Why Women Should Seek Wealth

My dream is to inspire women to boldly seek and eagerly pursue financial success and wealth creation. I dream of a world in the future where women have reached parity with men in the world’s total wealth.

We come from a long-engrained culture where men were traditionally the breadwinners and traditionally women were discouraged from actively pursing income or wealth. Whilst today in Australia things have significantly progressed, and society expects women to also have an income, we see that there is still a wealth gap in our society between women and men, and that women performing the same role as men still earn less.

The Forbes Australia’s 50 Richest People list includes only one woman in the top 10, and 7 women in the top 50 positions. Similar numbers are reflective of these statistics in previous years. The Australian Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) each year reports that women earn less than men whilst fulfilling the same role, and that women continue to enter retirement with less superannuation than men.

I’m a feminist, and this gap in our society between women and men breaks my heart. I feel amongst the cohort of feminists and feminist issues, this topic is avoided and just not discussed. I feel that this topic goes to the core of the reasons why women are at a disadvantage, and that it can have a greater impact on this disadvantage than many other feminist issues such as education, politics, culture, sexism, society, stereotypes and the other general feminist matters typically discussed. In fact, I believe that a fundamental part of the disadvantage that women face in the world in which we live is in the wealth gap.

The topic is complex and can spark endless debate. So I have developed this piece which touches on some of my views.

But before I go on, I want to note that by no means am I suggesting any solution centred on taking wealth away from men and handing it out to women. This will not create sustainable change, and the earnt wealth of a person should not be taken away. Instead, we as individual women need to initiate a change in our relationship with money and wealth by:

• acknowledging the wealth gap and the disadvantage it brings to us women
• undertaking to make a change at an individual level
• becoming financially literate
• seeking wealth and overall financial success
• informing our female friends and inviting them to join us in pursuing personal wealth

But why do I believe the wealth gap has such a big impact on feminism? Why is it important for women to catch up to men in the world’s wealth distribution?

Money is an enabler for shaping our world. It is a fundamental tool needed to make change. There are a number of ways that us women can use money as a tool to shape our world, and here are a few examples.

Giving and Philanthropy

When Olivia Newton John overcame cancer, she felt compelled to drive progress in the field of breast cancer research. She did this through philanthropic contribution towards increased medical research, raising of public awareness to enable early detection, and to establish a cancer centre dedicated to the specialised research and treatment of cancer patients.

Her contribution to this field is honourable and outstanding, and I find it incredibly inspiring to see what one woman can achieve when driven to do so. But we need to acknowledge the role that money played in this story. Without the philanthropic work lead by Newton-John to raise sufficient funds, her aspirations for the establishment of such a facility could not have become a reality. Through this story, we can see a clear example of how money, in the hands of a woman has been used to contribute so significantly to advance an issue affecting so many women globally.

Judith Neilson, a billionaire Australian philanthropist recently funded a Sydney-based $100m institute for journalism. She said, “As an avid consumer of news, I recognise the need to support evidence-based journalism and the pursuit of truth in an increasingly complicated and confusing world”. She identified the opportunity to contribute her wealth to the betterment of the world in a way that was meaningful to her and so many others.

Statues for Equality is a project by Gillie and Marc – artists who are on a mission to balance gender representation in public art. Through their work, they hope to have a major city in each state erect a statue of an influential woman within the next five years. Gillie and Marc feel so strongly about the importance of equality in public art that they have entirely self-funded the project, with each bronze sculpture valued at over $100,000. They have publicly acknowledged that without sufficient upfront funds, this project, their great work, and the resultant culture-shifting outcome simply would not be possible.

These are just some of the many, many inspiring stories of wealth being used as the vehicle for the betterment of the world, in a way that is meaningful to the contributors.

But what about average women with average amounts of wealth?

