Happy Women’s History Month!
According to Census.gov (2022), “National Women’s History Month traces its roots to March 8, 1857, when women from various New York City factories staged a protest over poor working conditions. The first Women's Day celebration in the United States was in 1909, also in New York City.” However, it took seven more decades to expand it to a week-long commemoration and another six years to be expanded to a full month. That occurred in 1987, so Women’s History Month is only 35 years old.
To celebrate this important month, I’d like to focus on the benefits of hiring a female advisor.
When it comes to financial advisors, I recommend working with a woman. According to Dr. Goleman in Psychology Today (2011), women—in general—tend to be better at emotional empathy than men. Because of this tendency toward building relationships and being emotionally attuned, women make good planners, coaches, and investors. We really get to know our clients and their goals so we can give advice and create plans that are specifically tailored to what our clients want.
In addition, we openly discuss our feelings around money, which can entail complicated and difficult conversations. But these discussions allow us to get at the core of what’s really driving people’s decisions. Also, our heightened emotional empathy affords us the ability to put ourselves in our client’s shoes and try to see the world and their money as they see them.
Concurrently, women tend to be better investors overall. According to Birken & Curry (2021), “women investors consistently outperform their male counterparts.” The same article notes that men can be overly confident in their investments, which leads to a reduction in their net returns. Women also tend to stay calmer when the market has a downturn, which can help client feel more confident and stable in this everchanging world landscape.
And finally, women bring a diverse prospective to financial decisions. The financial industry has been and continues to be a male dominant industry, so bringing a woman’s perspective to decisions provides a different point of view. Diversity of perspectives has been shown to have better outcomes. Gompers and Kovvali (2018) note, “Along all dimensions measured, the more similar the investment partners, the lower their investments’ performance.”
If you’re in the market for a financial advisor or coach, consider hiring a woman. You might find emotional support around your money and goals, understanding around your perspective, better investment advice, and increased diversity around your financial decisions.
Celebrate women this month and all year round by elevating them in this and every profession!
Articles Referenced:
Women’s History Month: March 2022. (2020, March 1). Retrieved from https://www.census.gov/newsroom/facts-for-features/2022/womens-history-month.html
Goleman, Dan. (2011, April 29). Are Women More Emotionally Intelligent Than Men?. Psychology Today. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-brain-and-emotional-intelligence/201104/are-women-more-emotionally-intelligent-men
Gompers, Paul & Kovvali, Silpa. (2018, July-August). The Other Diversity Dividend. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2018/07/the-other-diversity-dividend