Women and Mustachianism (Take 2)

[melalvai]

I guess basically I'm curious...how does mustachianism relate to women in general.

I was genuinely curious about the topic but the original thread got hijacked by visceral responses to the word "feminism". While that made me sad and angry, it also left me unsatisfied because wepner's question never got answered. I wondered if asking the question again but omitting that inflammatory word would get a more enlightened and civil discourse.

Starting from the premise that there IS gender inequality (ie, if you do not believe in this initial premise please stay out of the discussion and go start your own thread), could mustachianism serve as a tool to promote equality? Or does mustachianism have nothing to do with gender inequality? I suppose another option is that mustachianism could promote inequality, but I find that unlikely!

It seems obvious to me that mustachianism could be a potent tool against inequality! Anyone who is financially independent is suddenly much more powerful!

But as wepner observed, mustachians tend to be predominantly male, and there have been some disturbingly misogynistic sentiments expressed by mustachians. Is there something about mustachianism that promotes such sentiments or attracts such people?

If this thread degenerates instantly into flames, as the original did, I will ask a moderator to remove it. I don't want to encourage such offensiveness. Please keep it civil.

[Zamboni]

Are mustachians predominantly male?

Or do mustachians just use predominantly masculine sounding usernames?

The longer I stick around here, the more poster whom I thought were guys turn out to be ladies (as little clues are revealed here and there.)

[DeepEllumStache]

Would be interesting to see the gender split.  The usernames can sometimes be deceptive and I've seen a lot of women in the forums.  I sometimes wonder if people occasionally throw out inflammatory statements because they truly feel that way or because they enjoy the fireworks that come from trolling.

As far as women and Mustachianism, it does encourage independence and self reliance among the single ladies.  But does it increase equality as more women join in or are the women joining happen to be the ones that are predisposed to liking it?

[stripey]

Interestingly, all of the members here from my home city (not North American) are female, and most are in their twenties (including me). I think all of us were a little surprised when we found out.

Mustachianism and women are perfectly suited to each other. There are a growing number of frugal/simple living type forums and blogs run out there by women- the topic material tends to vary a little more towards housework and homemaking stuff but the attitude is just as badass. A large one that springs to mind is Rhonda Hetzel's Down To Earth blog-- she retired a while ago from being a technical writer and enjoys her grandkids. The forum associated with the blog is complete badass, in a very friendly and encouraging way. I should add, not all of these fora are focussed on child-rearing either-- I have no desire to have kids.

With the forums here and attitudes? I think there may be a few other factors going on here:

- Men as a general rule tend to spend more time on web forums (both in terms of how many memberships they hold and amount of time spent on each one)

- As a general rule, as a forum gets larger, you tend to get a larger (absolute) number of people who are more outspoken and hardcore, and (due to the number of other members/comments) are less concerned about posting exactly what's on their mind. Another forum that springs to mind is the Long Hair Community Forum (which is female- dominated, but not with an exclusive female membership). Great forum, lots of good tips, but there are quite a few hardcore people there who will tell you that you're not doing it 'right' (I will say that the moderators do a good job in keeping the attitude good on that forum).

[galaxie]

I don't know if I use a male-sounding username.  But maybe women avoid female-sounding names to avoid the usual internet harassment?  I'm a lady.

I do think the atmosphere here is pretty combative these days.  All the "consumerist lifestyle is stupid" stuff easily spills over into folks just being judgmental about how other people raise their kids.

On the minus side: a lot of the "cook more and make your own soap to save money around the house" tips are extra work that's probably going to fall to the woman in a straight couple, especially if she already has most of the responsibility for housework (like women usually do). On the other hand, maybe the extra work balances out because of all the DIY home repair?  On the gripping hand, couples are perfectly capable of negotiating an equitable division of labor, and mustachianism is supposed to be all about a consciously examining your life choices, so.

On the plus side: financial literacy and independence are good for everybody, but I'd say they are especially good for women because women are more likely to be the spouse that stays home or makes less money.  Planning ahead, becoming crisis resistant (including divorce-resistant), and knowing how to save money are great skills.

Sort of neutral: women probably are at a disadvantage when trying to save because of the pay gap.  Plenty of mustachians manage to save money at a variety of different income levels, so it's just that we're trying to play this game on the same tilted field where we do everything else.

[Rural]

I think there's an expectation of maleness here; I've been assumed to be male on quite a few occasions, and correcting assumptions doesn't keep it from happening again.

I wonder what the breakdown is, really. 

[impaire]

An interesting question--I stayed out of the first thread but I'm interested in this. I am going to be fairly tentative here, and I will assume some gender asymmetries not by nature, but by culture.

1) It seems to me that the Mustachian emphasis on saving/reducing spending as a financial tool is a reframing that's potentially empowering for whomever is in charge of household spending, which tends to disproportionately be women. That's an interesting angle in the world of personal finance, as it focuses so much on income.
2) Mustachianism really targets middle to high-income earners -- here there may be a tension. Women on average make less money, so will be able to save less than men; the insistence that "it's all in your hands" can easily devolve into judgment on the less privileged by "optimistically" under-estimating the role of social constraints.
3) The insistence on independent thinking (notably-but not limited to-in terms of parenting roles) seems to me to be profitable to both men and women, but anti-patriarchal in nature (what people who subscribe to my definition of feminism would call feminist... pace)
4) Women are often socialized to have certain advantages in terms of domestic savings (cooking, sewing, gardening etc.) that are fairly basic useful skills for a mustachian life.

