There is a story in the collective consciousness of Southern Baptists, maybe all evangelicals, that tells us that women are meant to be in the home. Women are not made to be out and about, lest they socialize with other women and gossip. Certainly their intended work is not accounting (beyond the household budget), it is child rearing.  Women are mothers, and unless they are serving in that role, and only that role, their nature is viewed as weak and submissive.

That wasn’t fully my personal experience, my mom did work. But I had the perception that if it had been “possible,” my experience would have modeled this tradition.  Dad was the breadwinner, the earner, and the best way to maximize his earnings was overtime wages. This meant late evenings with family dinner at 8 pm (and LONG days for my mom). When my mom did work, it was always within our school hours, so that to us, it was barely noticeable.  She picked us up, on time, every single day, and shuttled my sister and me to whatever lesson(s) we had, no matter what her day entailed (not that I ever thought to ask).  I assumed she mostly watched soap operas and filed her nails in her time at home, maybe did some Richard Simmons or Denise Austin workouts with the VHS.  She made dinner, a LOT.  Sure, I remember some McDonald’s, but more than that, I remember home cooked meals for which we set the table, waited on my dad, and sat down to eat together as a family.  Even when she worked, these things were seemingly expected.  

While my dad was the primary earner, I don’t ever remember him having anything to do with money as long as there was always a bit of cash in his wallet.  I distinctly remember my mom, head bent over the dining room table, with a cigar box of bills and scratch paper and a chewed up Bic pen and little calculator.  She crunched the numbers on what seemed like a daily basis, making sure we didn’t overdraft the bank account.  Sometimes that meant having to drop off a check for a bill at the store on the last possible day to make sure it was both on time and covered. {aside – The banking system is really stacked against people here – overdrafts incur fees upon fees upon fees, digging deeper holes that are almost impossible to overcome – a small mistake can mean financial disaster} 

Whatever stress she bore, she bore alone. She fixed the problems, she robbed Peter to pay Paul.  And at that point, for more than half her life, she couldn’t have even had her own bank account. It wasn’t until 1974, when the Equal Credit Opportunity Act passed, that women in the U.S. were granted the right to open a bank account on their own. 

So why was this burden of money hers to bear? How did women come to hold this responsibility of spending and saving for the household?  For both my grandmothers, as well, who were solely co-signers on their accounts? 

Maybe it’s that women at home were perceived to have all of the time in the world to handle these things, as household work and all of the emotional labor has been dismissed for decades.  Maybe it’s because men were so busy at “the office.”  Maybe it’s because it helped wives feel as though they were contributing to the household, if they weren’t earning the money they could at least manage it. 

In ‘On Our Best Behavior,’ Elise Loehnen maps women’s societal expectations to the Seven Deadly Sins, and explains the myriad of ways the patriarchy enlists women in the efforts to mute their own potential.  This book is so beautiful because, while nothing in and of itself was surprising at all, the way it all fell together was astonishing. Once you realize you’re living in a system designed to work against you, rather than for you, you simply can’t stop noticing that system everywhere.  

What this particular book brought to light is that my story is not at all unique. Religion has been a mechanism by which women are held back for CENTURIES.  In ancient history, Mesopotamia, there are written records showing that women were able to own property, own businesses, file for their own divorces.  And not coincidentally, this was a time when predominantly female deities were worshiped.  Women were members of the clergy.  They were active in government and administrative positions. (to be clear, this applies to wealthy, upper class women – both men and women of lower classes saw an abhorrent lack of rights)  It comes with the advances of MALE deities, specifically Allah and the conquering Muslim Arab societies in 651 BC, soon followed by early Christianity, that women rapidly lost their rights as equal citizens.  

Today in the US, while our religions are generally less oppressive than others around the world, they are not at all definable as progressive.  Take the presbyterian denomination, in which women may serve as deacons, but not elders and leaders of the church.  An improvement on the southern baptists of my youth, sure, but let us not confuse better with good.  

I don’t wish to write a history book, nor do I wish to place blame on religion solely for the general lack of education historically available to women.  I do not actually wish to place blame at all – it’s simply not productive.  But I want us all to understand the facts.  There are corporate and governmental structures, to be sure, that have contributed massively to the ‘leaving behind’ of women.  I wish for my readers to delve further, into books like OOBB and much much more, to better understand how even our “modern” systems are not female-friendly.  I also echo the intent of Elise Loehnen when I say, I do not seek a matriarchy.  I do not even go so far as to say that men and women should operate as equals – we are made differently, we have different strengths, which together make for a better society – as does embracing of diverse ideas and cultures overall.  Leaving half of our talent behind will not take us where we need to go.  

I do hold that WOMEN ARE BETTER AT MONEY, for hundreds of reasons, not the least of which is that women are generally and historically the default custodian of the household finances.  Women are the primary consumers, worldwide, of everything from groceries to fashion.  Women are frequently villainized for being the spenders.  Of course they are the spenders – because they are the budget keepers.  They run the damn household.  They cook the meals, serve them on the dishes they chose and on the furniture that they sourced for the family. They clean the home, they make the beds, they buy the gifts for family and friends, they clothe the family… even working women still bear the majority of these responsibilities.  Even if they work FULL TIME, they are likely still bearing these same responsibilities.  And then they are told that it’s their “lattes” which keep them from being wealthy.  This leads me to our current state and my specific focus:

Women have been taught about money DIFFERENTLY than men for at least the 80s, 90s, and early 2000s.  And during that time, women have become more professionally successful than ever before.  According to 2023 census data, 16% of women are the primary household earner, while another 29% earn roughly the same amount as their partner.  It’s so incredible that it bears repeating – 45% of women in the US in 2023 earned as much or more than their partner.  While women should always have had a say, this fact pattern renders it irrefutable – when half of the money is earned by us, we get to participate in more than just spending it.