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Women for the Win!

Updated: Apr 29, 2021


In lieu of the recent inauguration that occurred this past Wednesday, I thought how inspiring it was to have the very first woman vice president ever in the White House. While the image of the government/democracy was broken to a degree on January 6th, watching the inauguration gave me hope for the future. If 2020 taught me anything, it's the importance of staying up to date on a little bit of everything. With my eyes to my phone and tv most of 2020, I became aware of the division and hate in America and felt disheartened by the topic of politics since most of the time it just led to feelings of anger and disappointment. But with the inauguration and the swearing in of the very first female vice president, it reminded me of the numerous women who have begun to break through barriers in recent years. This inclusion of women has not only been seen on the government level, but in A LOT of industries such as in the STEM field. Industries mostly dominated by males are finally seeing an increase in women professionals. Being a tech lover who watches countless hours of YouTube videos, I mainly see male YouTubers reviewing and talking about tech which can be sort of disheartening to see so few women with as big of influence in the same category. Although, the few women who do talk about tech (such as Sarah Dietschy with over 700k subscribers and iJustine with over 6.5 million subscribers) brings the same level of hope as seeing the first female vice president be sworn in. Even though I am not planning to major in engineering or other tech related career fields, it is inspiring to see women in the industry who are breaking the norms and putting their own spin on the male dominated area of YouTube.

One area that I have been paying close attention to is the finance/business industry and have come to realize the major gap between males in the field and women in the field. In fact I recently watched a Wall Street YouTube video where they brought on 4 finance people to talk about their top stock picks for the Biden presidency, and of the 4 analysts only 1 was female. Similarly, another Wall Street video had 2 female analysts out of the 5. This inequality can also be seen with Jim Cramer’s (the host of Mad Money) Lightning Round where callers ask about stock investments. I noticed that a majority of callers were males from all over the states, yet very few women. In fact now that I think of it, I don’t think I have ever heard a female on the Lightning Round from the past few months. To give more background; Mad Money is a finance show where the host (Jim Cramer) conducts research on the finance market and gives Cramer’s opinion of stocks. Cramer’s goal is to make money for its viewers by giving advice and tips about what industries are booming, what stocks to watch, etc. I personally enjoy the Lightning Round the most because of the various types of stocks that callers ask about. The Lightning Round gives investors from all over America the chance to ask Cramer his opinion about certain stocks which is why I would expect to hear from female investors, but in the 5 or so months I have been listening to the Lightning Rounds I hardly hear female investors calling in. Now that could mean four things.

  1. One, it could be that female investors are so superior to male investors that there is no need to call.

  2. Two, out of the numerous people who call, Cramer somehow only picks male callers…?

  3. Three, women are too afraid of being ostracized for asking investment questions.

  4. Or four, there are not many women who understand how to invest therefore they don’t even know what questions to ask.

My hypothesis is number four being the most likely. I say this because even in my own senior class of 103, I have realized that many of the females (who make up over half the grade) are unaware of what a stock is, much less how to invest. Somehow America has failed women by not educating them how to invest and teach them about finances. While I am aware of the overall money issues Americans have, I believe that the portrayal of women being frivolous with money to be degrading. The stereotype that women spend spend spend, and don’t know how to budget/use money has become so ingrained in American’s heads that it almost seems like we have become complacent and just accepted the fact that the majority of women don’t know how to invest when in reality women are probably better with money than men. In fact, a study found that women are more “risk averse” with money and are more likely to “know exactly how much money they have in their current and savings accounts” (Independent Co). I firmly believe that the more effort we put into educating women about money, the better off we are. If the women who do know how to handle money are able to utilize their funds more efficiently then their male counterparts, then just imagine how the finances of the average family would look like if more women who knew how to handle funds were in charge of finances? With the first female vice president and more women entering male dominated industries, it gives me hope that more women will become financially literate over time.


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