That's just off the top of my head, and here I am blabbing as if I actually believed that "Mustachianism" was a defined thing (which I don't actually believe). So take all of this for conversation-starting approximations :p

Oh yes, and people here have also assumed that I was a "he," which... well, no :)

[happy]

I think mustachianism is pretty gender neutral. Early on at least there was a high preponderance of engineers of varying types, and since these tend to be male dominated fields I guess there might have been more blokes. I think this has evened up and I reckon there are are probably close to even numbers.

I think the principles are gender neutral and there's as much relevant within traditional female arenas as there is traditional male arenas. Not many of us could excel at every mustachian possibility; mostly one needs to work on what one can readily achieve.

[melalvai]

Thanks! This is the sort of discussion I was hoping to see.

I based my assumption that mustachians are predominantly male on a poll MMM did on his website. The demographics may have changed since then, and the forums may not reflect the readership.

As far as women and Mustachianism, it does encourage independence and self reliance among the single ladies.  But does it increase equality as more women join in or are the women joining happen to be the ones that are predisposed to liking it?

At one point I wondered if MMM was preaching to the choir (people predisposed to frugality gravitate to his blog) but I'm inclined to think, at least not entirely. There's a lot of stories on here about people who have had substantial shifts in perspective and attitude, and people who have made real changes to their lives. I suppose they may have been predisposed to it, but they might not have come to it otherwise. I'm sure MMM likes to think he makes a real difference, that he doesn't just make like-minded folk feel smug.

Planning ahead, becoming crisis resistant (including divorce-resistant), and knowing how to save money are great skills.

I like the idea of becoming financially divorce-resistant. Not that I have any plans that way, my husband & I have been together over half our lives, but I've seen how it affects other people financially. I've been wondering how divorce fits into MMM (again just academically, no plans along these lines!) (if my husband logs in-- hi honey!) because it can be very expensive, especially with kids & custody arrangements that can involve a lot of travel. Hm, I wonder if financial independence would have a similar effect on marriage as it does on jobs? We become more desirable employees when we are financially independent because our attitude toward our employer changes. Not afraid to speak our mind where it could improve the company, no incentive to steal time from the company, etc. Well, maybe we become more desirable spouses when we are financially independent.

Some other good points have been made as well. Thanks, folks!

[ender]

My personal thought is close to 50% of the posters on this forum are women. I would be shocked at least if the percentages were heavily tilted either way.

It seems obvious to me that mustachianism could be a potent tool against inequality! Anyone who is financially independent is suddenly much more powerful!

I think the trick is how you get there. If you get there as a single woman, say by saving your entire 20s, then yes it does give you a fair bit more leverage in fighting inequality.

But as wepner observed, mustachians tend to be predominantly male, and there have been some disturbingly misogynistic sentiments expressed by mustachians. Is there something about mustachianism that promotes such sentiments or attracts such people?

Assuming your premise here is true, that these forums are generally this way (???), I disagree. If you read through the myers-briggs some absurd percentage of this forum is INTJ. This personality type tends to have a much more direct and I suspect has more to do with the attitude you perceive than anything else. This includes the hostility a number of posters here have indicated exists.

Well, maybe we become more desirable spouses when we are financially independent.

With respect to relationships, I imagine when you no longer have to focus on money or no longer live paycheck to paycheck a large percentage of emotional energy which was previously invested into "how are we going to survive" can go into the relationship. Especially if both are on the same page.

[galaxie]

I didn't think of this in my first response, but women are also expected to put more work (and perhaps money?) into personal appearance than men are.  I sure pay more for haircuts than my hubcap does, for instance.  :(

[wepner]

I don't think I mentioned anything about thinking that the majority of posters here are guys did I?

Either way I'm glad that you made this thread, the first part of my question was addressed pretty well, but the second part was basically ignored so I'm glad to get a second shot at it.

[DeepEllumStache]

@melalvai, I agree with you that we can definitely gain some tools for making positive changes in our financial situation.  I was wondering more if the women attracted to the ideas behind Mustachianism and equality happen to be predisposed to both ideas.

If the forums happen to attract certain types of individuals (such as the Myers-Briggs discussion and everyone being INTJ), then it wouldn't surprise me to see something similar where the women coming here also happen to be the type that would seek equality through financial independence.

[ch12]

Are mustachians predominantly male?

Or do mustachians just use predominantly masculine sounding usernames?

The longer I stick around here, the more poster whom I thought were guys turn out to be ladies (as little clues are revealed here and there.)

I don't know if I use a male-sounding username.  But maybe women avoid female-sounding names to avoid the usual internet harassment?  I'm a lady.

Oh yes, and people here have also assumed that I was a "he," which... well, no :)

Yes. People think that I am male. Men tend to assume that these forums are populated by Mustachian Men almost entirely and it's really, really interesting to see the difference in response to another male vs. when the poster knows that you're female. That's not a difference specific to these forums. The entire experience in these forums reminds me of the Internet scandal when James Chartrand of Men with Pens turned out to be the nom de plume of a woman.

http://blog.intuit.com/employees/james-chartrand-of-men-with-pens-on-being-a-woman-in-the-copywriting-world/

[Albert]

At least in my culture many men still feel uncomfortable with their wife or girlfriend earning more money than themselves or having a higher social standing. Not all men, perhaps not even a majority but it's certainly still out there...

