could have contributed to – or averted – the 2008 financial crisis.

Some time ago I read All the Devils are Here, which I thought was an excellent piece on the topic, and though I recall women being involved in the crisis I cannot recall who it was or to what extent they may have been involved.

Is it true that not a single woman was involved in the speculation leading to the 2008 financial crisis?

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  • 8
    It is impossible to define who was involved, let alone exclude that any women were involved.
    – johanvdw
    Sep 27, 2011 at 14:53
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    wow, what a load of BS that article is; however, I really doubt that we can pinpoint exactly which people caused the financial crisis.
    – Mihai Rotaru
    Sep 27, 2011 at 14:55
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    Ever heard the saying "behind every powerful man is an even more powerful woman?" Perhaps it would be difficult to find out who all was really involved since there are a lot of people who prefer to stay out of the spotlight.
    – Randolf Richardson
    Sep 27, 2011 at 16:54
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    the crisis was ultimately caused by massive overspending on the part of the American public (mostly, they triggered it with the mortgage collapse). There are millions of American women with chronically overdrafted creditcards. Caveat: I worked in the financial industry at the time, in the business of gathering and distributing data to dealer rooms, I've some actual knowledge about our business that's still under NDAs but nothing to indicate which specific persons in which specific businesses were behind it. Most of the decisions made were made by automated systems acting on triggers
    – jwenting
    Sep 28, 2011 at 7:12
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    @jwenting Exactly. Every woman how bought a house at inflated prices during the bubble and then defaulted on the mortgage was 'involved' in creating the financial crisis. And so were quite a few female members of Congress and employees of the Fed, Freddie, and Fannie who were eagerly supporting the making of such bad loans and voting for measures that allowed them to be made more easily.
    – reirab
    Mar 5, 2017 at 6:21

2 Answers 2

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Erin Callan was the Chief Financial Officer of Lehman Bros. until July 2008, when she moved to Credit Suisse.

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Marsha Evans was on the board of directors of Lehman Brothers from 2006 until its bankruptcy in 2008 at the start of the financial crisis.

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    Beth A. Wilkinson was the Executive Vice President, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary for Fannie Mae in 2007. They had four women on the 10-person board of directors. They had at least 17 women in senior management at the same time. This claim is ridiculous.
    – John Lyon
    Sep 27, 2011 at 23:19
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    @Esultanik: This answer is as good as el chief's, but I marked his answer as "correct" because he has lower reputation (in hopes the reward shall encourage him to submit more answers). I hope you don't think this unfair.
    – Brian M. Hunt
    Sep 28, 2011 at 17:55
  • @Brian: No problem.
    – ESultanik
    Sep 28, 2011 at 18:40

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