Women, Men and Money

It's 2007. The 21st century. But some things haven't changed.

No, I'm not talking about the fact that we don't yet have flying cars, although I'm still upset about that. I'm talking about gender and money.

Now my regular readers know that I try to avoid stereotyping. Such generalized conclusions are often wrong, frequently embarrassingly and most of the time do little to further rational conversation.

Sometimes, though, it can be useful to examine trends.

Take the workplace, for example. Working outside the home is now no big deal for women. But in my lifetime -- and I am not that old! -- such an option wasn't that typical, especially if you wanted to do something other than a "traditional" job for women. Do y'all watch AMC's Mad Men? That show's portrayal of the very different lives of men and women in the early '60s is simultaneously fascinating and horrifying.

Back here in the real world, circa late 2007, the employment options are, thankfully, much, much better. But while there are more women in more types of jobs, we still generally earn less than our male office counterparts. Which is just one of the reasons that women need to be more money conscious.

Add to that the statistical reality that women usually outlive men; insert your own joke about how we drive you guys into early graves. That means that many women who do share finances with a man for a while will eventually end up handling their money solo.

We can't forget the single women (never married or divorced) and women-only relationships. All of my fellow females (oxymoron? sexist phrasing?) in these situations are in total charge of their own money.

Where are the money chicks? So why, asked Nina the other day over at BlogHer, are there so few women in the list of top 100 personal finance blogs assembled by FIRE Finance? You remember that analysis; I happened to make the top 20 in two of the quantification models.

But, as Nina noticed, Dawn at Frugal for Life and Don't Mess With Taxes are exceptions on the list. Of the top 25, we were the only two personal finance blogs written exclusively by women.