Ongoing Tales From the Boom-Boom Room

Since the Harvey Weinstein story broke, conversations about sexual harassment have touched on nearly every industry, including finance. The Wall Street Journal recently reported that Fidelity—one of the world's largest investment firms—held an emergency meeting for its stock-picking unit after complaints piled up regarding abusive workplace conduct.

Additionally, two high-profile Fidelity employees were fired. That's the part that caught the attention of Susan Antilla, a financial journalist and the author of Tales From the Boom-Boom Room: Women vs. Wall Street.

The remarkable thing about #Fidelity story isn't the #harassment. It's that people lost their jobs for it. https://t.co/HYrv2S8056 via @WSJ

— Susan Antilla (@antillaview) October 23, 2017

"At first, I thought this was going to be another blip," Antilla told WNYC. "I think this is different. I think the amount of speaking out is unlike anything I've ever seen. So I'm encouraged by this."

In Antilla's book, which came out in 2002, she wrote about the precedent on Wall Street for requiring employees to sign arbitration clauses. That effectively meant employees with grievances—like sexual harassment allegations—couldn't go public.

Antilla spoke with WNYC's Richard Hake about the culture of sexual harassment outside industries like Hollywood and media, and whether those cases will start getting more attention.