Fearless Girl or Fearless Beard?
From the start, we viewed Fearless Girl as a marketing stunt for the Boston financial firm that installed the statue in mocking distance of the iconic Charging Bull. Now it turns out that State Street Corp. itself seems to have a sexism problem.
Set up in the dead of night, but with city permission, back in March, the defiant pixie turns the bull into a symbol of Wall Street sexism, which she seems to be staring down.
Yet it came with a plaque obliquely advertising State Street’s feminist-branded SHE fund.
As part of the p.r. campaign, the world’s third-largest asset manager, also vowed to use its market share to push for more women on corporate boards.
Oops: While State Street still denies it ever discriminated, it’s paying out $5 million to settle federal Labor Department charges that it underpaid hundreds of female employees and more than a dozen black workers.
That includes women serving in senior vice president, managing director and vice-president positions.
All of which makes Fearless Girl look as feminist as those infamous ads of yesteryear for Virginia Slims cigarettes.