Fearless girls and women

My curiosity about the bronze statue “The Fearless Girl” confronting the “Charging Bull” of Wall Street was first piqued when my daughter, who works for a financial news service in this location, posted a selfie with her.

I’d heard about “the girl” on Wall Street but only paid it passing attention. But seeing her with my daughter in a similar pose roused not just motherly sentiments but also curiosity about how “the girl” came to be there. As well, the sight triggered reflections on how far young women like my Miya have travelled since the first glimmer of feminism on our horizon, and yet also how much farther they—we!—have yet to go.

“The Fearless Girl” has been called “a potent symbol of female leadership in business.” But to Jillian Steinhauer, writing in the website “Hyperallergic,” the girl standing defiantly in front of the bull, arms at her hips, face raised and ponytail swinging in the air, “represents basically everything that’s wrong with our society.”

Speaking with Tali Gumbiner and Lizzie Wilson, who spearheaded the campaign for McCann New York in behalf of its client State Street Global Advisors, Adweek notes that “the girl” has become about the biggest draw on Wall Street. Wilson, asked why people are so drawn to the new sculpture (by Kristen Visbal), says it’s because “there is something so relatable about a kid… You see yourself in her, but you also see your kids. You see the future, and you see your past.”

Precisely my reactions.

Steinhauer, though, takes a different view.

Those behind the installation, she says, have sold the story behind “the girl” as a courageous “guerrilla” operation that was part of a campaign to encourage companies to increase the number of women in their boards. She symbolizes “a remarkable evolution for Wall Street,” and represents “the turning point of gender equality in corporate America.”

Well, not really, says Steinhauer. The companies behind her presence in the heart of Wall Street—McCann New York and asset manager SSGA, the third largest in the world—are not exactly paragons of gender equality. Women in their boards comprise just about 20 percent, and worse, SSGA itself has been implicated in “shady dealings,” in one instance meriting a settlement of over $64 million with the US government.

The women of McCann New York said that SSGA had come to them to help promote a fund called SHE, “which only invests in companies with women in leadership.” They cited studies that “found companies with gender-diverse leadership, and women in leadership, are actually more lucrative.” Putting more women in charge, they said, was “not just a nice thing to do,” but also necessary: “We actually need to change the perception of what a successful company is made of. That is such a challenge, but such a cool one.”

And obviously, putting out ads or launching campaigns in old and new media weren’t going to cut it. So “The Fearless Girl” was created, bringing the message to the heart of the beast, as it were.

Likewise bringing the message home, our home, were the women at the “Women Defend Democracy” forum held on March 8. Participants were welcomed by Ging Deles, a founder of the women’s group Pilipina and former peace process adviser to the president.

The conclusion of her welcome address is inspiring and heartening, and, remembering “The Fearless Girl” confronting the “Charging Bull,” I reprint it here:

“And so, we women, perennials and millennials alike, pledge to fight on. We do not give up. We will not be silenced. We do not surrender to the dark night. Today and every day hereafter, we commit to stand up for our beliefs and values and to continue to engage what has become a more vicious world. We pledge every ounce of our agency, to the deepest core of our being, to live and to work to make the world a better place, to ensure for our children and our grandchildren a future still pregnant with the best possibilities.

“Rebellion runs in our veins: we fought the Spanish colonizers, the Japanese, the Americans, and the dictator. Never again, we said; never again, it shall be!”