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Summary: In this analysis by Dogo Joy, the writer enlightens women on how money works against women. The story exposes the hypocrisy of unpaid labour and how a capitalist society deprives women of their money.
As a woman, the system is actively designed to ensure that your money works less for you! This is not a conspiracy, nor is it an alarmist view. It’s something that, as you continue to read, you’ll realise you’ve encountered the same yourself without realising it.
It has been studied by economists for years that money, just like everything in a patriarchal set-up, is deeply gendered. Money in the hands of men is different from money in the hands of women. The way money works for men is different from the way money works for women, and it is important for you to know this or your financial freedom and property rights as a woman are not guaranteed.
The Gender of Finances
Some ways in which money works differently for men and women.
1. Gendered billable hours: This is often one of the first manifestations of gendered money. Because of women’s traditional domestic functions as homemakers and childrearers (which is in itself a full-time job), women already have less time spent on earning money, which means reduced earning power.
In Nigeria, it is not usual for a man to ask his wife to quit her white-collar job and become self-employed, which basically means that she now has the free time to work at any time due to her domestic responsibilities. This means that a woman’s role as a wife and mother often reduces or even ends her billable hours, particularly in the case of Stay-at-Home Mothers.
According to a 2023 Pew Research report, women complete, on average, 4.6 hours of housework compared to 1.9 hours for men. When both spouses have the same earning power, women undertake 6.9 hours of household chores compared to 5.1 hours for men. This disparity obviously and significantly reduces women’s availability and ability to dedicate time to financial education and growth. And this is not just a personal thing. Corporations are aware of this. This is why some corporations have no problem hiring a husband but would have issues hiring a wife or mother.
In fact, men earn significantly more when they marry or have children, in what is called a paternity bonus. This is a belief that married men are more competent, reliable, and deserving of pay and promotion because they are perceived as needing it. On the other hand, women’s earning power takes a dive the moment they get married, and it continues to decline with each child they have. This is called the maternal penalty. It is believed that mothers will dedicate less time to work because of their domestic responsibilities.
Hence, the very act of making money itself is deeply gendered. Time is money, and the time women are supposed to spend making money is spent on unpaid work.
2. Control versus freedom: Money gives men control over women, money gives women control over themselves. Some years ago, I think it was about 7 years ago, my elder brother and I were discussing. He read a short meme that said when men have money, they chase after more women, when women have money, they think they no longer need men. The answer to this is very simple- money works differently for men and women in a patriarchal set-up.
Our mothers couldn’t run away from their abusive husbands because they could not get a credit card, they could not open an account unless he co-signed, they could not get a job unless their husbands acted as references, and they could not travel without their husbands’ consent letter. This is the principal reason why women fought tenaciously for the right to paid labour. If it were all about the right to freedom and autonomy, then he who pays the piper dictates the tune; he who bankrolls you controls you; he who feeds you can also starve you. So while money buys men control over women, money allows women to buy back that control.
In a patriarchal-capitalist system like yours, money is empowerment, money is freedom, money is regaining control from men.
3. Systemic control versus freedom: Another aspect of freedom money gives women is class freedom. When you understand the intersectionality of oppression, this makes sense. Women’s oppression intersects with class oppression. For instance, all women are at risk of GBVs like rape, battery, femicide, etc. However, there are some GBVs that occur along class lines, like child marriage, girl child illiteracy, FGM, etc. These are GBVs where women from lower-income backgrounds are disproportionately represented. In such a situation, we can say that class has intersected with female oppression to make the condition of poorer women worse.
So money not only buys women freedom from men, but it also buys partial freedom from sexist systems because of her class privileges. She can now navigate gender oppression more favourably. She can live in a safer environment where her chances of rape are reduced, and she can leave her abusive husband and get security. Another aspect of system control is this –women are constantly paying tax to the patriarchy, whether you like it or not.
In fact, this is the reason why even in situations where women earn as much as men, they still save less because we are unknowingly tackling systemic inequalities. Imagine giving a man and a woman $1000 each to go on a short vacation. While the man simply pays for a hotel room, the woman has to pay for her hotel room, a ring to pretend she’s married, a hairpin, a door hedge to avoid the room being broken into, pepper spray, enrolling in karate lessons, and a CCTV system, among other expenses. She has to take extra precautions that he takes for granted.
