Real estate likes to brag about how it’s an industry full of female entrepreneurs, where a single mom can work a flexible(ish) schedule and earn enough to raise her kids, an industry where the “glass ceiling” and “70 cents earned per dollar a man earns” don’t exist. The single mom narrative is the true story behind our CEO’s interest in real estate: his mother supported them by working full time as an agent, and she is still an active broker at Compass today #adorable. But while a lot of women enter the profession, at the top it is, like most industries, largely white men. Joe and Kelly is a rare male-female 50/50 split partnership, and as I’ve said before, part of my immediate desire to work with them was this equal divide. There are a handful of female-run teams that do major business. But if we are looking at ALL the top agents in the city, it’s overwhelmingly male dominated.
I don’t watch Million Dollar Listing (starting to think I should), but I was still happy about the news that their newest cast member is a female agent, from Compass no less. The press failed to mention that her team is run by two white men, but I am still happy about the addition of a woman, even if it seems a little bit late — how many seasons have they done already? — and even if this isn’t exactly pushing the boundaries of what a luxury real estate agent can be. And lest we forget, the reason I don’t watch the show is because the first episode seemed to focus around one of the stars sexually harassing his assistant by making her listen to stories of his gross hookup exploits. But hey, it was a different time! We hadn’t even decided women were MAYBE people back then!
It may seem like a small thing, but inclusivity and representation in the media is actually super important, because we internalize what we see portrayed on TV and in print. If you only see male agents of a certain age in the luxury market, you start to believe that they’re the only ones capable of that type of business or operating in that space. And nothing could be further from the truth: even within the “white men” category, I know plenty of Compass agents who do insane business without being traditional and buttoned up. Which brings me to my first point: I love Compass’s inclusivity that allows for all of us to choose our own way of marketing and presenting ourselves.
I know, I’m a huge fangirl, but this is yet another in a long line of reasons that I love Compass and wouldn’t want to work anywhere else. Compass makes a HUGE deal of its culture, but the difference between its definition of culture and some other places I interviewed is that at Compass, culture means following a code of ethics/behavior, not looking a certain way. I certainly don’t look how most would expect from a real estate agent (at least if we are talking about how I dress and my marketing). Compass agents run the gamut and truly exemplify how the brokerage community actually looks. Real estate is, for many, a third or fourth career, and the defining common ground is the desire to run one’s own business, not a specific background or path or place that we grew up. But I am constantly “small-timed” by (mostly male) agents who don’t take me seriously because I’m not wearing a skirt or heels, don’t wear makeup, etc. And the answer to that problem shouldn’t be “well, Anna, you should start dressing the way they want you to!” The answer should be to try hard to eliminate these biases at the base level, so that I don’t get judged based on someone’s idea of how I SHOULD look.
But this isn’t really about Million Dollar Listing, or Compass, or even real estate. It’s about the fact that in 2020 we still have an internalized bias to trust white men with money over other people, to give them the benefit of the doubt, to naturally assume that they make strong leaders, even when the opposite is proven true. No, I’m not talking about Trump, although the presidential race is a perfect example of this. I’m really talking about Governor Cuomo, the unhinged narcissist who at every opportunity manages to fuck up our city for everyone, on both sides. I’ll just use three quick examples here.
Andy Byford - Andy Byford, or “train daddy,” is a British transit nerd who has overhauled multiple huge subway systems, bringing them from the depths of malfunctioning into the 21st century. After massive successes in London, Sydney, and Toronto he set his sights on NYC. Cuomo hired him, and Cuomo could have been satisfied with patting himself on the back, loudly and publicly, for bringing in the man who could save our city. Fixing the trains would increase rents and real estate value across the board, decrease physical violence on train platforms, and generally help EVERYONE, not just those who depend on the subway for their commutes. Instead, with every piece of press Byford got, Cuomo became more and more enraged until he finally wasted $4million of tax payer money bringing in his own SECOND consultant to essentially eliminate Byford’s position and make him powerless to do his job. Thanks, Cuomo. You’re the actual worst.
New Rent Laws - I don’t know if anyone was paying attention, but about 48 hours before the new rent laws passed in Albany and were sent to Cuomo for his signature, he called them out for infighting and speculated that legislators wouldn’t be able to come to an agreement and pass anything. If you know anything about human psychology you know that the fastest way to unite people is around a common enemy or what was basically a dare by Cuomo. So lo and behold, MASSIVE rent reform was agreed upon and sent his way shortly thereafter. Maybe they would have stopped arguing and gotten this done regardless, but he certainly didn’t help matters for himself since he opposed this reform so vehemently.
Amazon H2 - This was a stupid idea from the beginning, no matter how many agents whine to me about property values in LIC. LIC is doing fine, and stop trying to tell me this would be bringing jobs to a needy community. The jobs wouldn’t be for LIC public housing residents (seriously, who does your PR?), we don’t need more tech bros, and we don’t need any tax cuts for Amazon. We don’t need more train issues. We don’t need more renters. And, as I speculated, Amazon is moving tons of its employees here anyway. But regardless of whether you wanted H2 or not, you can blame Cuomo for how this all went down. Apparently he’s as bad at negotiating deals as Trump is, because if he had done a better job we opponents probably would have had H2 shoved down our throats. Instead the deal was so pathetically bad, and was put together in such a non-transparent, shady way, that the city came together to stop it.
While I have you, I’m going to throw in one more issue with “white male” as default for all positions of power and authority: it’s bad for those white men, too! This is why TAKING DOWN THE PATRIARCHY is actually better for everyone; it allows more than one definition of maleness, correctness, power, etc. And if you haven’t noticed, white middle aged men in this country are taking their own lives at an alarming rate. There are MANY, many reasons for this, but a significant one is that what they were promised as kids does not mesh with where they now find themselves. They were promised certain things would be theirs, and that these things defined their role as a man (wife, house, kids, ability to provide, tallness, money). But things have changed, and they were not trained to live in a world where they had to compete with everyone else.
But I was. I am tougher, smarter, and savvier because of what I’ve gone through as a woman. I am better at my job, more personable, and my clients are DIE HARD obsessed with me. As an aside, I’d also love to stop hearing that women are “too emotional” for things from men screaming and crying over the slightest inconvenience. We are magical humans and you can barely handle life with every single thing being handed to you.
And so in the end, I kinda win, and the losers are sad white dudes and people who weren’t able to end up in the (admittedly extremely privileged) position I’m in, where I actually do get to prove myself. By making the playing field more even and showing that ANYONE can be president, successful, important, smart, valuable, etc, we will literally make the world better. People who never had a chance to compete before will be given an opportunity to rise to the top and do AMAZING THINGS. Anyone who disagrees is small minded and believes in a zero-sum game rather than having a growth mindset. Maybe you should go back to the early ‘80’s and hang with Cuomo’s dad.
And maybe we’d have fewer Cuomos, fewer Trumps, and fewer headlines like this: https://therealdeal.com/2020/02/04/amazon-insiders-hq2-campaign-driven-by-bezos-ego-subsidy-envy/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=NY%20Daily%20%7C%2002.05.20&utm_term=New%20York%20Daily
xo
Anna
