Letter from the Editor

CRE's #MeToo Movement

Welcome to the 25th anniversary issue of Real Estate Forum's Women of Influence—a feature that we have supplemented over the years with CRE's Women to Watch and the WoI Hall of Fame. Altogether, 100 women of achievement are profiled in this issue.

This year is significant not only because it is our 25th time running an issue dedicated to women's achievements in the industry, but also because it's the first one published in the #MeToo era. To be clear, there haven't been, as far as we know, public disclosures of the kind of sexual harassment in our industry that kicked off the #MeToo movement in other sectors. But the hashtag represents more than just an inappropriate use of power and unwanted advances. It is also indicative of women's inequality in the broader workforce and a pay gap that never seems to close no matter how much lip service is given to the issue.

Not to mention the humiliations that women in commercial real estate must still endure over churlish behavior and inappropriate language. One only has to look at NAREIT's annual conference, held earlier this year, when the paragon of CRE investment, Sam Zell, made a vulgar and lewd reference to women. NAREIT and Zell eventually apologized, but the damage was done. Here was an industry luminary, speaking at a prestigious association's annual conference, yet he felt free to use that language on a public stage.