'Women should be open to fairness in feminism'

(not in the financial world myself, but I found this lengthy article quite interesting)

‘Women should be open to fairness in feminism’
By Ijeoma Thomas-Odia



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You are a financial feminist, what does that entail?
Financial feminism in its simplest form is the belief in the financial equality of women. Speaking of equality, women are grossly excluded from financial services compared to men, blame it on design or culture that is our reality. The imbalance is greater in Africa and more acute in Nigeria, as we are the only West African country on the priority list for gender financial inclusion. Most emerging markets have a persistent nine per cent gap, but we stand at 12. The consequence of this is that many women are grossly underserved or excluded.

As I was sharing earlier, I am extremely passionate about diversity, equity and inclusion with great emphasis on building experiential products; that is the background of my financial feminism. We want to make financial services easy, accessible and affordable for women regardless of location or creed. There are many gaps beclouding the female’s financial growth space and these gaps are largely fueled by the gender pay gap, gender investing gap and financial literacy gap.

The gender wage gap is a measure of what women are paid relative to men and it widens as women progress in their careers, with women at the executive level making $0.94 to every dollar a man makes even when data are controlled. The gender-investing gap is closely tied to that, as all things being equal, investable income is directly proportional to earned income.

The third gap, which is the financial literacy gap, drives the numbers further down, hence the low adoption of financial services by women. If you look at these tripartite gaps, you will then understand why we have women driving about 40 per cent of Africa’s trade, yet investing less. Firstly, women are not earning equally as men. Secondly, they are carousing cash and not investing enough for later years. As a financial feminist, I am leading a vibrant team at HerVest to tackle these challenges by creating a platform to bridge the knowledge gap, strengthen earning power for women and offer easier access to saving and investment. We solve these challenges inclusively, regardless of location, background or creed. We are for the women in Lagos, Owerri just as we are for women in the interiors of Oke-eri or Kuru.

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https://guardian.ng/guardian-woman/women-should-be-open-to-fairness-in-feminism/