Friday, March 16, 2007

Women and Money

In the ‘70s, Gloria Steinem coined a one word phrase “Click!” that was shorthand for “Oh! Enough said. I’ve got it. Point taken.” “Click” included all those phrases in one word.
I’m feeling a lot of Clicks in the last few weeks with the release of Suze Orman’s new book “Women and Money” and the interviews she’s been giving on television and in print.
Suze Orman is one of the best writers about financial information. Her writing is clear and conversational. The information is accurate and easy to understand. In fact, I recommend her books to women who take my seminars. I’ve even included her books as part of the suggested reading list in "Don't Worry about a Thing, Dear "- Why Women Need Financial Intimacy.
But there’s always been something missing, and until the last few weeks, I couldn’t figure it out. Until CLICK!
Suze, by her own description, has never been in a relationship with a man. She’s never been held hostage by the cultural forces that millions of women experience in relationship to their husband. She’s never been legally bound to a man who raises his voice in anger, stonewalls his wife, refuses to share financial information with her or blocks her access to marital finance records. She is never in danger because someone else is making decisions without her knowledge that affect her legal and financial well-being.
Suze never raised children; her nurturing instincts weren’t tested by children whom luck or life dealt a raw deal and there is no one to turn to except Mom. She’s been, and continues to be, a free agent, unencumbered by the cultural and emotional baggage that millions of heterosexual women experience in marriage and motherhood.
Women have a lot to learn about money and their relationship to it. Owning the power to control your own destiny, which is the subtitle of Suze's new book "Women and Money", is, unfortunately, exactly what wives can't do without their husband's cooperation.
CLICK!

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