Money Is Power
Here we get to what could be the very core of our problems with money. In simple practical terms, money is nothing more than paper and metal we use to purchase products and services, no different from beads, furs, or other wampum our ancestors used to pay for goods. Yet most businesswomen recognize that money is far more than a means of exchange. Even if we perceive it metaphorically as freedom, security, love, or happiness, the profound truth that women, in particular, need to understand is: Money means power. As Phyllis Chesler wrote in Women, Money and Power, "Money is a power sacred to most men and foreign to most women." "Only the powerless live in a money culture and know nothing about money." - Phyllis Chesler
Here we get to what could be the very core of our problems with money. In simple practical terms, money is nothing more than paper and metal we use to purchase products and services, no different from beads, furs, or other wampum our ancestors used to pay for goods. Yet most businesswomen recognize that money is far more than a means of exchange. Even if we perceive it metaphorically as freedom, security, love, or happiness, the profound truth that women, in particular, need to understand is: Money means power. As Phyllis Chesler wrote in Women, Money and Power, "Money is a power sacred to most men and foreign to most women."
Money, in and of itself, does not give us power. It is merely a tool, and like many other tools, it does us no good unless we know how to use it. My first marriage is a prime example. I had the money, but my husband had the power. He made the decisions. Money bestows power by giving us choices. Money gives us the freedom and the resources to make choices based on who we are and what we want, not on what someone else expects or society dictates. No matter how much money a woman has, unless she is knowledgeable and responsible for it, she can never fully tap the power money holds. It is our understanding of how money works and our ability to manage it autonomously that empower us.
"Control is where the real action is," Paula Nelson writes in The Joy of Money, adding, "and the fun."
But before we can experience the fun, we must break the taboos. Everyone, whether man or woman, has suffered from its effects. By taking financial control, women are not competing with or diminishing men in any way. Quite the contrary. A financially independent woman is the final emancipation for both sexes. Historically, men have always had permission to be powerful. But with the permission came the pressure. Men were obliged to achieve worldly and financial success. Their families counted upon them for it, and the world judged them by it. It was a heavy burden to bear. And they bore that yoke alone. But as women take charge of their money, all that will begin to change. The burden of success will be lifted from men, just as the mantle of subjugation will be lifted from women. Everyone will then be freer to make satisfying personal choices. Men and women can work together, interdependently, as equals and partners, rather than in some sort of culturally prescribed symbiosis. We owe it to ourselves and our children. None of us should ever have to tolerate harassment from a boss or abuse from a spouse. We should never have to suffer any sort of indignation, exploitation, or financial hardship. Nor should we ever have to sacrifice self-determination for future security.
"We are doing it for ourselves," Linda Pei, founder of the Women's Equity Mutual Fund, told me. "In the process, we can make the world a lot better."
How do we break the taboo? How do we silence the warning voices within us? To do so requires courage, make no mistake. Financial enlightenment demands far more from us than picking up a few titbits of information or plunking down a few dollars for stock. Getting smart with money, for most women, constitutes a rite of passage. It is a transformational experience, a hero's — no, a heroine's — journey.
