Is this a fair way to decide to do business with a financial company?

You are promoting diversity and equality. I have done extremely well with my female financial advisors. They treat me with a LOT more respect and intelligence than the (white ) men that I have dealt with in the past. I choose my professionals, financial advisors, and often tradespeople based on competence, and, in my experience, the best are not necessarily the dominant demographic. I grew up with those guys, a lot of them skated by on privilege, where the others did not.
I think you made a good call.

ETA, I get accused of misandry because of that attitude, always by men, mostly by white men. :-)

Personally, I think you handled it correctly.

Most people simply ignore the lack of diversity, but I admire people who stick to their principles when it comes to social issues.

I guess the real question would be: is this company likely to provide you the quality of service they say they will? Are there other companies that could provide the service better? You are looking at a financial service for your finances. Does it really matter if it is a man or woman that provides the services? How about black or white people? Asians? Transgenders?

My point is that you are looking for a service. Turning it into a political/sociological statement seems to be overthinking things significantly.

Well, @seawulf575, some of us are concerned with how our money is invested, and not just how the return is. I have had excellent results with investing in a mindful way, with a conscience and awareness of how the money is being made.
Simply assuming that not employing lazy tactics is “overthinking” is really underthinking.

I actually agree with @seawulf575 on this. I think companies should promote diversity, and it really needs to start with the education system. There are gender imbalances in some professions however. There are many more women teachers than male teachers for example. Does that mean I shouldn’t send my (hypothetical) child to a school with more women teachers?

Just to reiterate, I would like to see equity between the genders across all professions, and I have no tolerance for “boys-will-be-boys” corporate cultures that still pervade many industries. That said, it comes down to competence. If there is evidence of abusive and/or discriminatory practices, then I’ll certainly take my business elsewhere. Absent that, if the firm is capable of managing risk, getting a good rate of return, and communicating effectively, then that’s what I’ll be judging them on, whether my advisor is a woman, man or transgender.

@canidmajor so where do you draw the line? Does a business have to have a percentage of transgenders? How about blacks? Asians? Christians? Atheists? Buddhists?

If I am looking for someone to perform a service for me, I don’t dig into their staffing to see if they meet some weird PC composition. I hired someone to paint my house last year and they came out with a crew that had many people that didn’t speak English. And I don’t care. In the end, they did a really good job and THAT is what I was concerned with. Their prices were competitive and they had good reviews. And they met my standards of service. What more should I be looking at? They didn’t have any women on the crew…should I have canceled because of that? None of them looked to be transgender…should I have demanded they hire one? Should I have asked them to all provide proof of citizenship?

The problem I have with pushing a PC platform is that it is an endless spiral. At some point you will say “that’s just stupid” and someone else will say “you should have cared about that”.

Against my better judgment, I (the OP) will respond to @seawulf575 because it’s a legitimate question.

If an investment company is doing a decent analytical job in the US economy, then it must be aware that women (and their purchases and influence) pays a large role in that economy. There is no rule that says that men cannot be cognizant of the economic role of women, but there is also no evidence that women are less cognizant of the economic role of women, and (my guess) some likelihood that women financial planners are more in tune with women in the economy and therefore likely to make equally good investment decisions.

So if women are (as a group) equally as capable as men (as a group) in making wholistic investment advice, why should there be such a disparity between male and female advisors at this company?

My conclusion is that the company is out of tune with society, by the choice of their consultants. That being the case- poor decision making – why would I want to trust them with my cash?

Let’s look at it this way. Let’s say you hired a company that was about 50% men and 50% women. And they assigned a man to your case. Should you cancel because of that?

@elbanditoroso You just said that there is no rule that says men cannot be cognizant of the economic role of women. So you are basically saying you just don’t like men. You really are making assumptions as to the quality of their service even though you really don’t have any real evidence to back up the assumption.

Please note that I am not in any way saying that women cannot be just as good as men as financial planners. I truly believe they can. I have a woman as my CPA. But it seems that you ARE saying that men cannot be as good as women.