In fact, in some countries, men have made it a job to act as travel companions for solo female travellers, so such women can be safe because they are often targeted. The mere presence of a man by her side keeps her safe. Male solo travellers do not have to do such. All the money spent on safety could have been used for more profitable ventures. Whether you like it or not, as a woman, you’re paying dearly to rectify and navigate through a world not designed for you. Unfortunately, this payment made to the patriarchy is temporary protection and has to be renewed every time.
You might earn as much as a man, but you’re paying for things he doesn’t need to pay for, which has invariably diminished your investment power. This means that $1000 holds a different value in the hands of a man versus a woman. This also means that in a patriarchal society, a woman needs more money to be financially at par with men.
And this is just on safety alone; we are not talking about hygiene products that are taxed by the government as luxuries, we are not talking about beauty products that have been marketed to women by creating unrealistic beauty standards.
4. Domestic responsibilities: The biggest lie sold to women is that men are providers because it has never been so. Men actually assist women who are the actual providers. Girls and Women spend up to 90% of their earned income on their families, while men spend only 30-40%. (UNAC, 2012).
This is not something we need stats for; we see it all around us. Husbands and fathers are more likely to travel, catch up with friends every Friday evening and weekends for a beer, and chase/marry more. Women have children outside wedlock, spend their earnings on investments, business and land buying, etc. All these personal ventures require finances that deplete family income. This means men tend to spend family income on personal endeavours as opposed to women, who spend more on food, children’s school fees, medication, clothing, and extended family.
Women’s money actually benefits the family as a whole, while men’s money tends to benefit them as individuals. And these women do while earning considerably less than their husbands.
Studies show that female farmers having the same access to resources as men equals 150 million fewer hungry people (FAO, 2011), which further buttress the point that women’s money tend to go round while that of men tend to stay with them or expended towards things that are personal to them like Friday night out, extramarital relationships, personal business and projects, etc.
To highlight the depth of this impact on women, working women aged 60 are less likely to retire than men of the same age due to a lack of savings. This boils down to the fact that women are more likely to spend the bulk of their earnings on the family as opposed to personal investments, fun and savings.
When people say, “Empower a woman, empower a nation,” or “What a woman can do, a woman can do better,” they are not just making empty statements to titillate women; they are grounded in reality. Children growing up to choose their mothers is not because they are women but because they actually poured and poured into everyone else but themselves.
I am not celebrating or glorifying this dynamic; I want it to change, so women can retire and rest. I want women to have more billable hours. I want women to be with men who contribute their quota domestically, not praise their wives for enduring. The way to change this is to recognise it as a problem and actively work towards changing it. While men’s money tends to be individually focused, women’s money tends to be communally focused.
5. A Poor man who marries a woman: I’ve heard people say, “Marriage is a poverty alleviation scheme for women.” This is beyond laughable because it shows how little women’s domestic contributions are being rated.
A married poor man is a man living above his means. Chinenye Nweke said:-
“If you’re unable to pay a chef to cook for one month because you can’t afford it, what it means is that the person cooking your food for free is providing you a lifestyle that you ordinarily cannot afford. Her free labour has you living above your means.”
The only duty the patriarchy placed on men’s heads is provision and protection, to which they are failing woefully. Even at that, men have abdicated that role. They boast about not wanting a financial liability, yet have no qualms being domestic liabilities towards their wives.
So if a woman shoulders the bulk of domestic labour yet still provides financially, what then is his value? Shouldn’t he also shoulder his portion domestically?
6. Gender Pay Gap (GPG): Sometimes back, I spoke about how an organisation specifically asked a female lawyer and it all boils down to the fact that they thought women would charge less than men. There are numerous documented cases of companies hiring women specifically for the purpose of charging less. The system deliberately cripples women financially. I’ve heard people try to justify GPG by saying that it happens because women take time off during childbirth birth but that is not true. It is the gender pay gap, not the marital pay gap, not the maternal pay gap.
