Women, Responsibility & Financial Rights: Practice What We Earned
Women’s battle for voting rights is well-known which is why women are encouraged to vote, especially in this centennial year. Women are being encouraged to vote as much as when we had our first major female US Presidential candidate in 2016. Yes, these days we have a responsibility to vote. There are other hard-earned responsibilities, like our financial rights that need equal attention.
Shocking is how few women excise hard-earned financial rights. They avoid finances or choose to have someone else do or get too overwhelmed to start. Along with the vote, women also had to fight to get the opportunity to own property in this country. The fight for financial rights started in the early 1800’s. Federal and state laws denied married woman the right to own property and distribute it at their death as they would like. Yet, few women today manage their money, plan their investments and establish legal estate documents, like wills.
Most relevant for today’s woman of any race is the fact that the Fair Credit Act passed in 1968 allowed loans and credit to everybody despite color or sex. Early on, I learned these rules enacted to give equal rights to loans and therefore a path to home ownership are applied differently. My oldest sister was a working professional applying for a mortgage in the late seventies. I was only a teenager but remember she would not be approved by the bank without a co-signer. She had no other debt, had savings and a steady job. The application of the rules were different than the law. She was angry and befuddled. She could fight using the law and risk losing the property she wanted or buy the property with an added signature. She was one of the first woman to buy property on her own, abeit with my Dad as co-signor. She became a model to many of her professional woman friends who followed her lead. They practiced their rights as single woman to own property.
Dr Sally Roesch Wagner, Syracuse University lecturer, author and activist, shared a quote in a recent talk: “Rights are what we fight for: Responsibilities are what we have.”
Yet, women are deferring to men in their finances after earning the right in 1860 in New York State first. So 160 years later, women do not have wills designating who would get their property. They are not involved in their family’s finances. Nor are they learning what they need to learn. This is sad. This is tragic. We are giving away our power and our voice in the home. How can we expect to claim it in the work place? In government? Or the greater global community? What will you do to help?
We are so busy maintaining a home and fighting for more rights on every level. COVID has made our lives stressful and more challenging. Perhaps if we claimed our voice in this responsibility, many more would follow. If we are partnered, by design we are a team who can do this together. If we are single, we do not have to wait for someone to help. Or defer to others, including men in our life. We are in position to affect change today because of hard-earned rights. Now we need to practice responsibility for these rights.
We need to act and change what we can. We can take responsibilities for yourself. And our loved ones.
Get started today to support yourself and women:
- Buy from women owned businesses!
- Choose how to invest your money in companies with fair practices!
- Hire female lawyers to put your will and estate plan!
By knowing your rights and practicing your responsibilities, we can change the world. Act on your financial rights! Care of your money, property and future is one of the best statements any woman can make.
I attend conferences that show that women led businesses are better for the investment world and are one way to screen for a socially responsible business — that governance by women are actually better returning companies than those without women in leadership. Yet, women CEOS lead only 5 % of US corporations.
