A former employee of Goldman Sachs alleges that the investment bank’s Manhattan headquarters is so rife with misogyny that a colleague kept a spreadsheet ranking female recruits on their “f–kability,” declaring: “I want tit size and a–shape.”
Jamie Fiore Higgins, 46, of Somerset County, New Jersey, writes in her memoir that she was told by a male colleague that she was promoted “because of her vagina” and that she was the target of “moo” sounds from co-workers who mocked her weight after she gave birth to her fourth child.
On another occasion, she alleges, she was violently pinned to a wall by a male colleague who “wrapped [his hand] around my jaw” and threatened her while she was suspended in midair.
“Who the f–k do you think you are?” the man screamed into her face, which was just inches away from his.
“If I could, I’d rip your f–king face off.”
Higgins is the author of “Bully Market: My Story of Money and Misogyny at Goldman Sachs,” which is currently Amazon’s No. 1 bestseller in the “Financial Services Industry” category.
An excerpt of her book was published by the Times of London.
The investment bank provided a statement to The Post that read: “Had Ms. Higgins raised these allegations with our human resources department at the time we would have investigated them thoroughly and addressed them seriously.”
“We have a zero-tolerance policy for discrimination or retaliation against employees reporting misconduct.”
A Goldman spokesperson also pointed out that Higgins writes in the “author’s note” portion of the book that the “Goldman Sachs individuals referenced are composite characters.”
“While all of this did happen to me, the timing of some events has been compressed,” Higgins wrote.
“Where dialogue appears, my intention was to re-create the essence of the conversations rather than provide verbatim quotes.”
According to Higgins, she said she was dissuaded by her manager from reporting the assault to human resources.
“Imagine what managing him will be like if you go to human resources,” her immediate superior told her.
Higgins also described one incident in which a male colleague grabbed her thigh so hard that “his nails dug into her flesh” during an industry event that took place shortly after she suffered a miscarriage.
After she gave birth to her first child, Higgins said, she asked her manager to relocate to the office lactation room so that she could write emails.
“That’s going to be a problem,” her manager is alleged to have said.
“You need to be at your desk working … So we agree, no breastfeeding?”
On another occasion, she said, she was asked to take down photos of her children from her desk.
“It’s not a daycare center,” her boss said.
After she suffered a second miscarriage, Higgins said, she was told by her doctor she needed to take time off work because she became anemic from losing too much blood — threatening her overall health.
“This just isn’t a good time,” her boss told her.
She then went back to work and fainted, according to the book.
In 2015, Higgins gave birth to her fourth child. She said she took the initiative and pumped breast milk in the lactation room.
Upon returning to her desk, she said, a male colleague started making “mooing” cow noises while another gestured as if to indicate “breast-squeezing.”
Higgins said that someone left a toy cow on her desk that made a mooing sound.
“Welcome back,” a note read.
The stress of working at Goldman was so great that Higgins started “popping Xanax like Tic Tacs,” she told the Times of London. But she stayed in the job for 17 years due to the lucrative salary, which at one point reached $1 million a year.
“I felt like human poison,” she writes in the book.
“I’d become just as toxic as Goldman Sachs.”
Higgins told the Times: “I had terrible things happen to me.”
“But it would be disingenuous if I didn’t also share what I did to others. I don’t need to complete the circle with that guy [who assaulted her]. I have to show some grace for their bad choices because my husband has shown me grace for mine.”
A class-action lawsuit alleges that Goldman operates as a “boys club” that routinely discriminates against women.
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