GPG exists in general, regardless of whether she is married or childfree. However, this existing gap widens with age, marriage and childbirth. Women (white women) earn 81-89 cents for every dollar a man makes. Note that this figure is smaller for women of colour, Hispanics, immigrants and other minorities.
This is why I greatly frown at the idea of women going 50/50 with men financially, because you’re already losing to the system. People think it’s because I want the benefit of equality without the responsibility, but that’s not true. The system gives men a push that you don’t have as a woman. Trying to play equally on an uneven playing field is nothing but foolery.
7. The pink tax: The pink tax refers to a system where women are ordinarily charged more than men for the same product.
As we see in the image above, this is a 3-in-1 shaving stick sold by the same company. However, the blue product, priced at $4.99, is marketed to men, while the pink product, priced at $5.39, is marketed to women. Both products are functionally the same.
It might look like 1 dollar difference, but it costs more. Research by California Senate committees in 2020 revealed that women pay an average of about $2,381 more annually for the same goods and services than men. Over a lifetime, this could accumulate to around $188,000 in pink tax. Imagine what could be done with that money?
Even more, women pay 4% more per unit for goods across the entire retail grocery consumption basket, with a 15% higher average per unit price paid by women on explicitly gendered products like personal care items.
A common example is in body washes and shampoo. Shampoo marketed to men is typically 3 or 5 in one, but for women, they split it into 5 different products, so you have to pay for all 5 bottles, even though a simple one-bottle product can achieve the same results for men.
Sometimes we wonder why men look fresher even when they use just one product, and that’s because the active ingredients in all those 5 bottles you pay for are poured into one single bottle and marketed to men at a lower price. The moment it is marketed for women, it is packaged in multiple bottles; the bottle design is made to look cute and pink, and the prices increase. Since I became aware of this, I have decided to opt for male products because they are functionally the same; the only difference is in the colour, design, and the exorbitant price you pay for them.
Patricia Banks gained viral fame for establishing a women’s mechanic shop, as women are often charged more for simple mechanical issues with their cars. Things that might simply require an oil change, they get charged a whole lot.
Less than two months ago, I wanted to buy a laptop, so I contacted a tech-savvy friend to help me pick one that would serve my needs. We checked online, and she told me specifically not to buy what she called a woman’s laptop. I didn’t even know that was a thing. They looked sleek and beautiful and, as you can expect, cost a lot more. Interestingly, they were enormous and durable, comparable to men’s laptops, but less functionally efficient because many of them were not designed for serious work, such as coding. Yet they cost a lot. The same applies to automobiles and gadgets specifically marketed to women. Oftentimes, they are beautiful but less functional, and cost significantly more.
Have we even talked about the fact that sanitary pads are taxed as if they are luxury goods, while governments in many countries are handing out free or subsidised Viagra to men who can’t get it up?
Areas where women are typically charged more than men include hygiene products, clothing, utensils, children’s toys, and general services. For haircuts, women often pay 60% more than men, even when the actual time and skill required are similar.
The first time I noticed this pattern was when I entered a salon, and I saw the price list for haircuts. Children cost the most, then women, then men. This applies even to women who are already on a low-calorie diet. And if it didn’t occur to me that it is the pink tax!
The same system that is averse to paying women at par with men is dedicated to ripping us off of the little we have. Women are punished for simply being women, even though we are paid less than men for the same job. If you’re wondering, the patriarchal-capitalist system is designed to ensure that your money works less for you as a woman.
8. Intrinsic versus extrinsic value: This is an important aspect of gendered money, which is why I saved it for last. Boys are allowed to raise themselves, while their sisters are raised under the watchful thumb of their parents. Girls are taught to cook, be nice, feminine, temperate, and agreeable. In essence, girls are taught intrinsic values such that even a poor woman with no job can be of immense value to her husband due to her domestic contributions in the areas of unpaid labour, child-rearing, and elder care.
On the other hand, boys are taught to prioritise extrinsic values (earning money). They were taught that they can plaster over their money, their failings, using it to compensate for their Intrinsic behavioural flaws.
