Now how can you be a feminist?

The observation of the world does not give us uniform answers, as is the current case with civil rights. Yes, women can vote, work, and be independent. Office buildings are full of women implementing their carrier paths – beautiful, educated, and able. Many women put their bets on running their own business and are very successful. Sometimes these successes are quite spectacular on the national scale, sometimes they are quite small, but they bring about fulfillment and development. Regardless of this, you get the impression that women don’t quite get to fully use the freedoms for which their grandmothers and great-grandmothers had fought.

Let’s look at the statistics. According to the Central Statistics Office, in the past academic year, women made up 57.6% of students and 64% of college graduates (actual data available at stat.gov.pl). Theoretically, because of this, they start their lives with greater potential possibilities. Yet on average, they earn less than men, but on the other hand on average they also work fewer hours – for natural reasons connected to maternity leave, using personal time more often than men, child medical care leave, and earlier retirement. This article isn’t here to discuss the aforementioned facts but to con-sider that which is yet to be mentioned. At the Global Investor Club, a club which brings together individual investors, educating and making them aware of the importance of financial security and alter-native income sources; as well as granting access to various interesting investment opportunities. There are nearly 2500 registered members. Barely one out of five is a woman (19.6% of registered members as of September 1, 2017). When accounting for attendance at monthly meetings and other forms of club social activity at the GIC, the number of women in attendance is even less. Sometimes, a group of 30 individuals only has 2-3 women.

A complete lack of parity. And yet a statistical sample of 2500 individuals is a rather large sample which gives some very legitimate averages. It is true that there are organizations on the market which cater strictly to women while promoting entrepreneurship and investment. In truth these are smaller organizations; hermetically sealed, sometimes more involved in debate, coaching, and geared more toward socializing than acting on what is spoken of.

Basic education in the field of financial management doesn’t give any real basis for acting and is treated more like a compulsory addition that is paired with “more important” educational topics at school. The older generation was not able to pass on its economic knowledge to its children, because they grew up in a completely different economic reality. Therefore, our awareness of the economic reality only develops in our adult life, often enough when we have our first apartment (possibly via a mortgage) and our own family. Perhaps this also explains the exclusion of women, who very often around the age of 30 direct most of their efforts to raise a family. Combined with a professional career, they do not have the time for seemingly mundane topics. Naturally, men become more interested in this as they feel the responsibility to support their family. Single women often tell me, that if push comes to shove, they will do what they must for their family. Married women tell me that they have a husband for that. But nothing lasts forever.

It would be good to not only have feminist slogans developed for the media but also to implement a more egoist-common sense form of feminism. To think about whether I am self-sufficient and possess the necessary finan-cial security. Will I be able to make it if due to a stroke of bad luck I will need to sustain my household either temporarily or perhaps even permanently? If I lose my income will I be able to survive? Am I using my full po-tential, or have I given control over my life to someone else? If so, why – lack of time, lack of energy, or simply convenience? Or maybe because of a lack of faith and a pre-conception that the domain of finance and investment is reserved for men. It’s something to think about and step by step start making changes. Use some of your valuable time to learn about finances and investing.
So lady investors “get to work!”