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Ex-banker's new novel gives an inside look at what's wrong with Wall Street

The 2008 financial crisis rocked the global markets as the collapse of mortgage-backed securities put the economy on the edge of collapse. Now, an ex-banker's novel gives us an inside look at Wall Street and what goes on behind the walls of some of the nation's biggest banking firms.

Maureen Sherry, a 14-year veteran of Wall Street who rose through the ranks to become managing director at Bear Stearns, released the book "Opening Belle" this week. It's the latest addition to a number of books, plays, and movies about Wall Street before, during, and after the 2008 collapse.

“I had never personally read a story that took you inside a trading floor and showed it from a woman’s perspective,” Sherry told Yahoo Finance’s Alexis Christoforous in the video above. “I wanted to do a very relatable story about pay inequity and harassment.”

Even though it's a novel, there are a number of scenarios in the book that are pulled from her own experience.

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“Much of the [sexual harassment] has gone undercover. I think there are episodes that happen in a less aggressive way,” said Sherry. “What is very current and very quantifiable now is pay inequity.”

Bloomberg recently released a study focusing on gender pay inequities that found that the payoff from an MBA is drastically different for men and women. Women who graduated from Columbia Business School between 2007 to 2009 earned a median of $170,000 in 2014, while their male equals pulled in $270,000.

While these unveilings may be alarming to women, Sherry believes females are crucial to a bank's success.  She says that the 2008 financial crisis would have played out differently had more women been in executive positions making decisions, because, she believes, women are not as risk-prone as men.

And the book is already attracting Hollywood’s attention. Reese Witherspoon and Bruna Papandrea’s Pacific Standard banner is developing a film version for Warner Bros.

“[The Filmmakers] are very interested in how women are going about controlling their lives when they have a family,” said Sherry. “They’re trying to explore that because they want to know how we can all do it better. “

Pacific Standard is devoted to finding and developing female-driven content.

“In the more senior positions, we haven’t figured out how to incorporate the moms into the workplace because it’s so all-in,” said Sherry. “I think the feeling of not being a team player by someone who also has another big job, which is in your home, is something that women really struggle with.”