In our household, my wife, Sheila, is the chief, cook and bottle-washer of most things, financial. She plans, manages and executes much of our financial life and typically takes the longer view. In fact, her objectives, risk-weighted investment philosophies and time horizon tends to be quite similar to other women, at least according to various studies that consider gender demographics and its impact on investment decisions. Perhaps, this stems from the oft-recited behavioral analysis that prototypes men as hunters, and women as gatherers and nurturers, but it nominally highlights that different philosophies and experiences can lead to different approaches and outcomes. Asset and wealth management firms have increasingly realized these differences, for example, and have themselves begun to explore ways in which to create new employment opportunities, products and campaigns that drive greater diversity.
My daughter, Tara, is our eldest child. At 17, soon to be 18, she has just begun her senior year in high school and is in the midst of the college application process. Tara attends a magnet high school where incoming students must select a specialized academic discipline that they wish to pursue, all as part of the initial application process. Students are then organized into “academies”, aligning with their discipline of choice. Of course, this is like asking a kid to choose their college major in 8th grade! While some may have tremendous convictions at an early age, this is clearly the exception.
In Tara’s case, she has always loved the arts and performing. So, while her pragmatic parents suggested to our then 8th grade daughter that she may want to consider applying for the business and finance academy, a safe choice to be sure, she instead chose to pursue the visual and performing arts/theater academy. As she told us, then, “if I don’t follow my dreams, now, when will I ever?” How mature! How could we argue?
While Tara’s academy dictates certain electives that she can take, she’s also required to pursue an advanced core curriculum, including math, science, language arts, history, etc. In her freshman year, her biology teacher identified both a passion and aptitude for science, and suggested to Tara that she may have an interest in working in the high school lab, where students develop and pursue various medical hypotheses and related experiments. Whereas the lab is typically reserved for students in the science academies, this teacher assured Tara that she could help to secure a spot for her.
Tara has since worked in the lab, exploring potential treatments and cures for Type 1 diabetes, a disease that I have. Her passion for science has only grown, and she has additionally interned at local hospitals and at a large biomedical pharmaceutical, where she presents research and conducts lab work related to rare diseases. Throughout, she has kept her love for the arts: in one moment, she is performing Shakespeare; in the next, she is seeking elusive cures for both common and rare diseases! She now wants to pursue both disciplines, in college, and often speaks of her interest in continuing research or becoming a doctor (or, maybe she’ll play one on TV).
Were it not for the mentoring and opportunities that were offered by her freshman biology teacher, Tara may have never discovered her passion for science. In the same vein, we both serve and benefit when we develop organizational diversity and help our female students, interns, applicants and colleagues to find, and realize, their own aspirations. Programs, like Women in Technology and the Grace Hopper Foundation, for example, provide great platforms to achieve these things, but the shared objectives require a conscious effort to realize their potential. On this “International Day of the Girl”, we should remind ourselves that diversity is indeed a strength, but one that must be proactively engaged and managed. How will you respond?
