The Woman Tax

I've been listening to too many financial podcasts this week. As a result, I have FEELINGS. And also, FACTS.

1. Women are often accused of being selfish because they spend money on supposed "vanity" items and yet are also constantly judged if they don't do that. Men want them to look nice and even their husbands often make sly comments about not taking care of themselves and yet they are "selfish" if they work out at the gym and take time away from childcare and housekeeping and also if they need time to themselves. Moms are expected to be on call 24/7. Dads are not.

2. Women are equally often accused of being bad moms or saying yes all the time to their kids when they spend money on kid clothes, kid activities and other kid stuff (Dads tend to be more in charge of technology stuff--I don't make the rules!). So when people talk about "budgeting," they often expect women to make more effort saying no to kids and to kid stuff. But women are also expected to be in charge of kids all the time and to be blamed if their kids aren't doing wholesome activities and aren't performing at school (Dads tend to be at fault more if there are "behavior problems," but moms get that, too).

3. A woman/mother often makes cuts to her own pleasurable activities before she will cut her kids' activities. But it is ALWAYS true that whatever cuts to the budget are made, women feel it more. They get less kudos for it, but it is more effort for them.

4. Women do more labor around the house and with kids. Married women do MORE labor around the house than divorced or single women, even if they work full-time outside the home. Yet they are often told that they are spending money on things that help them with their household labor. Again, they will be judged for not spending money on household labor and they will also be told that their labor isn’t important and that it doesn’t count.

5. Men tend to spend money on higher cost items and not think about them as costs, but as "investments" (see crypto) and women's purchases are more often and tend to be in multiple places, so it is often true that the focus is on these more frequent purchases (see also: men's contributions to household labor are more likely to be weekly or monthly rather than the daily labor of women).

6. Most therapists and financial counselors will focus on the person who is more willing to agree to make changes. This is almost always the woman.

7. I am tired of hearing financial counselors argue that men NEED a purpose in life and never saying the same for women. Men are so often told that they need to increase their income, and encouraged to demand more money, better jobs, better education, and higher raises. Women are often told to want less, to be smaller at work and at home.

8. Men already get paid more per hour of work in a given job with a given number of years of experience. Men who are fathers get a father bonus. Women start with getting paid less and even if they don't take parental leave, get a motherhood ding on salary, even though they are actually better workers and leaders by statistics. This is because of the ridiculous assumption that fathers have a SAHM who is taking care of everything behind the scenes so that they can focus on work (even if they don't).

9. Women, especially stay-at-home mothers, are often so desperate to contribute financially to the household while simultaneously caring for children that they get trapped in MLM’s or in bad jobs because they can’t work full-time. This leads to women being seen as not as intelligent as men (because men do CRYPTO instead, which is SO SMART). It also leads to women’s relationships becoming more and more transactional and self-blame and recrimination. It is AWFUL!

10. Women often do the math of budgeting childcare expenses only out of their own income. They think that somehow it is “their” job to take care of children and they only “get” to work if they earn enough to pay for childcare and whatever other expenses might be associated with their work. But this is an outdated, sexist, and short-sighted way of doing the math. Your career is worth building and the childcare should come equally out of your income and your spouse’s. You and your spouse are both the parents of the children you create. You deserve to build a career, too. When your kids are grown, you’re likely to have another twenty to thirty years of career left, but you’re going to be frustrated that only your career was sacrificed and it will be very difficult to get back to where you should have been.