This is a partial transcript from Your World with Neil Cavuto, June 19, 2002, that was edited for clarity. Click here for complete access to all of Neil Cavuto's CEO interviews.
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NEIL CAVUTO, HOST: I touched on this subject yesterday. Let me go full bore into it today. I do not think that Martha Stewart would be getting half the grief she's getting if she were a man. I know I'm being a little simplistic here, but are the very qualities we love in a hard- charging CEO, ruthless, calculating, hard-charging, are ones that we really don't find quite as acceptable in a woman?
Let's ask someone's whose broken through some glass ceilings of her own, long before Martha came along, Wall Street pioneer, the first woman of Wall Street, Muriel Siebert. And from Washington, Jennifer Grossman, a freelance writer whose piece in today's Wall Street Journal asks women to stop being jealous of Martha.
Miss Grossman, to you first. What did you mean by stop being jealous?
JENNIFER GROSSMAN, FREELANCE WRITER: Well, not jealous. Jealous is when you fear losing something that you have. Envy is when you covet something that somebody else has. And I do feel that there is a lot of envy against Martha.
The biggest criticisms that one hears against her is that she is too perfect or that her projects are too difficult or they're too overly involved. And this sort of piling on and this anti-Martha is a simple alternative, we can just feel better about ourselves by feeling worse about her.
CAVUTO: Mickey, what do you think of that?
MURIEL SIEBERT, CEO, SIEBERT FINANCIAL: I disagree. I think that any public personality would have gotten a very rough time. I think the trading records are going to prove was she right or was she wrong.
CAVUTO: Let's say she is exonerated, she did nothing wrong...
SIEBERT: That's it.
CAVUTO: ... it was just weird timing. I think people are still going to be after her still because they are going to say, well, Martha, we hate you anyway.
SIEBERT: Well, maybe. But, you know, there should be a stamp ticket. I do not know whether Merrill Lynch or not takes stock loss orders on Nasdaq stocks.
CAVUTO: Well, we might never know. There might never been a stop loss order, let's say, and then it is all, for instance, innuendo, right?
SIEBERT: Well, if there is no inference and innuendoes and certain combinations of things that happened. But I think that the broker's testimony will be heard. I think they'll go through the trading records.
CAVUTO: And then you have something. Jennifer, let me ask you though, if this were a man who was very successful, founded his own company and all that, but he did not have quite the baggage that Martha Stewart did, with all the run-ins and everything else, would he be treated differently?
GROSSMAN: Well, I agree with you. I think that we would have. I think that if you look at some of the other fascination with other female CEOs who have had trouble, Jill Barad or Carly Fiorina, Linda Warner, my friend, she was a CFO, Debbie Hopkins, formerly at Lucent.
CAVUTO: So, you women do have a tougher road here?
GROSSMAN: I think — yes. I am not saying that they have a tougher road in becoming CEOs. I am saying that there is sort of fascination with their troubles that I think especially...
CAVUTO: That men wouldn't have. What do you think of that, Muriel, that men would not have?
SIEBERT: I disagree because when Carly Fiorina was having the problems in the proxy fight, I did not read one article, and I was very happy about it, that said if she losses it's because she is a woman.
CAVUTO: OK. Final word on this subject. I want to thank you. Mickey, always good seeing you. Jennifer, thank you, and I'd love to get you both back.
GROSSMAN: Thank you.
CAVUTO: I appreciate it. Great perspective.
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