A good friend of mine who I have known since childhood grew up playing the piano all throughout her school years, and she still plays as a hobby to this day. Naturally, she wanted her children to have the same opportunities. But the local primary school which her children attended did not have a school piano, and piano lessons were limited to a keyboard.

For the first few years of her children’s school life, my friend was disappointed by this fact. She then made the decision to purchase a piano as a gift to the school. Although from a wealth perspective, she was average and middle-class, she was wealthy enough to be able to afford to gift a piano, thereby changing her world positively for the better, in a way that was meaningful to her. Her gift was then also able to be enjoyed by the entire school community.

Here we see some concrete examples of how money, mixed with a drive for change, has enabled shaping the world for the better. If men own, and therefore are in charge of more of the world’s wealth, then the world is more likely to be influenced and changed in ways that are more meaningful and suitable to men.

If the distribution of wealth between women and men was equal, then the world would more likely progress and change in more equal ways also.

Innovation

It has been shown that it is through new start-up businesses where some of the world’s most amazing innovation occurs, and through this innovation the world as we know it changes and is reshaped. Think of paradigm shifters such as Facebook, Google and more recently Uber, and the impact that these once-start-ups have had on our world. Do you remember life before the fruits of these business became a common household name?

Start-ups are built from the ground up by amazing entrepreneurial founders. In order for businesses such as these to grow and scale, and to therefore bring their product or service to the masses, they often seek funding from Venture Capitalists, or VCs. These investors provide VC funding to entrepreneurs during the start-up stage of a business, enabling the business to grow and scale more quickly than if they were to do so organically.

Recently, research was conducted into the investment portfolios of the top ten VC firms in Australia.

It was found that of the start-ups funded by these VCs, 70.6% had only male founders, whilst only 29.4% had at least one female founder.

The media reports that female-only founded start-ups receive just 2.2% of VC investments.

These statistics are devastating to a feminist like me. If 70.6% of our funding is going to male-only founders, this means there are likely to be so many missed opportunities for women to bring their innovation to the world in ways which are more likely to benefit women.

Politics and Policy Making

Perhaps the most recognisable means to shaping the world in which we live is through the influencing of government policy. Research has been conducted into political donations and the influence this has on our political landscape and on policy makers. The research identified that political donations are able to open doors to relationship building between the political donors and the targeted senior ministers, enabled direct access and face-time with them, and fostered a sense of reciprocity.

In this sense, it can be seen that money has a powerful ability to even influence the direction of our country’s policies.

At face value, the concept of influencing government policy through donations may seems unethical, and be misconstrued as bribery. But when we realise the industries who are most active in this space are highly male-dominated, such as mining, construction, financial services and gaming, it begs the question: where would industries such as education, childcare, hospitality, healthcare, aged care and social services be if these industries also had similar access to our senior politicians and policy makers?

If the majority of Australia’s wealth is in the hands of men rather than women, what does this say about the potential ability of men versus women to influence our nation’s policies and political outcomes?

We need to level the playing field, and allow our women’s voices to be equally heard.

Financially Ambitious Women

In our society, whereas a financially savvy man is considered attractive and ambitious, I often sense that it’s considered unladylike for women to discuss money or to openly profess their desire to seek wealth. After all, our culture comes from an age where women were at the beck and call of their husband’s careers and income-producing ability, and therefore women who had little interest in finances, and were content with whatever was given to them were more adjusted. These women were considered more feminine and virtuous. Unfortunately, I feel that these old-fashioned and inhibiting views remain strong in today’s culture.

I therefore invite feminists everywhere to embrace the desire to be financially educated, enabled, empowered and strong, and I invite feminists to talk about their ambitions for financial success.

I also invite us feminists to look at ourselves and our own lives. Are we as financially savvy, ambitious, competent and successful as the men in our lives? Are we more or less wealthy than they are? Do we earn more or less than they do? What about our superannuation balances? What about our net worth? I am not condoning pulling the men down to our level.

The place where change starts is with us. I want us women to strive to join men at the top.