Noah Rothman explains for Commentary readers the irony surrounding Wall Street’s “Fearless Girl” statue.
On March 8, 2017, a bronze idol appeared on the streets of Manhattan paying obeisance to both the tenets of identity politics and liberal apprehension about the financial industry. It is the figure of a female—a young girl—standing defiant, arms akimbo, in the face of the symbol of heedless capital generation: the iconic Wall Street Bull. Democratic throngs fell to their knees, suspending all critical thought in the process. Had they maintained their composure, a few of them might have noticed that they were being used. …
… This statue was commissioned by Boston-based State Street Global Advisors, an investment firm, which ostensibly placed the sculpture to draw attention to the lack of women in high-ranking positions at Fortune 500 firms. If anyone had been interested in scrutiny, they’d have found that State Street would have been near the top of the list of offenders. …
… Anyone who turned a critical eye toward the statue quickly concluded that this was a public relations campaign. Even still, people like Senator Elizabeth Warren—who cannot take two breaths without talking about Wall Street excesses—made the pilgrimage to lower Manhattan and paid respects to a commercial.
We now know why State Street was so eager to burnish its image as an institution populated by feminist crusaders. On Thursday, the firm agreed to pay $5 million to settle claims brought by the U.S. Department of Labor that it discriminated against female employees. Three hundred and five women and 15 black executives were allegedly discriminated against in favor of their white, male counterparts. If anyone cared to look under the hood, it was obvious at the time of Fearless Girl’s debut that this was nothing more than an advertisement for a conspicuously self-conscious firm. But they had purchased Democratic indifference for a few bucks and a cheap gesture toward the identity politics that so animates the liberal left.
