Why do we still 'joke' that women are financially clueless?

OPINION: 'Girl math' and other online trends aren't as harmless as they seem, writes Sophie Hallwright.

Up until recently, I wasn't sure how I felt about the #girlmath trend. That's the one where women justify their frivolous spending and illogical, emotion-led financial management. Sometimes I found myself laughing at friends' IG captions and TikTok videos in this vein, but I had a sneaky suspicion that there was something problematic about it.

It’s worth saying that I am all for admitting (and laughing at) my own mistakes. I'll happily discuss my own financial blow outs, which might sound surprising given I co-own and operate a financial education platform.

As someone who has spent a majority of her life as a walking financial disaster, the #girlmath trend had a self-deprecation I could relate to. It seemed funny – and pretty harmless. But I changed my mind after we spoke to Auckland-based economist, Bronwyn Taylor.

Let's rewind a little and talk about the fact that it wasn’t until the 1970’s that women were allowed to get a credit card (or even a mortgage) without a male co-signature. Since then the woman's contribution to a heterosexual household has grown steadily, to the point where almost half the time we contribute equally, if not more. Despite this progress, the idea that we are "bad with money", reinforced for generations, persists. And quite frankly it has to stop.

The message is expressed in both subtle and blatant ways. If you look at the two magazine covers, above, both advertise articles about money, but with two completely different targets in mind. With its "seven places to put your money" Men's Health advises its readers how to build wealth and power, and seems to assume that they already have not just money in the bank but an intelligent desire to increase it. Meanwhile Women's Health is going to rescue its readers from their "emotional spending". Unlike the men, these readers are not going to learn how to invest and build on their capital. The best they can hope to learn how to do is to "end stress" and "save".

Google image "investor" and the first thing that crops up will be a certain kind of man.

It's no wonder women shy away from conversations about building wealth and investing; our surroundings are constantly telling us to cut back on spending and save our pennies. In other words, not to build on our capital but to cling to it. We're spoken to as if we are incredibly irresponsible when it comes to our finance habits. But those "harmless" jokes about being useless at maths, and suckers for shopping, are detrimental to how we view our capacity to grow our wealth.

I mentioned the amazingly smart economist Bronwyn Taylor, who we had the pleasure of interviewing The Curve podcast earlier this year. We came across her because she wrote an article about why expressions like #girlmath as well as "SHEO" and "women in business" need to be binned asap.

The main thing Bronwyn brought to our attention, was the effect of stereotype bias. If we look at the stereotype with #girlmath, it’s based on two damaging ideas – that women are bad at maths and that they make poor financial decisions. "Bias" is our emotional tendency to either consciously or subconsciously believe in that stereotype and act accordingly. An example would be that if a woman were asked a maths question, and she already knew the bad-at-maths stereotype, she would feel additional pressure to get the answer right, not only to prove her own capabilities, but also because she didn't want to confirm the stereotype that ALL women were bad at maths.

So every time someone blames frivolous spending on #girlmath, that person is reinforcing the idea that we are ALL bad with our money, and bad with maths. Why isn’t it #boymath? Don't men blow money on shallow things too?

Let's take another example: SHEO (a female CEO). It insinuates that a woman in a CEO position is so rare she needs her own label. It's the same with all the many articles about and awards for "women in business". Or when we refer to a person who has both children and a job as a "working mother". Have you ever heard of a man with kids and a job referred to as a working dad? And don’t even get me started with the "daddy daycare" comments when a man is looking after HIS OWN CHILDREN.

If you are reading this and thinking, "ugh everyone is so PC these days", or, "it’s just a bit of harmless fun!" I urge you to listen to our full conversation with Bronwyn. Language is so powerful. The way we think about ourselves, and talk about ourselves influences our performance, and the way we show up in the world. So next time you find a two-for-one deal on a beautiful set of lingerie, don’t think of it as #girlmath, think of it as just that – a beautiful set of lingerie.

Sophie Hallwright and Victoria Harris are the founders and operators of The Curve, an education platform providing investing and finance content to women globally. They are currently dividing their lives between Tāmaki Makaurau and London.