[brewer12345]

[Mod Edit: Post causing thread derailing removed.]

[swick]

I think the gender split on the forums is a lot closer then on the poll on the website would suggest, on the other hand, I generally tend to just assume I am talking to men, unless it is obvious otherwise - why? I'm not sure.

Can Mustachianism serve as a tool to promote equality? Sure! How many threads are there about a women with little to no financial knowledge stepping in and getting the help and education she needs to turn her whole family around?  How many men have posted looking for ideas and instructions for things that are traditionally the "women's" domain? How many women have posted on the DIY forums for help with repairs?

As far as being some disturbingly misogynistic sentiments expressed by mustachians, this has been a fairly recent development. As we have grown larger there seems to be a loud and vocal minority who, quite frankly, add little to the community other then trying to stir the pot. If you see this kind of behavior, please report it so we can do something about it. 

Most of the folks here are here to build a community, there are definitely those who are blunt and say things as they are, but I don't think there is anything inherent in the ideas of mustachianism (which does mean something different to all of us) that promote being an ass. After all the first rule of the forums is - "don't be a jerk"

[brewer12345]

How many topics would stay on track (and civil) if the OP was clear and concise and knew what they wanted to discuss?

I have never participated in any online forum where threads stay on topic for maybe a dozen posts on average, tops.  Have you?

[Russ]

Mod Edit: See forum rule #1.

[Russ]

On topic ;-) I think of the blog more as "humanist" (I know that's not the right technical term) than anything else. It empowers everybody to take responsibility for what they can (e.g. circle of influence post) and to treat others fairly/morally, whatever that means (e.g. $15 minimum wage post). That's good for women, same as it's good for everyone else.

[footenote]

Mod Edit: See forum rule #1.

[brewer12345]

I suppose I cannot alert the mods to a comment made by a moderator. Heh.

Eh, whether I remain silent or not threads drift or get jacked.

Mod Edit: You can, and should. Even we are people and get snarky sometimes and that's not in keeping with the tone of this forum. /END EDIT.

[NinetyFour]

Mod Edit: See forum rule #1.

[CommonCents]

Ok, missing all of the pre-editing comments, I'll try to return us to the original topic and add one thing I don't think I saw written already.  I believe Your Money or Your Life makes the claim (forgive me if I've misremembered the source) that women are in need of financial advice more because 1) they are less fluent financially than men generally, frequently letting the men handle all of the finances, particularly with older couples, and 2) they live longer and need more of a nest egg.  Point 2 was already made, but not point 1.  I don't know if it still holds true today, but under that premise, then I would say that being mustachian helps address inequality because it's educating women (and men) about their finances and taking control of their spending/money, understanding where it goes, etc. rather than remaining ignorant and head in the sand.

[sheepstache]

I also think Brewer was being rude.  Am I a jerk for stating it?  By my own personal code I consider it better to address something in public than call a mod on someone.

I have enjoyed many of Brewer's other posts and I know from them that he is not an idiot and does not have reading comprehension issues.  Pretending that in this context the phrase "if you do not believe in this initial premise" is equal to "if you do not agree with me" is just that, pretending.  And therefore a bit of a jerk move.

An obvious parallel is the premise of the forums themselves.  Nobody wants a troll who sits on a thread and questions the whole premise of mustachianism when other posters are simply trying to exchange homemade yogurt recipes or something.  A poster is welcome to question Mustachianism, they just have to do it on a separate thread to avoid being disruptive. 

This is so obvious and simple that I can't believe that Brewer--who is, again, clearly pretty smart--didn't or can't see it.  It's hard therefore to avoid the impression that he was being deliberately aggressive and disruptive.  Maybe he meant it in a joke-y way and it fell flat.  It happens.  In which case, he could have responded to any of the replies with that explanation.

FWIW I thought the edited comments did a decent job gently pointing out the error and then escalating it when Brewer didn't seem to catch it.  But of course it's the mod's right to make judgement calls about tone.  But I am surprised that, given that those comments were removed, Brewer's original comment wasn't removed under the same rule, for the reason I explained above.  Setting aside the untruthful rhetoric and that the idea expressed could have been appropriate on another thread, the sarcasm really sounded like a direct slam to the OP to me.

I (and obviously others) was glad to see this subject revived in this thread after the other one went off unrecoverably in a different direction.  I was going to join the discussion and then backed off when I saw Brewer's comment.  There's nothing wrong with the highly politicized discussions, I just don't have an interest in having them constantly pop up in my "new replies" section.  I'm curious how we can enforce a polite request to stay on topic without running into "tone" problems.

[impaire]

What sheepstache said.

[NinetyFour]

 Mod edit: If you receive inappropriate PM's, please foreward to a moderator

[Roses]

Is it possible to get back on topic now?  Or is this one also too far gone?  To moderators, I'm sure you're seen the other thread but just in case, check out some of the more ridiculous comments.  One in particular will be easy to recognize by that giant chip he carries on his shoulder.  It must be a terrible burden to him. 

I'll just say I have regretted my choice of name here because I did notice on a couple of occasions the responses were a lot more condescending than responses to very similar questions by male-sounding posters.  Especially on the real estate threads.  But too late now.

