Woman with money

Not so long ago I started an online query for “woman with money”

To my surprise, the results were focused on: “How to find and seduce a woman with money”, “How to marry a woman with money”, “Looking for woman with money”.

Granted, my search was made in spanish (my mother language) but it was astonishing for me to see that those were the most popular results on the search engine.

As a result, I felt compelled to write about this. I honestly can’t believe that when people look for information on women with money, the best compatible results are “how to find and seduce a woman with money”, is it a joke?

Financial education for women

It has always puzzled me why women have been so satanised throughout history. From being evil, to being witches to being objects, trophies, sex toys or simply not worthy of the same recognition or salary as men.

There is still a long way to go in the search for equality. In this context financial education and the financial world remain somewhat an unexplored territory for average women.

I don’t really recall having received any formal education whatsoever on the matter, nor at home or from mentors.

Yet, financial freedom is where most of our human desires and tendencies point to. Most of us want to live comfortably and worry free, right?

Financial education in general should be given to all, regardless of gender, but I find that it is still, -on this century, on this digital era- quite far away from women.

The case of Latin America

I find this to be particularly evident in the case of Latin America. Some other countries in the world are starting to see women in leadership roles in politics, economy and finance but in Latin America the evolution of financial education for women seems to be far behind.

There are women in politics, but they mostly follow the same method as the rest: Lie, deceive, still everything you can while you can and live happily ever after.

The average latin american woman has very little opportunity to educate herself financially due to the huge inequality.

Moreover, and this hast to be emphasised: Women in Latin America are still victims of an unprecedented amount of physical violence.

I am not talking just about “machismo”, I am talking about getting murdered randomly just because you took the wrong cab.

We need a change of paradigm

And we need it desperately. It should be our government’s and our society’s obligation to give women real opportunities and access to financial education.

It is time for us as women to stop believing that being well-versed on finances is out of our reach and to thrive in our projects to create wealth and to secure the well-being of our children.

I know a lot of women “don’t have the time” to learn something new when they are already working and taking care of their children and running their household simultaneously. It is a lot! I know! but we have to take a stand and make our financial independence a priority.

This doesn’t mean that every woman needs to pursue a career in finance, however every woman should have the power to decide on her own financial well-being.

Where to learn and find support

I live in a European, democratic, capitalist economy. Yet, there is not really a dedicated place for women to learn about entrepreneurship or personal finance in my city.

To be honest, my city is quite conservative and mothers are expected to stay home with their children or work part-time but not to be the main income gainers.

You can follow publications here on Medium such as “Breaking all the rules” to start reading about financial and personal independence as a woman.

Although looking for resources online might take some time (most websites are about getting loans) there are a few initiatives that are worth following.

Here is a blog from a french woman that I recently discovered and that I find very interesting: https://reachfinancialindependence.com

She has managed to stay debt-free, travel the world and generate passive income for herself working as a freelancer.

Another project I highly recommend as it is exactly acknowledging the lack of financial education even in a praised educational system like the german educational system is FinMarie.

FinMarie was created by Karolina Decker, a german mother and banker who realised that women understand wealth different and created a special investment solution for them.

You may already know her from her work at Mind the Gap, a community dedicated to empower women to learn about finance and manage their own wealth.

I will definitely be writing more about the aforementioned initiatives as I experience them.

I would love to hear you comments and opinions. Thanks for stopping by.