How Women Get Smart About Money

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If you feel reluctant or confused about how to begin to understand how you take control of your money, manage and invest it, competently, yourself, start here. This is not a scary money book, but a friendly, well-written, personal, engaging study of what it is that keeps women "dumb" about money, and the simple (once you know them!) insights that will make you smart. Whether you're barely getting by, earning a lot but spending it all, or you have saved or inherited money but don't understand investing, Stanny is talking to you. In fact, unless you are one of the miniscule percentage of women who have learned that you are responsible for your financial security even if you currently have a husband and a bevy of financial advisors, this book is for you.

Stanny, daughter of one of the founders of H&R Block, never had to worry about money - and she grew up in a kind of fog of unknowing about the whole business of money- after all, that was the business of her father, something men were supposed to manage, and she was never expected to participate.

She points out that for many women, as for her, it is a crisis, or a series of crises, that finally fixates our attention on the necessity to understand what money is about in order to survive in a practical way and give ourselves a life we choose in the future. Her motive in writing is to convince us not to wait for the crisis, but to remove that veil of unconsciousness that allows family and cultural expectations and myths to dangerously limit our choices.

Although our individual family circumstances may be quite different,  women as a group have been until recently - or still are - legally the property of their husbands. For example, a quick web search reveals:

In every state, the legal status of free women depended upon marital status. Unmarried women, including widows, were called “femes soles”, or “women alone.” They had the legal right to live where they pleased and to support themselves in any occupation that did not require a license or a college degree restricted to males. Single women could enter into contracts, buy and sell real estate, or accumulate personal property, which was called personalty. It consisted of everything that could be moved - cash, stocks and bonds, livestock, and, in the South, slaves. So long as they remained unmarried, women could sue and be sued, write wills, serve as guardians, and act as executors of estates. These rights were a continuation of the colonial legal tradition...

Marriage changed women’s legal status dramatically. When women married, as the vast majority did, they still had legal rights but no longer had autonomy. Instead, they found themselves in positions of almost total dependency on their husbands which the law called coverture. As the English jurist William Blackstone famously put it in his Commentaries on English Law (1765-69):

"By marriage, the husband and wife are one person in the law: that is, the very being or legal existence of the woman is suspended during the marriage, or at least is incorporated and consolidated into that of the husband: under whose wing, protection, and cover, she performs every thing."

The Legal Status of Women, 1776-1830

Interesting, isn't it, that from a legal point of view in colonial times single women were regarded financially, at least, as fairly autonomous people, though limited in the occupations they could choose.  And also interesting that the "vast majority of women" married...

And, even more frighteningly to the point:

There is nothing in the Koran, the book of basic Islamic teachings, that permits or sanctions honor killings. However, the view of women as property with no rights of their own is deeply rooted in Islamic culture. Tahira Shahid Khan, a professor specializing in women's issues at the Aga Khan University in Pakistan, wrote in Chained to Custom, a review of honor killings published in 1999:

"Women are considered the property of the males in their family irrespective of their class, ethnic, or religious group. The owner of the property has the right to decide its fate. The concept of ownership has turned women into a commodity which can be exchanged, bought and sold."

Honor killings are perpetrated for a wide range of offenses. Marital infidelity, pre-marital sex, flirting, or even failing to serve a meal on time can all be perceived as impugning the family honor.
National Geographic 

So it's no wonder women have a lot of scripts running. Though some of us have escaped indoctrination by luck or by our own savvy, remember that this is a world-wide cultural problem (often supported and enforced by religious law or custom), not a personal problem.

And Stanny rightly points out that the most destructive script is the belief that someone else is going to do it for us. It is the expectation that someone else will do it, or might do it, if we just wait long enough or act in the right way, that binds us hand and foot from taking action on our own behalf.

She elucidates the basic myths that most of us subscribe to and demonstrates why they aren't true, and explains the reality behind the myth. Once you begin to engage with the reality instead of the myths, you are on your way, and everything suddenly gets a lot easier!

How important is this? Stanny says,

"...this book is about far more than money. It is about power, personal power. Taking financial responsibility is more than having the lingo and making a few bucks. Taking financial responsibility is a transformational experience that empowers us personally as well as enhances us financially...Money, despite the clichés, is not power. Power, by definition, is the the ability to act, to get things done. The word comes from the old French poeir, which means "to be able." Money, by itself, is not able to do anything." (p.181)