Ok, back to the topic:  I know there is the idea that women are less financially literate then men.  I think was the case a few generations ago but I also see the opposite happening even as early as with baby boomers.  In many old-school households where the man was out working all day and the woman was home she took over the tedious financial tasks like bill-paying, going to the bank and balancing the checkbook, not to mention doing the shopping.  My father comes from a very conservative community where almost all the women handled the money.  That doesn't mean they had a lot of say on how it was spent but they manged it because it was seen almost as a household chore.  My grandmother still tells stories about 'scrimping an saving' to make the most of my grandfather's meager salary only to see him come home with some shiny new purchase a couple times a month.  So, while women haven't caught up with men in terms of earning I think many have a natural predisposition to mustachianism as it pertains to the family.  Especially once we have kids, women are always thinking about what's best for the family and putting the kids ahead of us, etc.  In my family, both of my grandmothers and my mother were the money managers even while the men were the earners (for my mother and one of my grandmothers that changed when they each started businesses later in life and eventually out-earned their husbands considerably).  The men were always salivating over some new car or audio equipment (even back in the 50's my grandfather had a top of the line HiFi) and the women would be 'nagging' about money concerns.  I know every family and every community is different, but I don't think it's entirely true that women don't know much about finances and that they have more trouble with purchases than men.  At least in the case of women who have families.

[footenote]

I also think Brewer was being rude.  Am I a jerk for stating it?  By my own personal code I consider it better to address something in public than call a mod on someone.

I have enjoyed many of Brewer's other posts and I know from them that he is not an idiot and does not have reading comprehension issues.  Pretending that in this context the phrase "if you do not believe in this initial premise" is equal to "if you do not agree with me" is just that, pretending.  And therefore a bit of a jerk move.

An obvious parallel is the premise of the forums themselves.  Nobody wants a troll who sits on a thread and questions the whole premise of mustachianism when other posters are simply trying to exchange homemade yogurt recipes or something.  A poster is welcome to question Mustachianism, they just have to do it on a separate thread to avoid being disruptive. 

This is so obvious and simple that I can't believe that Brewer--who is, again, clearly pretty smart--didn't or can't see it.  It's hard therefore to avoid the impression that he was being deliberately aggressive and disruptive.  Maybe he meant it in a joke-y way and it fell flat.  It happens.  In which case, he could have responded to any of the replies with that explanation.

FWIW I thought the edited comments did a decent job gently pointing out the error and then escalating it when Brewer didn't seem to catch it.  But of course it's the mod's right to make judgement calls about tone.  But I am surprised that, given that those comments were removed, Brewer's original comment wasn't removed under the same rule, for the reason I explained above.  Setting aside the untruthful rhetoric and that the idea expressed could have been appropriate on another thread, the sarcasm really sounded like a direct slam to the OP to me.

I (and obviously others) was glad to see this subject revived in this thread after the other one went off unrecoverably in a different direction.  I was going to join the discussion and then backed off when I saw Brewer's comment.  There's nothing wrong with the highly politicized discussions, I just don't have an interest in having them constantly pop up in my "new replies" section.  I'm curious how we can enforce a polite request to stay on topic without running into "tone" problems.

+1

[Zamboni]

That's too bad, Roses, that you feel like your username solicits contempt or condescension.  This is why I found a female mortgage broker and a female real estate agent :-)  Both are sharp as tacks and have been in the biz for a long time.

I decided just now to look at my local university's econ department faculty to see just how much progress is being made there.  The results:  still less than 15% women.  So, right up there (down there?) with mechanical engineering, philosophy, and physics for a shortage of ladies.

This makes me think, perhaps erroneously, that there remains a dearth of women financial advisors.  I can recall a few celebrity advisors who are ladies, but all of those I've run into in my normal life (via the local investment office or through work) are male.  I found that some of them had clear "male pattern bias."  Haha, did I just make up a funny pun?!  Oh my, I'm going to have to remember that one.  Anyway, I always feel like they're talking to me like I'm some inept and nearly batty little old lady.  Even a local econ professor did it recently to a colleague and me (her PhD is in statistics, mine in pchem. I thought I was maybe being overly sensitive but she concurred afterward that his tone was insulting.)  The tone is clearly different when I'm with my male SO.  He gets treated with respect and clear explanations of options, not directives.  I can see why women don't want to talk with these guys; all the more reason to get your education via reading.

It does warm my heart that YMoYL was co-authored by a lady.

[Rural]

When dealing with a broker, financial advisor, etc. while female, I've found one does have to ignore the initial condescension, demonstrate that you actually know more than they do, and then get down to the actual financial business at hand. They do back off, but you have to be aggressive about it, which is a problem because it could lead to not wanting to break in a new one because its a gigantic PITA and perhaps staying with the old one longer than he deserves.

[brewer12345]

Mod Edit: No.

[ender]

With respect to this topic, of gender equality, as a man I basically want the following:

• To have a culture where everyone is free to do what they want
• To stop defining gender roles as a "you must be this advertised person or else you are failing as a man/woman"

I don't care if 90% of women want to be stay at home moms and only 10% want to be career women - both should be possible. Likewise for men (though probably stay at home dads and career men rather than moms/women).

Does this mean I think though that any woman who wants to be a stay at home mom is somehow inferior? Absolutely not. Do I think a career woman is somehow less feminine than a SAHM? Equally not.

