New Fed chief Janet Yellen lets a long career of breaking barriers

When Janet Yellen takes over the reins of the Federal Reserve on Monday, she will become one of the most powerful women in the world — a historic achievement that she has yet to fully embrace.

Her status has been trumpeted by others — she is featured in a Microsoft commercial “celebrating the heroic women of 2013” and heralded by glossy magazine Marie Claire as having “triumphed over the haters” — but Yellen has been reticent about the role that her sex has played in her four-decade career. She has even instructed staff members that her new title be simply “chair,” rather than “chairwoman.”

This is not the first time Yellen has broken through gender barriers in a field notorious for its sharp-elbowed machismo. She was the only woman in her PhD class at Yale University. In her early years as an academic and economist, she was dogged by skepticism of her abilities and overshadowed by her more extroverted and well-known husband, according to friends and longtime acquaintances. But the tables turned later in Yellen’s career as her family accommodated her growing star power.

Other women in similarly high-level positions have tackled the gender issue more directly. Christine Lagarde, the International Monetary Fund’s managing director, famously suggested that the financial crisis might have been less painful if more women had been in charge. Hillary Rodham Clinton made improving the lives of young girls a hallmark of her tenure at the State Department. Even German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who had made a point of avoiding gender debates, backed legislation to increase the number of women on the boards of the country’s publicly traded companies.

Yellen’s silence is a reminder that the workplace can still be treacherous terrain for many women. She didn’t speak out when President Obama mistakenly referred to her as “Mr. Yellen,” nor when a few snarked that she wore the same outfit to her confirmation hearing and nomination ceremony. Instead, Yellen — who declined to comment for this article — deployed the same strategy she has used for the past 40 years: letting her work speak for itself.

“A woman has to persist and prove more than once that she’s as good as anybody else,” said economist Meghnad Desai, who worked with Yellen in the 1970s. “I never thought that the world would finally recognize and reward her the way that it has. She has punched her way to the top by sheer ability.”