I am Female, here me roar

There has been a great interest in the endangered species known as the financial female lately. It seems that being interested in finances and being female are two separate circles, and the people who fall into both categories are far and few.

In any event, apparently there is a new conference specially for this little silver of people falling into this unicorn segment and its organised by the good people at The New Savvy.

Although I do think it is very helpful, my take on this is that it is unlikely to be a big hit. Why?


1. Limited Numbers

There aren't many female bloggers around. At least the very active ones. Why so? It could be a cultural thing -  the fantasy that most of us grew up with (think barbie dolls) is that we will find a prince who will take care of us and we will live happily ever after. Practical mothers of the good old days would press upon us the need to find a man that can provide. Nothing wrong with that advice, but it seems that most of us are looking for someone to take care of the financial aspects. And not to mention, money is actually more of an emotive issue. And females are emotional creatures. We spend when we feel sad, we spend when we want to look good. Do not judge me, but most financial bloggers are very practical with their spending. And most females aren't. If we were, we won't be spending thousands of dollars on about CL or MB shoes which only serves to torture our poor feet. All in the name of vanity.

Even if you manage to find the financial female, there comes the second problem.

2. Lack of Time

For women with a family, time is indeed a precious commodity. And if you think this is an excuse which no modern women should dare use, consider this: when was the last time you went out to purchase vegetables for dinner? Or when did you even had to think about grocery shopping? Was it handled by ahem, your mum? your spouse? Or if you were the lucky few who have a helper, when was the last time you gave your helper your pay and did some management issues with your helper? Who is the person that the children go to when they have some issues to handle? And if the women in question has a full time job, very likely that she really has her hands filled.

This is what us working mothers are busy with all the damn time.

I can't tell you how many different thoughts are in my mind all the time: whether I still have vegetables in the fridge; it's Monday and the wet market isn't open but we ran out of fish for the toddler; need to get back to Boss on recent work email; haven't yet send out the invites to relatives for the child's birthday party; need to check what cakes there are for the one year old party; whether i should pretend that i did not know that my nephew on my husband's side hates durians but we all love it so go ahead to order that durian cake; that ruined shirt that my helper caused - when should i talk to her about it; maid's health check; need to buy more diapers... the list goes on.

Of course, a lot depends on how much help one is getting and how hands off one can be with regards to the helper, housework, kids, work.

With that, you lose quite a bit of the already slim financial female audience already.

Be that as it may, I wish I could stress on how important for the female audience to be more financially educated. Why? Because 1) we live longer 2) we spend more of our own retirement money on our kids than our spouses do 3) we have more health issues due to living longer 4) there is a tendency for women to take a back seat with their career the minute we have families 5) divorce rates are up, so its not like you can depend on your man for the rest of your life if anything goes wrong 6) if anything happens, the knock on effects on the children can be serious.