Everyone has different things they value in life more heavily than others. Some people want to be SAHMs. Some people want to basically be bums and play video games their entire lives. Some people want to retire at 30. Some people want to be successful doctors or businesspeople.

This entire forum is centered around giving ourselves flexibility and freedom to do whatever we want in life by not being constrained by money. I don't think this has anything to do with gender equality or inequality, though, since it is based on a flawed premise, that being that men are more inclined to be mustachian.

I would be absolutely shocked if you took a poll of the entire US population and found that men identified more with desiring financial stability, security, and frugality than women (which are some of the core attributes of mustachianism. Obviously people won't understand if you use that term). Probably the same elsewhere in the world, too. In other words, I would be very surprised to not find more women would be happy if their SO would care more about financial stability than men would for their SO's.

This forum attracts people who are analytical and think of the future. A huge percentage of the population has no interest in managing their finances or is afraid of them. I suspect.... nearly every single person here is in the top 5% of the population of their country in terms of how confident/comfortable they feel managing their finances.

So does mustachianism directly affect gender inequality/equality? I don't think so. Is being mustachian correlated with inequality due to the gender makeup of professions which are high income earners? Maybe, but there are a lot of people on this forum who make "less than engineers" who are just fine as well as many women who are high income earners here too*. And after all, your income is just one factor in adopting a mustachianism perspective towards money.


*It would be fascinating to see a breakdown of the forum users by gender, income, and country - I imagine this forum has a much higher representation of "women high income earners" than are reflected in the population of each respective country. In other words, if women high income earners are 20% of the overall population, I suspect they are much higher than 20% of this forum population.

[Michread]

I am woman, hear me ROAR! 

If it was up to my dh, we would have all our money in a bank; we would have taken the std 30 yr mortgage instead of the 15 we DID take, etc. I'm the reader, financial thinker, long term planner in our household.  He's the breadwinner now and has been for a long time, but I manage the money. 

I DO think that more women manage the household money.  Amy Dacyczyn, who wrote The Tightwad Gazette books, is a prime example of a woman in charge of her household money and using those resources wisely and SHARING her ideas.

This blog/forum seems to be male dominated because it's written by a man.  Men like to follow men NOT women; women don't care, it's the message that counts.  Yup, gender bias.

[arebelspy]

MODERATOR NOTE.

Any further post related to what Brewer may have said will be deleted and people posting about it risk having their accounts deleted.  Please get back to a semblance of discussing the topic.

I understand this thread may go Off Topic again, but it should not go OT in that direction again.

FWIW I thought the edited comments did a decent job gently pointing out the error and then escalating it when Brewer didn't seem to catch it.  But of course it's the mod's right to make judgement calls about tone.  But I am surprised that, given that those comments were removed, Brewer's original comment wasn't removed under the same rule, for the reason I explained above.

It should have been.  However, believe it or not, us mods can't read every single post in every thread, so we rely on users to report posts.  A post was reported, I scanned up through the posts it was quoting, and made a few edits.  I missed that one.  If you, or any other user, noticed his comments and thought "Hey!  He's being a real jerk, this is going to derail this thread and help no one!" feel free to click the button in the lower right of each post that says "Report to Moderator" to try and preempt that. 

Thanks.

/END MODERATOR NOTE

[NinetyFour]

This blog/forum seems to be male dominated because it's written by a man.  Men like to follow men NOT women; women don't care, it's the message that counts.  Yup, gender bias.

Women are accustomed to listening to men in leadership positions.  Men may not be as accustomed to listening to women in leadership positions, although that is (may be?) changing....s l o w l y.

[sheepstache]

One way I could see it promoting inequality is by reinforcing existing tendencies.  For example SAHMs, but I'll get to that in a bit. Another example is that it seems to me that, as a general trend, women are less professionally ambitious than men.  I don't know if it's testosterone or social pressure on men to do well or work environments being less comfortable for women or what, but men seem more career-oriented.  Obviously there are a lot of exceptions and I wouldn't be surprised if the personality types attracted to mustachianism evened it out on this forum.  But if we're talking about what the results of widespread mustachianism might be, I could see it resulting in a lot of women "dropping out."  Possibly a less fraught, more private life would appeal to women more.  Which is a shame because I think having more women out in public life is important for a bunch of reasons.

From reading the case studies on the forum it seems like it could increase the number of "traditional" marriages with stay at home wives, either couples who realize it's not economically logical to pay for childcare instead of having a SAHM or women who wanted to be SAHMs anyway are trying to make the money work.  There's zero reason why the male shouldn't be the non-working spouse, but, even with plenty of maverick thinkers on these boards, it seems like it's more likely to be women.

Different paths along gender lines doesn't necessarily have to be a sign of inequality, but it's something to think about.

On the marriage front, I can think of a few different outcomes.  Yes, women could appear to be "better" potential partners if they're FI.  Plenty of men don't care to be seen as meal tickets.  I don't think it would turn the whole gender paradigm on its head, though.  If you are attracted to alpha males, you will still be attracted to alpha males even if you are FI and don't need the resources they can provide.

I would like to think that not being dependent on the marriage for economic survival would result in less stress but from what I can tell, couples going into mustachianism together only factor their married COL into their calculations.  Therefore if something changes after they're FI, they're still kind of  "trapped" because they can't afford to live separately.

