Tales from the Boom-Boom Room: Women vs. Wall Street

Tales from the Boom-Boom Room: Women vs. Wall Street
By Susan Antilla
Published by Bloomberg, 2002
In the early 1980s, a growing number of women began to enter the securities industry. Unfortunately, they found a very hostile working environment. One of the biggest securities firms, Smith Barney, had a network of retail brokerage companies through Shearson/American Express. Pam Martens worked in its very successful Garden City, Long Island branch. The branch manager, Nick Cuneo, created a fun atmosphere for the men in the office, who turned the office basement into the party-filled “boom-boom room.” Male brokers continually subjected women to verbal harassment and inappropriate touching. Women struggled to be hired, and then found that the men in charge of their careers practiced all sorts of sexual harassment and intimidation, from jokes to displays of sexual intimidation, physical contact, and threats of rape.
This book discusses how sexual harassment shaped life inside Wall...