Woman vs. Wall Street

Cristina Chen-Oster started her fight against Goldman Sachs in 2005. Thirteen years later, she’s still fighting.

- Dune Lawrence and Max Abelson

Cristina Chen-Oster was settling into her seat for a late-March Broadway matinee of Mean Girls when she remembered to check her voicemail. The day before, she’d ignored a call from an unrecognized number. Now she hit play and heard the voice of her lawyer, Kelly Dermody: “Huge congratulations!” it said. “Really, really, really, really happy for you.”

Dermody was relaying news that Chen-Oster, a former vice president at Goldman Sachs, had been awaiting for years. A federal judge in New York had ruled that she and three other women who claim there’s systematic gender discrimination at Goldman can now represent as many as 2,300 other current and former employees. Chen-Oster read through the decision right there in the theater, where she was celebrating her 47th birthday with her family. “It was wonderful to see my wish come true,” she texted Dermody.

It sounds like a perfect #MeToo triumph. But after 13 years, dozens of lawyers, and more than 580 docket entries, winning class-action status is just the end of the beginning. “Eventually the truth always comes out, it’s just a question of time,” says Chen-Oster, speaking publicly about the case for the first time. “It’s our duty and our right to shine a light.” She represents the sobering reality of what it takes to challenge Wall Street’s problem with women. In an industry adept at keeping embarrassing details quiet, with a culture that fetishizes secrecy and loyalty, the question isn’t why so few women speak up. It’s why any speak up at all.