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What Is a Financial Feminist?

Alright, let’s talk about the money game – there’s the pay gap, the investing gap, and the confidence gap, to name a few, but when it comes to finances, gender inequity is the biggest issue when it comes to women and money. So, is being a financial feminist any different from being a regular feminist?

The answer is, not really. A feminist is someone who believes in equality, and a financial feminist is all about believing in financial equality for women. But is the issue important enough to be slapped with its own label?

You betcha it is. Historically, talking about money has been hard for women. We’re told it’s impolite or that it isn’t proper, when men talk about money all the time. This societally-imposed censorship has been a costly mistake for women. When we talk about feminism, we touch on all the obvious things, like access to healthcare, intersectionality, reproductive rights, and rape culture, and although financial abuse is one of the leading reasons women are unable to leave abusive relationships, we rarely attach financial matters to feminism.

In a nutshell, financial feminism is about having those open discussions about money, everything from earning, investing, spending, saving, and taking risks. It’s about empowering women to take control of their financial futures.

Know Where You Stand.

Whether you’re wealthy, or you have major credit card debt, or are simply confused about how to start managing your finances—own it. Conversations about menstrual cups can get real pretty quick when you’re hanging out with friends, so why don’t we allow ourselves the same sense of freedom when it comes to talking about our money (or lack thereof)?

Look At Wealth As An Act of Self-Care.

We love wellness—give us all the healing crystals, super green smoothies and positive affirmations. But devoting some quality time to focus on your finances is just as critical as hitting up a yoga class. Download a budgeting app, consult with a financial advisor, dedicate a weekly hour to learning about investing, focus on spending your money with companies and on products that align with your values—you can literally start anywhere, but you have to start. Taking ownership of this important aspect of your life will have a lot of mental and emotional benefits.

Keep Talking About It.

Advocating for yourself when it comes to money can be scary, and uncomfortable, it can make you feel vulnerable, but don’t let the fear stop you from speaking up. If you know you’re earning less than your male co-worker, talk about it. If you don’t like that there’s a “pink tax” on your feminine products, talk about it. If every financial article and retirement goal seems male focused, talk about it. If your partner is pressuring you to start a family and he or she assumes you’ll make career sacrifices when the time comes, talk about it.

Women have been playing it small, polite, and quiet for too long. So, let’s ditch the hush-hush attitude, make bold money moves, and own our financial futures.

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The Biggest Lies Women Are Told About Money

In the realm of personal finance, women have long been subjected to a barrage of stereotypes and systemic challenges that perpetuate harmful myths. From media portrayals of women as shopaholics to ingrained cultural biases, these misconceptions contribute to the perpetuation of gender-based financial inequalities. Here are some of the biggest lies women are told about money:

You're a Shopaholic Who Spends Too Much Money on Lattes.

The media is constantly sending women messages about money assuming they are excessive spenders, while men are more financially responsible. Most articles written about money are written by men, for men, and are constantly reinforcing the negative stereotype that women are loose with their money. We are advised to restrict, limit, and maintain control when it comes to our spending. They tell women to cut coupons, comparison shop, purchase items on sale, find the best discount, and save as much of their money as they can. Would you ladies please just stop buying all of those lattes?

Society tells women that our earning should be small, and our spending should be small, while at the same time, men are encouraged to spend, invest, and take financial risks if they want to achieve wealth and power. Why are women told to shrink when it comes to money, instead of encouraged to expand their capacity for wealth? Are we really asking for too much?

You're Not Good With Math...or Money.

From the time we are little girls, society tell us that we are bad with numbers compared to our brothers. The boys are told to go out and make money and invest, they are taught how to build wealth, while girls are told about budgeting and saving. And it doesn’t get better as we get older. Financial advice for women tells them that managing money and financial planning is difficult, that they don’t have any self-control when it comes to money. We’re made to feel shame for having debt, shame for spending too much – even shame for earning too much. The result is that the majority of women don’t feel confident in their ability to manage their money and make financial decisions, so they mistakenly hand the reins over and let their male partners make the important financial decisions. I’m here to tell you that no one is born being good with money. It’s an acquired skill. You can learn how to manage your money, make financial decisions, and calculate risk. Stop giving away your power.

You're Too Emotional to Be a Good Money Manager.

As if having emotions is considered a personality flaw or a shortcoming tied to being a woman. We are told that our financial goals are too big and we are inadequate to accomplish them. That we are too scared to take risks and invest. That we are too impulsive to save. That we’re asking for too much. That other women are the competition. That we can’t be good at our careers and be good mothers. It’s the fact that women are emotional that makes them such good stewards of money. It’s a fact that when women have access to wealth, they thrive, their households thrive, and their communities thrive. Recent studies have found that female investors regularly outperform male investors, and when it comes to spending, they are often more selfless with their money and frequently use their wealth to make the world a better place for their children and grandchildren.

While both our own society and the male-dominated financial industry are skewed against us, the real truth is that women are just as capable of being financially savvy and successful as men, if not better. Men have been in control of the world’s wealth for centuries, while women have only started gaining more rights in the last one hundred years.

Women weren’t allowed to vote until 1920, and that was only white women. Until the Voting Rights Act in 1965, most black women and other women of color couldn’t vote. The Equal Pay Act was passed in 1963, and sixty years later, women still don’t earn equal pay for equal work. It wasn’t common for a woman to have a bank account without her husband, father, or brother until the 1960’s. Even then, women did not have access to credit, nor could they get a credit card without a male cosigner, and single, divorced, or widowed women were denied credit altogether. The Equal Credit Opportunity Act was passed in 1974, finally granting women equal access to mortgages, credit cards, and loans.

That means that women have only had access to the financial instruments men use to generate wealth for less than fifty years.

