One of the first things I use to read each morning was Rob Chrisman’s daily email newsletter for the mortgage lending industry. He’s always on top of what’s going on across the U.S.
At the end of the daily email, Rob adds a joke. Sometimes the jokes are just silly and G-rated enough to share with your grandma. Yet sometimes the jokes are disparaging towards protected classes and more often, the jokes are sexist and misogynistic. I emailed Rob way back in 2013 pointing out that the mortgage lending industry definitely does not need to reinforce a culture of misogyny and sexism. Instead, the industry needs to push the boundaries of a culture that has a long reputation as being a white, male-dominated industry with a history of discrimination against anyone other than a white male.
Look around inside your own mortgage company. Are the company owners, senior management and branch managers mostly men? At the branch level, are mostly all the loan originators men and mostly all the support staff women? A corporation can write a nice mission statement about valuing diversity. But we would want to measure the words against the corporation’s actions. The mortgage lending industry must become more diverse as the United States diversifies. Some mortgage companies figured this out a long time ago; others, not so much.
Recently, I had two students in the loan originator pre-licensing class who asked for advice on where they could interview. That day I also happened to be talking to a company owner who mentioned that he was looking for loan originators. I described them both. He said, “She sound like she’d make a great assistant, and I’d like to interview him for an LO position.” I said, “Actually she’d make a great LO. Are you going to steer all females to support positions at your company? That’s not cool.” His reply was a just nervous laughter.
Consulting firms like The StratMor Group (of which Rob Chrisman is a consultant) help firms with strategic development and marketing and this is why I am having a hard time understanding why The StratMor Group would allow this in a professional email read by current and future leaders and managers.
I reached out to Rob Chrisman via email and did not receive a response.
I reached out to StratMor Group via twitter:
@jillayne:
Why does a mortgage lending consulting firm like @STRATMORGroup allow Rob Chrisman to add stupid, sexist, misogynist jokes in his emails?
@STRATMORGROUP:
Humor is always tricky. One person’s offensive jokes are another person’s humor. We are sorry if it offended you.
StratMor Group, I was asking a different question: Why do Rob Chrisman’s sexist, misogynist jokes not offend YOU?
Go ahead. Take you’re time. Think about it. I’ll wait.
I’m not the misogynist whisperer. If Rob and The StratMor Group want to hold on to their free speech right to be sexist, But do so with the knowledge that the StratMor Group represents large corporations full of people who have pledged to upload Fair Housing/Fair Lending and Equal Credit Opportunity Act laws and rules.
Rob Chrisman’s daily jokes provide a snapshot of subversive sexism. I fail to understand why the mortgage lending industry puts up with this.
It’s time for the industry to tell Rob that they’ll no longer advertise on his website or use his company’s services, or hire him to speak at events until the sexist, discriminatory jokes are gone.
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For the months of Nov and Dec of 2014 and Jan of 2015, I categorized the jokes. I did not watch any of Rob’s recommended “funny videos.” Here is a three month snapshot:
Stupid Female
8
Female Body Parts
2
Woman as Sex Object
3
Woman as Sex Predator or Sexual Aggressor
3
Pregnancy
1
Stupid “Wife”
2
Demanding Mother
2
Woman as Sassy/Smart
2
Religion
7
National Origin
4
Disability
1
Age
1
The Government
2
Doctors/Medicine
3
The Hardworking Man
1
Stupid Men
2
Men and their Impressively Large Dicks
2
Man Having Sex With A Pumpkin
1
Talking Animals or Other
7
I no longer read the Rob Chrisman email or his blog.
Better sources of mortgage industry news:
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HousingWire
——
CalculatedRisk for finance and economics
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Inman Real Estate News
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The Real Daily
—–
Your state regulator’s email newsletter or list-serve
—–
The CFPB
—–
HUD
—-
Shnaps on Twitter
Literally anything else.