In late 1989, Jimmy Cayne, former president and chief executive officer of Bear Stearns, told the now-defunct M magazine that Wall Street, like bridge, is not a game for women. Cayne alleged women can’t take the pressure and that a woman will "probably have to go to the ladies’ room and dab her eyes." Grand Master Judi Radin, James Cayne’s female bridge coach at the time, was probably surprised to hear it. [Cayne later denied that the quotes were accurate, but reporter Duncan Christy claimed they were “meticulously accurate.”]

Mr. Cayne seemed to fancy himself the undisputed authority on how the opposite sex may or may not relieve pressure in the privacy of the bathroom. His pretension remained unchallenged for years. But The Wall Street Journal’s Kate Kelly turned the tables on Cayne in a front-page profile on November 1, 2007. Cayne later seemed huffy, saying, “This story about smoking marijuana with some woman in a [men’s] bathroom at a tournament site is pure fiction.”

The very same day The Wall Street Journal article appeared, The New York Times’s DealBook leapt to Cayne’s defense, calling Ms. Kelly’s article "unflattering and at times highly gossipy" (yet, I do not recall The New York Times’s protests over Mr. Cayne’s much-earlier allegations about women).

In the summer of 2008, I heard from a former Bear Stearns colleague that Jimmy Cayne was still steaming over Ms. Kelly’s profile. Based on the venom Jimmy Cayne spewed in Ms. Kelly’s direction as related in William D. Cohan’s new book, House of Cards, my news was accurate. But not only are Mr. Cayne’s allegations with respect to Ms. Kelly untrue, his argument was so weak he had to hurl the "c" word. An apology may be in order over representations of who is or is not fit for Wall Street (or bridge). So, Mr. Cayne: You first.

I have spoken with Kate Kelly, author of her own upcoming book on Bear Stearns, Street Fighters; and I have known Mike Siconolfi, senior editor of The Wall Street Journal, for almost two decades (I mention him in the acknowledgments of my own book on the financial meltdown, Dear Mr. Buffett: What an Investor Learns 1,269 Miles From Wall Street). Jimmy Cayne said some harsh — and untrue — things about both of them (among others) and his opinions are related by Cohan in his book.  

As for the actual causes of Bear’s implosion, I relate my firsthand take on Bear’s meltdown in Dear Mr. Buffett. I know Ralph Cioffi, former co-head of the Bear Stearns hedge funds, and Warren Spector, former co-chief operating officer of Bear Stearns, and worked with them early in our careers at Bear Stearns.

As for Jimmy Cayne, his view is supported by junk scientists around the globe, including Cambridge professor John Coates, who seems to blame the credit-bubble risk-taking on testosterone. One could pose an equally "scientific" alternate theory that in a world where women got equal pay and equal job opportunity on Wall Street, they would be equally happy to take high risks. In my experience, women working on Wall Street don’t expect to be protected by their peers or bailed out by the government after a major screwup. Besides, if hormones are the excuse, then a woman has much more incentive for seeking to score, since she can experience the thrill of victory many times in a single go — if the theory had any validity.