An Open Letter to the Women
Title IX legislation in the early 1970s brought us to the nation’s tables, classrooms, and playing fields more fairly. However, the way we’re participating in our legal and financial systems today still feels antiquated and lopsided to me at times.
We still earn 18.4% less than men according to the National Association of Colleges and Employers. And it can’t be because we aren’t as strong or resilient.
Women will endure decades of monthly bleeding cycles until we board the years-long hormonal roller coaster called menopause. One in eight of us will be unwillingly drafted into a breast cancer battle. As many as 86% will birth children, certainly not all of us by choice. And it will be the women, more often, who will sacrifice our earning years to care for children and family, explaining why we will also calc smaller Social Security benefits and amass under half what men are able to save for retirement.
One in three women will experience domestic violence, of which financial abuse, including financial fraud, tax fraud, and coerced debt, is almost always concurrently happening. One in every six American women have experienced an attempted or completed rape, and yet rape cases rarely get prosecuted, convictions are even rarer, and justice for victims always tenuous.
Women today will file for divorce more often than men and yet have disproportionately worse outcomes. Divorced women struggle with financial challenges more often than men and experience a standard of living drop of about 20%, while a man’s standard of living rises approximately 33%.
Despite all women will endure, data says the male rate of suicide is four times higher than the rate among females and that women will be left financing their time on Earth an average of six years longer than men.
What can help shift stats like these?
Financial literacy could help shift a better balance. But financial literacy is not yet widely taught to kids, especially girls and children of color. So, it’s not surprising women trail men in financial literacy scores by 10 points.
Paying attention to the impact of laws and systemic patterns and changes and legislating fairness and protections for victims, ensuring no undue or adverse consequences impact survivors of the various traumas women tend to face more often than men can help.
Meeting women halfway throughout their participation in our financial and legal systems, representing them equitably, and doling justice out more fairly, could create a shift.
When I bought my first home, the title company put my partner’s name first on every one of the inches of paper we both had to sign. I asked, “Why?” After all, I was the one who drove the whole process and happened to have the higher income. They just said, “The man’s name always goes first.” It was 1999. Not the 1800s when women first got the right to even exist on deeds.
Women’s property rights have evolved. But have the legal templates?
Ever play Mad Libs? You pick a word or name as instructed and fill in the blanks as you go for a fun read when you’re done completing the page.
Today’s legal and financial templates can seem about as sophisticated. Why not list owners in alphabetical order, or let it be the couple’s decision to fill in the blanks in the order they decide, so the template displays an unbiased approach to homeownership?
The ordering may not legally impact a 50/50 stake, but the psychological impact of being prioritized second or last lingers to keep women feeling “less than” in the ownership construct.
When I first created a Trust, the female attorney I hired listed my husband’s name first on the title of our Trust document. I asked her, “Why?” She said, “Trust templates have always been that way, the man’s name goes first.” I made her change it.
This past year I revised that same Trust to bolster protections for my children. I hired a new attorney to do the job; our papers’ original attorney had long since retired. The new one retitled the name of our Trust. “Why?” I asked. After all, the title of our family Trust should not be changed from how it was originated. She said, “That’s just the template I use, the man’s name always goes first.” I asked her to fix it.
Until the Legal and Financial systems stop these micro-inequities, unconsciously prioritizing the men and the husbands first, and listing women second to men, how can we hold ourselves as fully seen equals in these systems?
If society unconsciously keeps perpetuating the Male Role Belief System, which informs boys that they come first, and to be real men they will need to maintain dominance, aggress, conquer—in the boardrooms and the bedrooms, and be the masters of the universe—how can women ever trust society will have our backs in times of need or crisis, for example when one is brave enough to report her harasser or rapist and seek justice?
When I talk to women about money, I hope I help them see why standing up for yourself and your money matters. It matters to your earnings, your savings outcomes, your legal outcomes, your financial independence, your right to be at the table, on a level playing field, to own property, and to your right to live a trauma-free life, maintaining a power and control balance over your own life and dreams.
But, too often I see women fall victim to financial abuses, because they must defer to keep the peace amidst a power and control imbalance (sometimes one so life threatening it’s an imperative), or they prefer to defer to their partner to take charge of the household finances, believing them to be more capable. Maybe they overtrust that their best interest is being served, or they just procrastinate about boosting their own financial literacy and securing their own financial independence and destiny. These deferments must stop if women are to reach equality and enjoy financial freedoms and security in the same way afforded to men.
