In Diversity, Swiss Private Banking Slowly Builds New Norm

“We’ve all felt like this at some point” is the WhatsApp message that comes with the link to Alexandra Dufresne’s letter.

Written as a farewell to Switzerland, Ms. Dufresne describes the sense of frustration many women share at the very notable gender discrimination in the Swiss workplace. She feels “trapped and invisible” in her professional environment where the “complacent, congratulatory, and ubiquitous male privilege is accepted as normal”. She outlines how the traditional values of “social harmony” plants men and women into traditional patriarchal roles, fomenting social and work inequalities. And she’s right.

I’ve spent the past 20 years working in Swiss Private Banking, an industry famous for patronizing female staff and clients equally. I have seen and heard enough for a full Ted-Talk, but I will illustrate with one token: “women! They don’t need to work; they have husbands that support them,” was the response to a diversity initiative a C-Executive was launching at a large bank. Should I rest my case?

When I look back through the years, I can also see change: Switzerland introduced parental leave for mothers (2004) as well as for fathers (2020). More women are being hired into management positions and executive boards. Private Banks are highlighting their diversity efforts in major advertising banners. Even if some might be gender-washing, it does hold them to account – non-existent ten years ago.

"I feel a pinch of envy, rapidly washed away by optimism"

"Forget the older thinking!” tells me a banker-friend commenting on Ms. Dufresne’s article over coffee. “We need to build on what we have". She is younger than me – millennial rather than GenX – Swiss, and soon to have her first child. She tells me about the success of some of the equality initiatives, started by women but followed by many men, in her bank. We discuss parental leave: when my daughter was born in 2013, my husband had one day off. Now, her partner will have a month to stay with their baby.

I feel a pinch of envy, rapidly washed away by optimism. The push of institutional equality initiatives, but also younger men redefining their roles and distancing themselves from the questionable privilege of being the sole earners, is creating a new way of thinking. Men increasingly participate in family caring and support the career ambitions of their partners as part of their life plans. Now juniors and mid-managers, these men are helping build a new corporate norm that may be more discreet and less vocal and obvious but will ultimately lead to a new way of behaving.

Institutional change inevitably catches up. Switzerland recently marked the 75th anniversary of social security for both men and women – federal legislation backed by 80 percent of Swiss voters (all male at the time). Swiss change is not only discreet, but also unhurried. Like the Glacier Express, the world’s slowest train, it happens at Swiss speed. But is certain to reach its destination and once done, it is very difficult to reverse because it becomes the new social harmony and consensus at the core of the Helvetic way of living. "Change feels slow while is happening, but in hindsight it is fast,” she tells me finishing the coffee. And as social security’s lightning-speed run through Bern’s political machinery in 1946 illustrates, she’s right.

"This revolution affects everybody, not just women, and cannot be completed without men"

Back to my messaging chat: “I will fight this battle until it is fair but shouldn’t have to…” reads the last message. But when the rest is done is dusted, this is our battle. “Our time is the time of women,” declares my favourite Spanish writer. What makes this time different from any other era in history is the revolution that women started and are leading in search of equality, freedom, and choice. This revolution affects everybody, not just women, and cannot be completed without men.

Women in Switzerland, Swiss or otherwise, should not forget where we are coming from and the discrimination at work that ultimately reduced our personal life choices. We should also celebrate what has been achieved at home, in politics, in arts, and many economic spheres. And ultimately, we can continue building a place of equality at work, together, at least for us staying under the auspice of Helvetia.