How is Money Gendered?
This week, Dawn at Frugal for Life has written a great post bringing together some thoughts and comments about gender and frugality. Though it might be true that more women than men think about frugality, Dawn looks at the ways women are compelled to spend’”because they are the primary buyers for families, because they’ve been socialized to see shopping as fun, because of the stricter constraints on women’s appearance and hygiene. I think this conversation is so interesting, but then I wonder where this difference comes from? When gender, the noun, starts getting thrown about, I usually start to think about gender the verb.
I (like one of Dawn’s commenters) have heard the generalization that men and women spend similar amounts and carry the same amount of consumer debt, the difference is that women spend small amounts more regularly and men spend more on big purchases, electronics and cars. According to this market research survey:
Gender complexity is the emerging trend in marketing to both men and women. Just as more younger men now shop more frequently, more women do not want to be characterised as domesticated shoppers ‘” even if their appetite for shopping remains as strong as ever.
I’ve also often heard the generalization that, in investing, ‘œmen are more confident, while women are more realistic.’ And then, of course, there are the stereotypes that young men are walking, talking, video-game-playing Judd Apatow movies who live in their momma’s basements and refuse to grow up until they turn 45, and young women are vapid consumerist zombies with too many shoes. I tend to hugely resent generalizations and stereotypes based on gender difference, especially those offered without a lot of critical awareness. I know young (and older) people of a wide variety of genders who are on top of their money’”and who are not.
A critical conversation about gender difference can be interesting and productive, though. Gender difference doesn’t just happen–from little girls’ toys to grown women’s office dress code, gender is created and re-created all the time. Money is–as usual–a interesting lens to see into this part of our lives.
Unofficial Queercents Fave Suze Orman focuses a lot on women’s money’”because it’s important to her, I’m sure, but I suspect it’s also where she can create her niche as a female pundit in a male-dominated field. She works with the Oprah audience. That said, she’s usually pretty critical of stereotypes and calls out men and women for the ways they perpetuate harmful practices. The Suze Orman philosophy seems to be that gender difference is one of many, many ways people are clueless about money, one that she is particularly equipped to talk about. As Susie Bright wrote of Orman, here on Queercents:
She’s a conservative investor, she doesn’t live anything resembling a bohemian lifestyle, and she scolds out advice like more of a jeweled and tanned misanthropic femme, than a man-hater. She thinks everyone is pretty clueless, and like most rich people, she considers herself entirely self-made.
But, just like Susie concludes that article with a call to bigger action, I wish we spent more time breaking down gender differences to question the imperatives behind them, not chastise men or women or whoever it is today. What would have to happen for women to be allowed to dress as schlubbily, or age as unashamedly, as men? To regard computers, phones, televisions and cars as consumer luxuries instead of necessities?
In her article, Dawn writes about the ways she’s confidently cherry-picked the wisest of both gender stereotypes. How do you feel your money has been gendered? Or do you think we’re past it?
My wife and I seem to have reversed gender roles with respect to money. I recently called her to see if she approved of my giving $100 to a particular charity. She laughed and said she would never have thought of checking with me over such a small amount.
In general I tend to be more cautious about spending large amounts of money. I do more research, dither more, and for all this my reward is I am more prone to buyer’s remorse as well.
It may well be that some of the gender issue is a secondary effect of gendered household roles. I am the one who does most of the food shopping, so I am the one who usually makes small repeated purchases. My wife is the picky one, so she is the one who picks out the household computer, makes sure the car we purchase is acceptable to her, etc.
I find it funny that as a personal finance blogger, from time to time people ascribe the wrong gender to me. I’ve been told that women don’t commonly write about gambling, or stoozing as financial tactics. Me, I’m just being myself – it’s everyone else that seems to be more gendered in their thinking.
Ditto that, Plonkee! I’m amazed at how many people think Funny is a guy.
Culturally, there’s no question that women stereotypically are expected to spend the money that a man stereotypically earns…even when the reality is that in most cases both people in a partnership earn.
I’m not so sure that gender difference just happens, though. When my son was born, his father and I decided he would not have violent toys, particularly toy guns, and that he would be encouraged to play with gender-neutral toys. Most of our friends did the same, and none of us parked our kids in front of the television to watch violent fodder. By the time the boy children were toddling, they were pointing their fingers at each other, gun-style, and making their own toy guns from sticks, cardboard toilet-paper cylinders, and anything else they could imagine as pistols, rifles, and shotguns. Testosterone does have an effect on the psyche.
So, it’s not impossible that there could be real gender-influenced tendencies where money management is concerned, given that spending and fiscal management are influenced by social interaction, by one’s degree of assertiveness, and by one’s personal interest or lack of interest in complex financial matters.
As an aside, I also thought Plonkee was a guy.
Melissa: This was a well-written and thought-provoking post. Thanks for taking the time to put it together.
I know you mentioned and linked to Susie Bright’s guest post about Suze Orman, but it’s worth repeating a couple of paragraphs below just because it’s such juicy stuff about the sexes:
It’s worth clicking over and reading the entire post!