The bankers, lenders, insurers, lawyers, judges, and all representatives—male and female alike—of our legal and financial systems must continually weed out bias in their processes and templates and assume women can represent themselves as equal. (There's work to do to protect underrepresented minorities and same sex couples from discrimination too, but this for another article.)
The women too must better support each other. We should be talking to each other and our daughters about financial equity, about pre-nups, about ownership, personal and business finance, retirement readiness, security, power and control dynamics, and all things money.
Knowledge is power.
Sharing is caring.
And we got this!
The data says that we tend to make better investors; women take on more appropriate levels of risk and do more research than men. We likely have more patience to stay the course longer and an easier time keeping a longer-term perspective. Over the last 10 years, Fidelity says women’s investments have outperformed their male counterparts by 40 basis points!
We know that women are making 90% of Household Financial Decisions. Women’s credit scores are on average 5 points higher than men’s. And single women homeowners outnumber single men homeowners by nearly 10 points. They also enroll in college more often than men and are more likely to graduate than their male counterparts—so the market availability of male vs. female educated workers can't continue to explain the pay gap either.
Despite the many disparate challenges women hurdle, I believe women are resilient and have a lot going for them to soon reach parity (hopefully I will get to see it in my lifetime). And good! Because, again, the women will outlive the men on Earth by about six years. So, we must stick together and support one another; it will take shrewd financing prowess for women to live well and finance their best lives that much longer.
My message to women: Be unstoppable!
Question why your signature is not being asked for first. Are you signing a template that’s been kept around since the 1800s? Should it be rewritten fairly? Why should you agree to be second?
Why should Lady Justice not serve us all equally well by now? Insist on these systems letting you in to participate as importantly and as valuably as any man.
Eleanor Rosevelt empowered us with her famous quote, “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”
Women, I think we can and should stop unconsciously deferring or consenting to being treated as second to men across the legal and financial systems we participate in today. Let’s push the envelope and keep evolving these systems that are as much ours.
I hope you had a wonderful International Women’s Day this year! I also hope you achieve a wonderful financial life for the rest of your years.
Because money matters,
el*
*Not an expert, I just care.
PS - Please consider site membership to participate in this discussion! Thank you!
E.M.Powers ("el") is a regular person with no particular financial credentials or expertise who happens to be a money enthusiast and the founder of The Money Matters Club, a virtual watercooler for like-minded individuals with a thirst for building their own financial health. Since 2006, she's helped thousands of co-workers build their financial literacy and wealth by participating in The Money Matters Club, a community she built on her employer's internal network. Since 2023, she's been attempting to scale The Club's reach through its second home on the World Wide Web. Her opinions--as well as the opinions of all participants--are just that: opinions, which are subject to flawed logic, math, typos and correction. She keeps a growth mindset and is also always learning something new or bolstering her own understanding after discussions at The Club. All information shared is done so with the best intent to inspire and empower others to learn more about money considerations toward building their own financial muscles. Nothing shared is meant as individualized advice that anyone should act on without doing their own curious research and personal decision making. There are no dumb questions at The Money Matters Club. Your financial health and literacy are what this Club cares about. All investing involves risk. All results can and will vary.
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Great article, El. Thank you for highlighting these disparities and the need for women to stand together and push for change! I love that you had your attorney fix your trust. I am often frustrated about many of the same things you highlighted, as I am the one who manages most of our finances, but everything lists my husband first. At Fidelity, they always contact my husband even though he never responds to them, and after I've told them each time that I am their point of contact. It's very frustrating!
It is only as recent as 1974, that women were allowed to have a mortgage (or bank account or credit card) without a man. The practice of "man's name first" on contracts and offers was simply the mechanism to confirm there was indeed a man in place for the woman to have the privilege of being there. Today it feels like a deference and nod to the way things were, and thank goodness our generation is not living thi…
El,
I will tell you as a millennial I’ve not had the same experiences.
I’ve always been the dominant one in finances and my name has always been first. I’ve never asked for it to be but guess it’s because I’m the one who initiated the transaction?
Even on my trust I was listed first and I never asked to be.
I never gave it any thought but now I’m thankful for it.
I’ve always felt I’ve been too independent financially and if something ever happened to me my husband wouldn’t know how to pay a single one of our bills.
I’ve always felt more punished for being financially stable and secure.
I’m thankful I learned to be good with…