“Women Shouldn’t Talk About Money”
…and other lies we are told to keep us afraid.
According to studies done by the Harvard Business School, women hold only 9% of positions in venture capital, 6% in private equity, and 3% in hedge funds. Women make up less than 17% of senior leader positions in investment banking and 18% of total employees. Ellevest says 86% of investment advisors are men. All signs tell us that “the money field” is for men by men.
Given this data, it’s no wonder that women deeply feel and often adhere by the societal “norm” that money isn’t “appropriate” as a topic of conversation. We are literally not part of the conversation at the highest levels at alarming rates.
To be fair, it’s definitely taboo for anyone to talk about money, but in my experience this is amplified for women. When men talk about money, they’re more likely to be seen as successful or smart or curious, whereas women are more likely to be seen as greedy or superficial. We’re often reassured that “money can’t buy happiness” aka don’t think so much about it.
Some things that make me happiest are my partner, my family, my friends, my puppy, my home, and my health.
I didn’t buy any of the people in my life, but money allows me a home where I can spend time with them, allows me the freedom to pay for transportation to get to them, the ability to go on trips and out to eat with them. I literally bought my puppy (dogs are expensive! and they’re always getting expensive-ass parasites!). I pay for my home (NYC rent is no joke) and health costs freakin’ money (food, water, vitamins, therapy, etc.).
The idea that money doesn’t buy happiness is nice in theory and makes us feel good and weirdly less afraid, but this just isn’t the whole story. Money can buy a lot of things and experiences that make us happy and provide space and time to fully love the people in our lives.
Let’s just get something straight. We all NEED money. Capitalism has it’s flaws (big time! Not over here trying to say capitalism is perfect). But it’s real and, for most of us, it’s the system we live inside of.
If it’s materialistic to want to understand the thing that literally keeps me alive, I’m fine with that. Just because money can’t buy happiness doesn’t mean it can’t help us be happy or that it doesn’t matter.
Another lie I believed as a woman is that the stock market is scary. I have a lot more to say on this because this is a huge misconception I had that I’m trying to unlearn this year, but for now I’ll leave you with some important statistics: of all of the assets controlled by women, they keep an average of 71% in cash (as opposed to investing it) (if this statistic is confusing and you’re like, “what the hell does keeping it in cash mean?” stay tuned). Without even needing to understand the difference between keeping money “in cash” versus “invested,” here’s what happens as a result: a woman earning a salary of $50,000 a year who never invests her money will lose hundreds of thousands of dollars over the course of her life simply by not investing. A woman who earns $100,000 a year will lose over one million dollars over her lifetime if she never invests. ONE MILLION DOLLARS. What’s even more alarming (but it’s ok if this is you! This was me like a day ago) is that, according to Ellevest, 45% of women don’t even know that there’s an investing gap (aka men invest much more than women do).
So back to the idea that women shouldn’t talk about money. Allowing ourselves to live into this social construction is seriously hurting us (like, half a million to a million dollars hurting us). I’m here because, until recently, I was majorly living into this idea. Thinking that money “wasn’t for me.” As I start to learn more about some of the basics of personal finance (literally the basics. I’m not over here trying to be a financial advisor), I learn how disempowering a narrative it was to tell myself that thinking about money wasn’t important or that understanding personal finance is boring. Once I learned how much money I’d be missing out on by continuing to live into these social constructions, I started getting really curious. Personal finance started to become this really exciting thing.
I’m here because I want to make this information, these conversations, and the idea of understanding your own money more accessible and less scary.
What are some lies you were told or grew up believing about money?
