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Women and finance have an uneasy relationship. It's time we changed that - beginning with financial literacy for girls and young women.
Women and finance have an uneasy relationship. It’s time we changed that – beginning with financial literacy for girls and young women.
Money matters have been traditionally handled by men and in a vast majority of households, financial decisions are still taken by men. Women are discouraged from discussing money and a woman worrying about money is termed as a ‘gold digger’.
Men discuss career, investments and finances, but even in popular culture a modern woman is depicted as drinking and wearing western clothes but she still discusses only men and relationships with her girlfriends. Does anyone remember a scene where girls sit together and discuss investments and property prices? No. Because in real life it does not happen.
I have a group of former classmates, all upper-middle-class well-dressed well-settled women. We meet once in a while and discuss…what? Relationships and old memories. Our finances figure nowhere in our chats. Many women in fact are proud of their financial illiteracy. They take pride in saying, “I do not know anything. My husband handles everything”.
This “I do not know anything” is many times a voluntary line taken, the thought process being, why take the trouble? I come from Kerala, a highly literate state where the women are well educated. But even in this state, women are discouraged from interfering in financial matters. I am labelled headstrong by my extended family for handling my own finances.
But where does this financial ignorance lead to? Women are short-changed in Inheritance matters by their siblings and in-laws and many times by their own children. Often, well-educated women find themselves helpless without a trust-worthy male to look after their finances. And in an ever-changing world, trust is a commodity hard to find.
How can this be changed? By teaching our daughters financial literacy. By opening bank accounts for them and teaching them to operate it. Mere jobs don’t make a woman independent. Earning a salary and placing it in your husband’s/father’s hands does not make a woman independent. A woman becomes truly independent only when she can earn her money and take all the financial decisions associated with it. And this journey must start early.
Operating a bank account, saving, investing must all be a part of little girls’ growing up years so that she grows up as a self-sufficient unit whom no one can cheat.
Image via Pexels
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Shows like Indian Matchmaking only further the argument that women must adhere to social norms without being allowed to follow their hearts.
When Netflix announced that Indian Matchmaking (2020-present) would be renewed for a second season, many of us hoped for the makers of the show to take all the criticism they faced seriously. That is definitely not the case because the show still continues to celebrate regressive patriarchal values.
Here are a few of the gendered notions that the show propagates.
A mediocre man can give himself a 9.5/10 and call himself ‘the world’s most eligible bachelor’, but an independent and successful woman must be happy with receiving just 60-70% of what she feels she deserves.
Darlings makes some excellent points about domestic violence . For such a movie to not follow through with a resolution that won't be problematic, is disappointing.
I watched Darlings last weekend, staying on top of its release on Netflix. It was a long-awaited respite from the recent flicks. I wanted badly to jump into its praise and will praise it, for something has to be said for the powerhouse performances it is packed with. But I will not be able to in a way that I really had wanted to.
I wanted to say that this is a must-watch on domestic violence that I stand behind and a needed and nuanced social portrayal. But unfortunately, I can’t. For I found Darlings to be deeply problematic when it comes to the portrayal of domestic violence and how that should be dealt with.
Before we rush to the ‘you must be having a problem because a man was hit’ or ‘much worse happens to women’ conclusions, that is not what my issue is. I have seen the praises and criticisms, and the criticisms of criticisms. I know, from having had close associations with non-profits and activists who fight domestic violence not just in India but globally, that much worse happens to women. I have written a book with case studies and statistics on that. Neither do I have any moral qualms around violence getting tackled with violence (that will be another post some day).