[impaire]

Part of what is going to make the response to this topic necessarily be complex is, of course, that "it varies." I am one of these women who could almost believe that feminism has no more to achieve, because I'm born in a country where I legally have equal rights (and have always lived in one except for very brief periods of time), come from a relatively liberal background, am highly educated and tend to have friends who also are, have a husband who is as gender-unbiased as can be... And I suspect that most of the women who end up on this forum will have a somewhat comparable profile. In addition, I am childless by choice and intend on remaining so, which also very materially limits how different my financial life is going to have to be organized from a man's.

Even so, it seems to me that there remains a number of ways, most already discussed, in which men and women are going to have slightly different parameters to adapt too. More interestingly to me, *if* the message of mustachianism were broadcast much further than our atypical little community, these differences would I believe become much more relevant, because then it would start to hit communities where the material conditions of life are substantially different depending on gender. An interesting one is what Roses brought up: communities in which women are more highly educated than men in terms of household finances. For instance, in the fishermen villages my grand-parents came from, women in fact controlled all the money, because people there were too poor to have any finances beyond the household. This is also one of the interesting empirical findings of microfinance--women tend to be much better at paying back microloans in regions where they are financially the *most* disadvantaged, regions where the old saying "women represent 50% of the population and 1% of wealth" still holds (if you'll grant me a few percentage points for rhetorical flair). However, in such places the accumulative power of existing wealth would work against the possibility of being a full, investing mustachian in the first place--so we're necessarily talking about a partial application of some principles... and the re-valorizing of household management might end up encouraging women to stay at home (whatever you think about that).

[MelodysMustache]

I am one of the lucky few women who has not been negatively impacted by gender bias.  Even as a child I was a math/science geek, and today I am an engineer working mostly with men.  I occasionally notice that I am the only woman in the room, and even more rarely am I uncomfortable with being in the minority.  Sometimes I am mistaken for an admin or asked if I am in QC, which is most common for women in my industry, but I set them straight quickly.

Regarding mustashianism, I am not sure that gender makes any difference.  I do think it is important that people of both genders be financially literate.  There is also a lot to be said for being a woman who is not dependent on any man. 

There are several posts here about women controlling the family finances.  The problem I see with this is that men are bringing in the income, and do not necessarily abide with the set budget.  I think true gender equality comes when finances are managed together and either partner (or both depending on circumstances) bring in the income.

There is one thing that happened where I do feel that gender was a problem.  I had occasion to help my daughter with some finances.  She is young and has limited knowledge, but also the good sense to take good care of a small inheritance.  The first financial advisor that we saw had an attitude of "don't worry your little heads about it.  You can put the money in a nice annuity."  That did not go over very well, and she took her business elsewhere.  That advisor had no idea he was talking to a badass engineer and her pretty, but very smart daughter.  Most of the time I either don't care or am completely oblivious to the subtle sexism that is all around, but that advisor was a bit much.

[Phoebe]

I am a woman (pretty obvious by my screen name) and I am the breadwinner and money manager in our family.  My husband also works, but in the arts making significantly less than me ($29K vs. $179K).

I think that mustachianism is gender neutral at its core, though personally I find my gender changing how I view some of the concepts.  For example, there was a recent case study where the reader had enough money to retire but was hesitant for a number of reasons.  One of those was that he worried he would be a poor example for his children.  This struck a nerve with me, as I worry about the same thing.

I posted that in the comments and MMM responded that he sees being retired as an even bigger accomplishment.  Getting money out of they way to focus more on what you want to do, what could be a better example?  I totally understand, and intellectually agree, but in my gut I struggle with this.

The women in my family have all decided to be stay at home wives, they see the men as the breadwinners, and they follow the Christian mindset that the man should be the head of the household.  I do not personally agree with this gender role division, and thus I do like the idea of working and being a role model for our future children.  Since my husband is in the arts, he has no desire to retire, so if I were to do that, it would appear that I too am a stay at home wife while my husband brings home the bacon.

There is nothing wrong with being a stay at home wife, but I would like my children to see an alternate model as well, and in my family I'm the only one doing that.  On the other hand, we sometimes talk about having my husband be a stay at home dad, and he has similar concerns.  He's worried he wouldn't seem manly, and like he's providing for us, so it seems that gender expectations go both ways.

[Michread]

One way I could see it promoting inequality is by reinforcing existing tendencies.  For example SAHMs, but I'll get to that in a bit. Another example is that it seems to me that, as a general trend, women are less professionally ambitious than men.  I don't know if it's testosterone or social pressure on men to do well or work environments being less comfortable for women or what, but men seem more career-oriented.  Obviously there are a lot of exceptions and I wouldn't be surprised if the personality types attracted to mustachianism evened it out on this forum.  But if we're talking about what the results of widespread mustachianism might be, I could see it resulting in a lot of women "dropping out."  Possibly a less fraught, more private life would appeal to women more.  Which is a shame because I think having more women out in public life is important for a bunch of reasons.

From reading the case studies on the forum it seems like it could increase the number of "traditional" marriages with stay at home wives, either couples who realize it's not economically logical to pay for childcare instead of having a SAHM or women who wanted to be SAHMs anyway are trying to make the money work.  There's zero reason why the male shouldn't be the non-working spouse, but, even with plenty of maverick thinkers on these boards, it seems like it's more likely to be women.

Different paths along gender lines doesn't necessarily have to be a sign of inequality, but it's something to think about.