In a patriarchal society, while money raises a man up the social ladder, for a woman, money does not actually work for her that way because the presence of her wealth is often interpreted to mean that she is failing in other feminine virtues like being a home-rearer, sleeping her way to the top, insubmissiveness, etc. Interestingly, many women exhibit these dynamics without even realising it. Here are some examples:-
Folorunsho Alakija, the former richest woman in Africa, went online to tell the world that she still washes her husband’s boxers. The first female president of East Africa went on air to tell women to still kneel before their husbands. We have seen women refuse to buy cars so as not to chase away potential suitors. We have seen wives with houses in their husbands’ names, in order to appear humble and domesticated.
We have seen women come online unprovoked to explain to the world that they didn’t sleep their way to the top; they work for their money. We have heard men say they can’t marry career-oriented women because it shows they are not domesticated
Recently, Veekee James, a very wealthy fashion designer, went on air to tell women to still perform their sexual duty towards their husbands, no matter the exhaustion, even if it means just lying still. Toyosi Etim-Effiong came online to praise her husband for allowing her to fly and not being intimidated by her career.
DJ Cuppy, who has been virtue-signalling to be picked for the longest time, took a picture of herself sitting on a washing machine, where she branded herself as wife material. This was after she made a public declaration of her faith in Christ.
What all these examples I listed above are telling us is that women are consciously or unconsciously aware that in a patriarchal society, our wealth takes away from our femininity, so they try to overcompensate by proving to the world that they have not allowed their money to get in their head. Unlike a man to whom money makes him desirable, our money makes us undesirable or attracts the kind of man who wants to rob us of it.
This is because our patriarchal society privileges women’s Intrinsic value- agreeable, likeability, domesticated, calm, reserved, chaste while it values men’s extrinsic value- big house, nice cars, watch, fine women, finer women, faster cars. So long as he has money, he can plaster that money over his failings, he can beat his wife so long as she cries in a Ferrari, he can cheat and then apologise with plenty of gifts.
While money raises men up the social ladder and widens their dating pool, for women, money also raises us up the social ladder, but effectively shrinks our dating pool with each dollar we earn and each certificate we acquire. We’ve heard women being discouraged from getting yet another degree by being told, “Your certificate wouldn’t keep you warm at night.”
The summary of this intrinsic versus extrinsic value is that, in a patriarchal arrangement, money makes a woman threatening and undesirable while it makes men endearing and desirable. Her financial wealth is a dent to her femininity, while a man’s finances increase his value. It’s also the reason why an abusive rich man cannot phantom why a woman will leave him because he’s been raised to believe that his money covers all sins.
Now, this is not me saying you should drift with the patriarchal tide and hide your earnings, but for us to recognise a problem because the first steps to addressing an issue are recognising and naming it.
What next?
This knowledge should help you in making better financial decisions and life choices.
1. When a man says take care of the feeding, while I take care of investments for the family, you tell him no. Everyone should contribute a portion of their income to running the family. To get a better idea of what I’m saying here, read this on women’s property rights in Nigeria.
2. When a man tells you to go 50/50 without him going 50/50 domestically, or a man who earns significantly more than telling you to go 50/50, you reject the arrangements. Read the same article above where I provided a more equitable alternative to 50/50 arrangements.
3. When you are told that gender equality has been achieved and we live in a post feminist world because women now get paid for work done, you know how to answer them.
4. When next you see gendered products on the shelf, you’re best equipped to make decisions on which one to go for that will save you more money. Personally, I advise women to try using a men’s hygiene product just once, then decide whether to continue using it or not, because oftentimes, they are functionally the same, with the same five different bottles you’re buying. Try it first!
5. When you’re told that just because you earn the same as a particular man, your money works the same way, you tell them no and enlighten them on how women lose millions to the system through the gender pay gap, gendered product (pink tax), intrinsic and extrinsic value.
6. Understanding how the system works allows you to be a better self-advocate, know how to navigate the system, and advocate for reforms when you’re in a position of power.
This article was first published on SheResonance.
