When I meet a new client for the first time, sometimes she is feeling overwhelmed. She has many questions and doesn’t know how to best move forward. Then a few months later, she’s like a new person. She is changing into someone with more confidence and more purpose.
What’s happening is that she is learning that her money has more potential than she ever thought possible, and that with it, she does too. And she is beginning to unlearn all those harmful money myths that women have internalized, thinking they are their truth.
Women are conditioned by society and societal values to think of themselves in a certain way, and boy, has it done some damage over the years. Studies have shown that women only have to be made aware of their gender, to be gently reminded, for them to do worse on tests.
How sad is that?! Women are so programmed to think that they aren’t as strong as male counterparts in areas like math and engineering that they just have to be told “You’re a woman” and it hinders their success. And it’s a widely held belief, by both men and women, that women aren’t as good with numbers. But is it true?
Women Outperform Men In Education
As recently as 2005, the president of Harvard said in a speech that women don’t regularly see success in the sciences and engineering because of their “intrinsic aptitude.” In other words, he meant that women don’t do well, and can’t do well in those areas because something about their brains just aren’t suited to the subjects. How infuriating is that? Actually, all the evidence shows that women regularly and consistently outperform men at all levels of education, in all subjects.
The same myth is at work in women’s professional lives as well. Again, studies have shown bias is at play when hiring for certain jobs: both men and women believe women to be weaker with math, so are both more likely to hire men for math-focused jobs.
But the idea that women don’t and can’t excel with math and other technical subjects has been so pervasive as to give rise to this belief. Even though evidence shows a different picture, women are still playing catch up when it comes to their own finances and investing.
Women Doubt Their Own Ability
The widely-held view that women aren’t as good with numbers can prevent women from achieving their potential and encourages women to delegate financial management and retirement planning to their husbands or avoid it all together.
Women, over the centuries and decades, have gotten so used to the idea that they aren’t men’s equals in certain areas that it will hold them back from even trying. It will even make them doubt their own ability and underestimate what they can do and achieve. So women must work doubly hard; they need to convince themselves that they are capable, before trying to convince anyone else. There’s always that little nagging doubt, and that propensity to not even try in a certain area.
This limiting belief keeps women from embracing their potential. But women, with a little guidance and encouragement, can become financially empowered and confident. Women assume that the male-dominated world of investing and finances is full of technical math and complicated calculations that they wouldn’t understand. It’s just not true. In fact, investment and financial math is some of the most simple math there is out there. Believe me, it’s not calculus – but even if it was, women could still do it too!
Women Aren’t Good With Numbers – Another Myth Debunked
Our work with women has clearly shown that women can be just as good investors as men, and oftentimes, they’re even better. They only need education and encouragement to become more confident and to make smart financial decisions.
If you don’t understand something about your finances, that’s OK. There is no need to be embarrassed. Reach out and seek clarity, and I promise you, it will all quickly start to make sense. Schedule an appointment with me today and we can begin to help you take the first step to being the confident woman you are meant to be.
