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Posted by FMFW on Nov 22, 2012 in Business/Career | 0 comments

Why Finances Matter to Women

I see it on a regular basis. Even the most educated, intelligent women often view things differently from their male counterparts. The different view that a woman has on finances is often seen as a lack of understanding or lack of a capacity to understand anything financial. But, rather than a lack of understanding, maybe the difference in opinion or perspective on financial matters between men and women is based on different priorities, values, and/or backgrounds.

The financial industry is made up of more than 75% men. While this is a complete generalization and there are certainly exceptions out there, the financial industry as a whole has not, at least in the past, been focused on how to relate to or speak to women about finances. Is it because women are incapable of grasping financial concepts? I don’t think so. It just has not been the focus of the industry. How do you focus on or relate to women so that there is a greater understanding of financial matters? I don’t think that you need to “dumb it down” for women because it is not that women are not intelligent. I think that financial matters just need to be presented, either by men or women, in such a way that recognizes who women are and what is important to them, and this is often different from what is important to their male counterparts. So, maybe it is just the conversation that needs to change.

Why? Because it makes sense. According to the US Census Bureau, women constitute a little more than half the population in the United States. At least as of 2010, women constituted more than half of the enrollments at American colleges for the last decade, according to the American Council on Education. In other words, women are intelligent and they are present in numbers. So, ensuring that women have at least a basic understanding of finances is not only the right thing to do, it is the smart thing to do. To exclude more than half the population in a conversation as important as finances does not seem to make sense. And, it may lead to results that do not satisfy the population as a whole.

I hope that I can at least start to change the conversation on finances to include women.

Wishing you well,