We were getting a pedicure yesterday and were thus in closer proximity to a stack of horrible women’s magazines than we usually like to be. Since they’re all the same mindless trash, we randomly selected the Marie Claire with a hungry-looking Ashley Olsen cover girl off the top and set to work educating ourselves about “women who choose starter husbands,” whether or not “Botox ages you” and “Grandpa crushes.” (This is an actual quote: “Donald Sutherland is hot. And not in the ‘he’s a great actor’ way. In the ‘we’d like to strip the 72-year-old down to his sock garters and get crazy with him’ way. In fact, a poll taken at a recent mojito night revealed that every woman in our office has a grandpa crush, even the ones without major daddy issues.” Like a trip to Idiot Island, isn’t it?). Anyway, just as the pederist started massaging our legs, we came across “A Field Guide to Wall Street Women,” by Dana Vachon. Obviously, we had to continue.
Seems there are four types on women on the Street: the Social Commando, the Ivy Beleaguered, the Nuptualista, and the Big Swinging Chick.
The Social Commando, according to Monsieur Vachon, hails from Los Angeles, Houston or San Francisco, works in sales, wears DVF wrap dresses, counts the $50 mojito pitcher as her signature cocktail, and has a life expectancy on Wall Street of 2-3 years. Commando goes commando so as to mix things up around the office, disarms with “charm” (read: breasts), and sleeps with as many co-workers as time will allow. Vachon says that Commando has a Brazilian ex-boyfriend named Nacho, though all of the Commandos we’re familiar with have always had a penchant for a more Aryan breed of man. Agree to disagree. Commando doesn’t stress about getting reports in on time, because that’s not what she’s there for, she’s there to have fun, which might explain why she’s been to rehab three times. Commando is everything Penelope Trunk has always wanted you to be, except she doesn’t dress halfway between a man and a harlot, she just dresses like a harlot.
The Ivy Beleaguered worked at Lehman Brothers for five years before becoming a senior associate at KKR, has a Wall Street life expectancy of 20-30 years, eats at her desk, and “kissed an Indian businessman once at The Lemon bar in late 2004 but was soon called away to the office." Penelope Trunk has a laundry list of things Ivy is doing wrong, the first two being “working too hard” and “not enough fucking on the job.” The one plus for Penelope is that Ivy’s years of hard work have caused her to be barren, so on the rare occasions when she shows up to Tequila Sunrise to catch herself a one-night stand, no one has to worry about protection.
The Nuptualista is in it for the money, but, unlike Ivy and BSC, her currency is diamonds and dudes. Correction: that one special dude who will slap a ring on her finger and come to the mutual agreement that he can have g-friends on the side so long as she never has to work again. Naturally, for the three to five years she is on Wall Street, the Nuptualista works in investor relations, wears Lilly Pulitzer, and mentally decorates the house in Darien (or is it Larchmont? Decisions!). She’s not barren, but will probably soon be frigid. (We’re not sure how Penelope feels about this. You?).
The Big Swinging Chick is the “managing director in charge of North American equity markets” at Goldman Sachs. She can apparently do calculus in her head, look hot, swill Sauternes, and emasculate her husband all before 8 am. Later in the day, she’ll be closing a $3 billion stock offering and firing a brash young trader named Hrian Bunter. How would she rank on the Penelope Meter? That depends—did she sleep her way to the top and take sexual harassment in stride?
Posted by , Aug 13, 2007 4:12PM
so true....