On the marriage front, I can think of a few different outcomes.  Yes, women could appear to be "better" potential partners if they're FI.  Plenty of men don't care to be seen as meal tickets.  I don't think it would turn the whole gender paradigm on its head, though.  If you are attracted to alpha males, you will still be attracted to alpha males even if you are FI and don't need the resources they can provide.

I would like to think that not being dependent on the marriage for economic survival would result in less stress but from what I can tell, couples going into mustachianism together only factor their married COL into their calculations.  Therefore if something changes after they're FI, they're still kind of  "trapped" because they can't afford to live separately.

It's a lot more complicated for women than men.

[sheepstache]

Do you speak out of experience or observation?  I think you speak out of observation NOT experience. Your oversimplification above is BOGUS!

...I touched on a lot of things.  Which one are you asking about?

[Michread]

Do you speak out of experience or observation?  I think you speak out of observation NOT experience. Your oversimplification above is BOGUS!

...I touched on a lot of things.  Which one are you asking about?

Caught ME!  I took it back!!  Let's just stay I assume you young and are single.

[CommonCents]

Ok, back to the topic:  I know there is the idea that women are less financially literate then men.  I think was the case a few generations ago but I also see the opposite happening even as early as with baby boomers.  In many old-school households where the man was out working all day and the woman was home she took over the tedious financial tasks like bill-paying, going to the bank and balancing the checkbook, not to mention doing the shopping.  My father comes from a very conservative community where almost all the women handled the money.  That doesn't mean they had a lot of say on how it was spent but they manged it because it was seen almost as a household chore.  My grandmother still tells stories about 'scrimping an saving' to make the most of my grandfather's meager salary only to see him come home with some shiny new purchase a couple times a month.  So, while women haven't caught up with men in terms of earning I think many have a natural predisposition to mustachianism as it pertains to the family.  Especially once we have kids, women are always thinking about what's best for the family and putting the kids ahead of us, etc.  In my family, both of my grandmothers and my mother were the money managers even while the men were the earners (for my mother and one of my grandmothers that changed when they each started businesses later in life and eventually out-earned their husbands considerably).  The men were always salivating over some new car or audio equipment (even back in the 50's my grandfather had a top of the line HiFi) and the women would be 'nagging' about money concerns.  I know every family and every community is different, but I don't think it's entirely true that women don't know much about finances and that they have more trouble with purchases than men.  At least in the case of women who have families.

I agree re mustachian in micro terms women may tend do be better than men, on saving via things like couponing to keep the grocery bill down.  My recollection was the women were worse in terms of investing.  This parallels my home experience - my mom will coupon and save pennies at home, make thing etc.  My dad however will invest their money.  This is actually a concern of my dad's, that my mom learn what he's doing, so while she may not invest herself, she at least understand enough if he dies first (as they expect will happen) to go get someone to handle it for her.

[melalvai]

Wow, I spent a couple days traveling and came back to see that the moderators had been really active here. Thanks for helping keep the discussion civil and I'm glad to see it got back on track after that.

I'm afraid I still didn't make the topic clear, as evidenced by many of the replies. I really wanted to know, can mustachian principles reverse gender inequality? Not whether forum users are more male or female, not whether women face special challenges to practicing mustachian principles. These are interesting, and related to the main question, but tangential. I want to express my appreciation to everyone who has contributed these because of their spirit of having a positive discussion (compare to the thread that went down in flames, which prompted me to start this one). I really do appreciate this, and apologize that I wasn't clear enough in my original post.

Some people have addressed my question despite my muddling of it, and raised the concern that mustachianism could be seen as promoting stay at home moms, or SAHMs, and discouraging women in the workplace. Specifically:

The women in my family have all decided to be stay at home wives, they see the men as the breadwinners, and they follow the Christian mindset that the man should be the head of the household.  I do not personally agree with this gender role division, and thus I do like the idea of working and being a role model for our future children.

However, becoming financially independent doesn't mean you have to stay at home, so I don't see a problem. You can choose to work, even if you can afford not to.

Financial independence is empowering. A financially independent, employed woman wouldn't hesitate to report sexual harassment. A financially independent woman wouldn't tolerate a hostile work environment. Or even one that was simply uncomfortable.

As MMM exemplifies, in a financially independent family, dad can stay at home too. "Gender inequality" applies to men too-- a lot of men of my acquaintance expressed jealousy of my husband, who got to be a stay-at-home-parent for our daughter's last 3 years of high school. (No, they weren't jealous of him because of his super-hot wife. lol!) Ok, he'd have preferred employment, but it was a relief to all of us that he could be at home.

Wage inequality: with financial independence, any worker, male or female, is empowered to say "I deserve a raise". Financially independent women can quit the unrewarding job and do something they really want to, and that something (I believe) will most often turn out to be something they are better at and therefore (I believe) earn more money doing. (I threw in those "I believes" because I don't have any data to back up my assertions. I feel like I ought to omit them...but I believe it really strongly! Doesn't that count as much as, you know, actual evidence?)

I'm using "mustachianism" and "financial independence" interchangeably, and I realize they aren't entirely interchangeable. I'll attempt to define & summarize mustachianism in a nutshell, based on having read the entire archives last week when I was sick: Mustachianism is about achieving financial independence and happiness through frugality and income. I've listed above several ways that financial independence promotes gender equality. I can't think of any reason that happiness, frugality, or income would have a negative effect on gender equality, so I'll assume each of these factors has a neutral or positive effect on gender equality. I can't think of any negative effect financial independence might have on gender equality.

