Women’s Work

When I became an agent in 1980, residential real estate was a women’s business. Perhaps because residential sales were “softer,” and the seekers more frequently wives than husbands, young men tended to gravitate to the commercial side of the business, both leasing and sales. In the commercial world, women stood out as being outside the boys’ club, just as men did in our more apparently feminine profession. The commercial side required hard skills and offered the possibility of real money – or so the conventional wisdom went. Residential brokerage, perceived as the domain of bored housewives and divorcees, occupied a significantly lower rung on the prestige ladder.

Today I read the long article by Sheelah Kolhatkar in The New Yorker about the challenges women face in the tech world. It got me thinking about sexism (and who isn’t thinking about it these days?) and how it can color not only what jobs women get, but also how outdated attitudes skew the perception the world has of those jobs. Residential real estate requires multiple skills, both left brain and right brain, but only in recent years has it emerged as a respectable career as opposed to a dilettante’s game. It was not until the 1980s that The Real Estate Board of New York paid any attention to residential brokerage at all, and not until the 1990s that the creation of the REBNY Residential Division actually gave us institutional credibility. To this day, REBNY’s Board of Governors resembles a sea of dark suits and ties with the occasional silk blouse and jacket dotting the conclave.

There is no question that this lack of respect for our work, which still persists in some quarters today, relates to the fact that the home is traditionally a woman’s domain and therefore most residential agents were women. The generation of successful agents before mine, almost entirely women, toughed it out in a world which was reluctant to recognize their skills. Known as “barracudas” or “dragon ladies,” the most successful of them were denigrated for their power and persistence, traits which led to success and admiration when displayed by men. Dealing in the 1960s and 1970s with the husbands or lawyers who always stepped in when the negotiations began, these women had to fight hard to be respected and taken seriously for their skills.

As prices and therefore commissions escalated through the 1990s and the first decade of this century, a career on the residential side became more interesting to both men and women recently graduated from fine colleges. This transition accelerated with the introduction of the TV shows about residential brokerage on HGTV and Bravo; suddenly our business became not only lucrative but also glamorous, where guys with expensive suits and haircuts pulled in seven figure incomes while throwing and attending glamorous parties. We had arrived!

And yet…under the surface the old prejudices still linger. Women in my office still come to me asking that I participate in phone calls with clients because “they are more likely to listen to a man,” especially if the clients are themselves men. Property owners and seekers still choose agents on the basis of social rather than professional criteria, in a way that they would never choose a lawyer, or a doctor, or a commercial broker. I feel proud to participate in an industry which has for decades provided smart, ambitious women with a path to career success and financial independence. However, residential brokers are still the less respected children in the eyes of the male establishment both within and outside the New York City real estate community. It’s time now for that outdated perception to catch up with the reality.

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