Stevenson, Owen in WSJ: “Yellen leaves the Fed--and a glass ceiling shattered”

February 8, 2018

A recent Wall Street Journal story by Nick Timiraos, “Janet Yellen leaves the Fed--and a glass ceiling shattered,” focuses on Yellen’s recent departure from the Fed as “an example of the challenges even the most successful women still face,” particularly in the field of economics.

“Janet Yellen broke a glass ceiling when she became the first Federal Reserve chairwoman, the most powerful economic policy maker in the U.S., making her coming departure from the central bank bittersweet for some,” wrote Timiraos.

Betsey Stevenson, whose recent review of gender balance in economics textbooks is discussed in the story, provided context on how Yellen’s example “reached beyond economics departments to Wall Street trading desks and foreign finance ministries.”

“If women see all their bosses cowering in fear of what Janet Yellen might say or do--that’s just a different world,” Stevenson told the journal. “It changes things. It changes your image of what you can do and how you can be.”

Stephanie Owen, a third year PhD candidate at the Ford School (focusing on public policy and economics) was also interviewed.

“You look around and you don’t see a lot of women, and it sometimes makes you think, ‘Do I belong here?’ It’s why having Chair Yellen has been so important, and the less remarkable it becomes to have women in these positions, the better.”