Are Wall Street Women Under Siege?

Lehman Brothers removed the highest ranked woman on Wall Street, chief financial officer Erin Callan, from her post yesterday. The ouster came days after the investment bank announced plans to report a $2.8 billion loss in the second quarter.

Women may have started to arrive in the boardroom in unprecedented numbers and the good news--maybe, not for them--is that many interpret their firings as just another, well, firing. When a stock is underperforming and the person in charge is not creating shareholder value, then firing or demotion for poor performance is "gender-neutral," says Jacki Zehner, a former Goldman Sachs partner and current board member of the Center for Work-Life Policy, which researches policies to promote the well-being of families in the workplace. So, is the news coverage. The headlines were all about the Lehman firings, not about the "lady executive" getting the axe.

But, experts say it is a problem that women on Wall Street feel that to remain in their jobs they must not make as many errors, and be more aggressive than their male counterparts.

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