You entirely misread what I wrote. I should have known you would.

@seawulf He’s simply noting the lack of diversity and using his purchasing power to speak for him with a company better suited to his viewpoint.

It’s why I haven’t shopped at Walmart for two decades. It’s why many Republicans stopped supporting the NFL and Nascar.

I admire people who don’t just talk the talk.

@seawulf575 you are way overthinking this. A business that is willing to embrace different perspectives will be better educated and more open to a broader range of ideas and the needs of the entire economy across the board. It’s really not that complex an idea.
Reread my post. I examine competence.

@elbanditoroso ”My conclusion is that the company is out of tune with society, by the choice of their consultants.”

I don’t think you have enough information to conclude this—at least based on what you’ve posted. It’s certainly possible the firm actively recruits women, and there aren’t enough qualified female candidates in their area. Women and men tend to gravitate to different professions for a variety of reasons. Some are the result of lingering patriarchal attitudes in the field, but there are many benign reasons too.

It’s also possible your instincts are totally on point here and there are so few women because of misogyny or a toxic culture.

The give and take on this post is sort of interesting, but I get the feeling things are bleeding into other issues & attitudes.

If I understand correctly the main point of this question was : “Is this fair…”. My own feeling is that it’s completely fair for an investor or consumer to do as they please within the law with their own money. If they choose to make spending decisions that reflect values they believe are important, it’s a matter of individual conscience.

So elbanditoroso believes it’s a good thing to make workforce diversity a priority when choosing where to put their own funds. Others don’t.

Fine.

In the simplest terms, almost anything that allows individual freedom of choice without harming others or damaging whole communities is “fair”.

@JLoon Huh. I had interpreted ”Is this a fair way…” to mean ”Is this a reasonable way…”.
@elbanditoroso, how did you mean that?

Perhaps the OP meant the closely mowed part of a golf course between a tee and a green, but he accidentally inserted a space in his portmanteau? ;-p

Sure It’s fair. Do business with whoever you want to.

Considering it’s a financial company, by which I assume you mean people who advise other people on which companies to bet will be the most profitable investments based on every factor, it would seem to me unfair in their favor to feel morally obligated to choose them.

I also don’t think you have a moral obligation not to choose that company. Systemic prejudices and preferences take a long time to work out, and may not be caused by the people in that company, despite their demographic statistics.

Another option might be to see if you can talk to a specific person from that company, to see if you want to work with them. That way, the gender selection would be up to you.

So let me ask this question: If you came across a financial management company that was 95% women, would you avoid them as well?

@seawulf575 Yes, for essentially the same reason. US population is approximately 51% female and 49% male. Therefore, for professional white collar positions (like financial management) where gender is not a qualifying factor, I wouild expect something roughly 50/50 or maybe 45/55.

(contrast that to writing for a Mademoiselle or being a book editor for romance novels, where gender is more likely to be an important factor).

If a financial advisory company looking for a broad specturm of clients were 95% women, I would be just as critical (and not use them) – because that sort of imbalance doesn’t reflect a society at large. And if they want to manage my money, they need to come across as a company that understands contemporary society.

As an aside, that is one reason why my investments are NOT ESG supportive. (ESG meaning Environmental, Social, and Governance). ESG investing has its own jaundiced view of contemporary society. But that’s a different debate altogether.

I’ve decided NOT to do business with them. Any company in 2021 that doesn’t have a (roughly) equal number of male and female advisors seems hopelessly disconnected with American society.

How many females with proper qualifications applied for the position? How many positions open up and when do they? Because if half have been working at the company for 25 plus years… that explains a lot.

But in all seriousness, I think it’s fine. You choose what companies to support and you choose the reasoning behind it. If you aren’t comfortable with the company for ANY reason, don’t support it.
You made a choice based on your own morals, values, ect. It’s a fine choice if it follows that criteria.

I do not care about how many males vs females my bank employs. I don’t care about the salaries nor about the color of their eyes or skin.