Story 92

My female relative worked at Citi as a managing director. When she was hired, she was filled with excitement and eagerness to make an impactful improvement within her division. When accepting the job offer at Citi, her hope was the culture would be making at least an effort to shift away from the “good old boys” mentality that plagues countless corporate offices. In less than a year, she was sharing stories how her boss and peers were sabotaging initiatives that were presented as opportunities for improvement. She would vent frustration about meetings with overt tones of patronizing and mansplaining comments, meant to minimize and intimidate any woman who offered a thought that was viewed as combative, no matter how beneficial it could potentially be. Through all the years I’ve watched my relative’s career, I have never seen her so demoralized, so distressed this quickly. The psychological games played were unprecedented in scope and premeditation.

After pushing back against being intimidated, what followed was months of unfounded accusations; ranging from sexual in nature to incompetence, being frozen out of division meetings, being yelled at on conference calls with peers and clients, inappropriate remarks about her appearance, and your typical male aggression that is projected back on women as being emotional. I know all too well what men are capable of and have witnessed more times than I’d like to recall. As my relative has experienced elsewhere in her career, when someone rattles the status quo, heads will roll. When that person was a woman at Citi, the pushback was immediate and destructive. The mental and physical health toll this took on my relative was infuriating to witness. She had to fight tooth and nail to keep her dignity, her reputation, and her sanity, while being attacked from every angle within her own company. She was portrayed as a liar and an opportunist, someone who engages in quid pro quo to get ahead. All unfounded and all given validity by a HR that was more than willing to uphold the toxic yes-man culture. It is shocking the childish, destructive behavior executives will conduct in order to maintain absolute control and subjugation.