There is, at the heart of it, something inherently unequal about money. It's not just that men still make more of it, or the fact that the gap between rich and poor is ever-widening, or the way having money can buy you opportunities that improve the quality of your life. Though I am reluctant to buy into the idea that men are from some monetary Mars and women are from a pecuniary Pluto, I have noticed that the way my male friends approach money and the way my female friends do is drastically different.
Don't get me wrong; we're pretty much all terrible with it. The thing is, the men spend it, without expecting rescue. Whatever they do with their money, they do it. They're broke? That's that. They're flush? Good on 'em. The women, on the other hand, still hold out hope for a knight (or lady) in shining armour. Within the security of a relationship, a lot of independent women feel relieved of the burden of planning for their retirements, feel glad to share their debts, are willing to walk away from their jobs. Men, on the other hand, never seem to have those expectations.
What does this mean? And how do these attitudes affect women's financial health? This is what Liz Perle attempts to figure out in Money, a Memoir. Inspired by her own personal financial experiences, through divorce, working motherhood and overspending, Perle discusses a subject that often is taboo even in the most intimate of friendships. As the dust jacket says, we know more about our best friend's sex life than her finances, as a rule.
Perle explores the idea that for her, and by extension many other women, money isn't just a tool, it's a symbol. It can stand for love, such as when a woman spoils her children or is lavished with gifts. It can stand for success, as seen among those whose work experiences are summed up by the digits on a paycheque. Money can be safety or independence or comfort or recognition. As Perle realizes as she works at creating a fair divorce settlement:
It wasn't the loss of a nice home or some new clothes or a decent car that scared me as much as it was the vulnerability I felt each time I drew a line across the page. I'd spent years aspiring to one life, and now—item by item—I was dismantling not just a life but my very self. I was committing a kind of genocide.
In other words, money is never just money. This is probably not a revelation to anyone who has ever tried to stick to a budget and failed. But when we fail with money, we usually fail privately, never talking about it, never gaining the benefit of talking out what went wrong. Looking at our feelings around money is scary and confusing stuff, awkward. The dialogue that Perle opens is full of "that's it!" moments, full of conversational intimacies and quiet advice.
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