So, while men (mostly white men) have had centuries to build wealth and power, women have only had fifty years. Your mothers and grandmothers couldn’t pass their knowledge of wealth and money management down to you because they weren’t allowed to have any. Women have been systematically disadvantaged and discriminated against when it comes to building wealth. Now, it’s up to us to learn what our mothers didn’t have the freedom to learn. We need to make our daughters feel powerful when it comes to managing money, because women with economic power will be able to change the world and make it a better place for all.

It’s time to rewrite the narrative, empowering women to redefine their relationship with money on their own terms. It’s time to stop accepting less money for your work or giving your skills away for free. Don’t worry so much about everyone else’s needs and start focusing on your own. It might be uncomfortable to say ‘no’ or enforce your boundaries. You might worry about disappointing people, but what about all of the ways you’re disappointing yourself? Stop listening to the advice that tells you to scrimp and save and give up your favorite morning latte. Instead of thinking you have to settle for less, start focusing on all the ways you have the potential to be earning more money. Because you’re worth it.

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What is Self-Care

What Is Self-Care?

We’ve all heard about self-care, but what is it exactly?

Our society has become hyper-focused on physical health, exercising, and eating right, but not so much on the importance of tending to your mind and soul. It’s only recently that mental health even became an accepted topic of conversation, and the essential component to mental and emotional health is the practice of self-care.

What does self-care look like, then? Is it going to the spa, getting manicures, and indulging in Sunday brunch with your girlfriends?

Or does it go much deeper than that? To a place of taking a respite from the outside world. To taking deliberate action to find deep replenishment on a soul level. Of learning to mentally and emotionally care for yourself.

I think of self-care as the routines we use to nurture our relationship with ourselves. How can we know how we’re feeling if we don’t take the time to process our emotions and experiences and check in with ourselves? Self-care is developing the capacity to love, accept, connect, and care for yourself, from the inside out.

When practiced often, it becomes a way to know yourself on a deep level, to grow your confidence, self-worth, and compassion. When you learn how to nourish your soul, you replenish your vitality. Self-care is knowing how to fill your cup. It’s finding your own medicine.

So, to get started, ask yourself: What activities make me feel good? Some examples could be:

· Clean living space

· Reading

· Exercise

· Being outdoors

· Listening to music

· Cooking your favorite meal

· Petting your dog/cat

· Comfy clothes

· Bath with candles

· Treating yourself

What's Your Medicine?

What’s your medicine? If it’s journaling, get a beautiful notebook or journal to start recording your thoughts and feelings. Do you enjoy reading? Go to the local library or get a few reads from Amazon. Feel like cooking a comforting meal? Go to the store and get everything you need to treat yourself to your favorite meal.

When you know what brings comfort and healing to you mentally, emotionally, physically, and spiritually, you will always have activities you can use to make yourself feel good. Once you have an idea of what those things are, you can create a small area or a self-care basket in your home to hold the items you use to relieve, inspire, or soothe you. Things like candles, essential oils, dark chocolate, a stack of books to read, or a fresh journal waiting to be used. It will become your self-care toolkit, available to you any time you need to use it. Other times you could put on a cozy outfit, turn on your favorite music, or run a replenishing bath. Self-care doesn’t have to be time consuming, and it doesn’t have to cost money.

One of my favorite rituals is putting a favorite meal in the crockpot, taking a long bath with candles and soothing music, using oils and lotions on my skin for a self-massage, putting on a comfy outfit, and then enjoying my meal. Afterwards I’ll watch a movie (probably a rom-com) or get cozy with a book.

What makes self-care so elusive is that we aren’t scheduling time for it. We fill our to-do lists and planners with all of the important things like that work meeting, soccer practice, or appointment at the DMV, but rarely do we look at our calendars and see two hours set aside on a Sunday for self-care. We may tell ourselves that we’ll do it when we have some free time, but the irony is that in this fast-paced world we never seem to find any free time.

We have to learn how to carve out time for ourselves in the form of self-care. Whether it’s one evening a week, or every morning as part of a morning routine. Taking thirty minutes in the early morning hours before the rest of the house is up can make a huge difference in the rest of your day. Get a cup of coffee or tea, put on some soft music, and light a candle. Get your journal and check-in with how you’re feeling, how you’d like to feel, and what you want your day to look like. Think of a few things you’re grateful for. Have a few minutes of quiet reflection. Maybe do some stretching or take a little walk around the neighborhood.

It doesn’t have to be a huge gesture. Sometimes the tiny, daily habits we incorporate into our routine become the best self-care practices. We become so nourished by them, that on days when we miss them, we can feel the difference in how we’re showing up in the world. We start to discover that we’re better when we make the time to care for ourselves first.

Everyone’s life is different, full of different commitments, but I encourage you to look for the pockets of time you have available. Your break at work, those thirty minutes when the kids are in the bath, early in the morning, or later in the evening when the house is quiet. What are your pockets of time? Start by finding one and filling it with some form of self-care. It doesn’t have to take very long.

Letting Go of Guilt

One of your biggest obstacles to self-care might be overcoming the guilt of taking time for yourself. Women are trained to give of themselves freely to everyone around them while denying the same care to themselves. Society tells us that if you are left drained and worn-out at the end of the day with nothing left for yourself, then you are an ideal woman. I can’t begin to tell you how damaging and completely backwards it is to feel selfish about taking time for yourself. The only way you can nourish the world around you is to first give yourself the medicine you need to nourish your soul.

When you take the time to love and care for yourself, that love can flow out into the world around you. Practicing self-care allows you to give the best of you, not what’s left of you.

If you want to set-up your own personal self-care routine, be sure to grab your own Self-Care RX designed to help you with your self-care journey.

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Lots of love and light…thank you for reading.

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