Therefore, my opinion is that mustachianism is a force for gender equality (male and female). For many of the same reasons, it could promote any other kind of equality-- race, religion, age, sexual orientation, etc.

Mustachianism can empower an individual.

Now, whether every individual is able to achieve financial independence through frugality & income, is another matter. Certainly there are those in circumstances that make it impossible. I wish we wouldn't judge them so harshly, but be grateful that 'But for the grace of God', and perhaps not be so smug & self-righteous when looking at those who could but don't practice our own frugality. (I hope I didn't just derail my own thread...)

[Paul der Krake]

This blog/forum seems to be male dominated because it's written by a man.  Men like to follow men NOT women; women don't care, it's the message that counts.  Yup, gender bias.

You know what, as abrasive as this is, it got me thinking: I'm struggling to find female role models. All my favorite writers, scientists, composers, politicians- all men. Aside maybe for Angela Merkel or Hillary Clinton, but it's more because of their determination to strive in a male-dominated world than me enthusiastically embracing their work.

That's odd and almost disturbing, maybe I am biased after all.

[prosaic]

I am a woman and decidedly more frugal than my male spouse. I also massively outlearn him (5? 6? x more), though that has only happened in the past 8 months or so.

My beginnings in frugality were with Amy Daczycyn and her Tightwad Gazette. Then I moved on to Taleb. I think I'm the first person on the Intertubez ever to write those two names in the same post. ;)

FI is a great path to increased freedom for either gender.

[Zamboni]

All my favorite writers, scientists, composers, politicians- all men.

Since you are in NC you have a female US senator and until recently had a female governor.  Or perhaps you prefer our new, male governor?

And you are not looking very hard as there are OODLES of fantastic female writers.  Too many to name.

Scientists? How about Gertrude Elion?  Or Lise Meitner?  Or Rosalind Franklin?  Wikipedia is your friend here.  Consider the bias against these women receiving any credit before you discount their contributions.

Composers?  Chaminade?  How about Zamboni's own mom?

I'm going to let you off the hook because obviously women have historically been discouraged or more often just plain disallowed from participating in these endeavors.  It's easy to overlook the contributions of women because history so often overlooks them.

Financial independence is empowering. A financially independent, employed woman wouldn't hesitate to report sexual harassment. A financially independent woman wouldn't tolerate a hostile work environment. Or even one that was simply uncomfortable.

I agree that FI is empowering.  But I disagree about the extent to which it empowers. Reporting sexual harassment, although it must be done, does not become an easy thing.  For one thing, it becomes a time sink, which no one wants.  It puts a job one might otherwise really, truly enjoy at risk because of one or two scoundrels.  It garners enemies among the friends of the scoundrels, who think you are lying and that their friend(s) is/are just swell.  And finally, much of the time the harasser or the creator of the hostile work environment WANTS the women to either be in subservient roles or to leave.  So, if one leaves because one can due to FI, then he "wins," just as he has won by driving women away from his department or school or profession for decades.  Just something to think about.

[impaire]

You know what, as abrasive as this is, it got me thinking: I'm struggling to find female role models. All my favorite writers, scientists, composers, politicians- all men. Aside maybe for Angela Merkel or Hillary Clinton, but it's more because of their determination to strive in a male-dominated world than me enthusiastically embracing their work.

That's odd and almost disturbing, maybe I am biased after all.

I am going to go offroad here for a second: perhaps you are indeed biased (Marie Curie? Virginia Woolf? Rosa Parks?), but more seriously, this is perhaps quite simply a result and a good demonstration of how established patterns self-reproduce: how many women did have any chance to become writers, scientists, composers or politicians before a fairly recent date? And of those very few who did, how many were/are included in the curriculum? When they look beyond Shakespeare and Milton, do our teachers think of Sir Sidney, or of Lady Wroth? Of Bunyan, or of Lanier? Did you ever hear of Elizabeth I's poetry, and indeed--was she an unworthy politician? Better or worth than Henry VIII, or than Victoria?

---

To the OP -- I hear what you are trying to say, and I do tend to agree with you, but you're also focusing, I believe, on post-FI. To get to FI, however, one mostly must compromise with the systems in place, which tend not to be very favorable to gender equality or to "maverick" behaviors (it's late and I hope I'm going to be forgiven to not dig out the studies, but there is some evidence than gender-conforming individuals perform better in their careers than non-conforming ones--and I'm talking makeup and gendered negotiation styles here, not "major" gender transgressions).
Moreover, if the economic unit you are considering is the family (versus the individual), then the earning power is still statistically greater on the side of men, which means that if there is a SAH spouse in a couple, it's more likely to be a female. Is it inherent to mustachianism? No. Is it a statistically possible perversion of its principles? Anecdotal evidence to the contrary notwithstanding, it seems to me that the answer is yes. So while on the whole I believe that mustachanism can be empowering for everyone, I would probably not subscribe to a militantly angelic vision that sees it as a major tool to "reverse gender equality," especially as it is mostly a tool to further free people who are already in a decent position of social power (MMM has repeatedly admitted that his principles are better applied to the middle class than to the economically disenfranchised).

[Paul der Krake]

Zamboni and impaire, I think we're saying the same thing, I didn't mean to 'discount' the achievements of anyone. If anything, the criticism was directed at myself.