Story 239
This story is about a senior woman in Citi’s Commercial Bank, whom I met through a women’s network there.
At a professional gathering, a male colleague grabbed her and force-kissed her. Drunk. No ambiguity about what happened.
The next morning he came in, sat down, and said nothing. Not an acknowledgment. Not an apology. Just the performance of a man who had decided the previous night didn’t exist.
She made a decision after that. Women-only gatherings from now on.
Think about what that decision represents. Not a complaint filed. Not a confrontation. A quiet, private recalibration of where she allows herself to exist socially within her own professional world.
A tax paid in freedom of movement that her male colleague has never once considered.
And Citi? They know. They make sure to communicate that events are not firm-sponsored, and policy advises employees to minimize alcohol consumption at outside functions.
That deliberate distance from hosting, that quiet nudge toward sobriety — these are institutional acknowledgments that they have not solved the environment itself.
When an institution feels the need to formally distance itself from its own gatherings and warn employees about drinking, it is not practicing caution. It is documenting awareness. Awareness without remedy is not a policy. It is a paper trail.