I thought maybe I got this article wrong and looked it over again. I don't think I did...
"-Being a young woman interested in investing in the 1960s was difficult and Ginny explained it in the perfect way, “if you didn’t go out and play cribbage with the other ladies then you got frowned upon. There were some things you had to do. You weren’t yourself. You were a Mrs. Somebody.”
While it TOTALLY SUCKS that some (not all) women were treated like a men's accessory, I don't get how this explains (much less 'perfectly') how that made being interested in investing difficult?? Was she not able to talk to the other housewives she hung around with about it? It doesn't say if she ever tried? And did she need to? She seemed fine doing investing on her own.
And would other women not being interested be the fault of their husbands? I know there are lots of neighborhood investment groups, and I could be wrong, but I'd bet a majority of members in those are women.
"-Investing is a useful skill for everyone to have.-"
Is it a 'skill'? I thought it's more of a smart habit or practice, and that being 'skilled' at it has been proven to be an illusion for almost everyone.
The article keeps saying Ginny loves to point out how she did very well in this or that stock, but it doesn't actually show if she was good at it or not. Maybe she's just a braggart? Even the title about 'snowballing' doesn't ever connect with anything. It should mean how Ginny's investments have snowballed into big profits over the years, but this isn't addressed or even implied. Is she a multi-millionaire?? Did she do better than the stock market, even? We have no idea.
If that's not the point, then it's just a puff piece about girl power. I'd argue that in 2017, that's kinda anti-feminist.
It offhandedly says Ginny really 'did her homework' before buying, but did she? I don't think the writer actually knows. I can say, "I did the most homework", but it's just a totally unsubstantiated claim if I do nothing to back it up.
And the 'homework' line seems weird when it says Ginny seems to pick out stocks based on the random things around her. Like if her friend painted her walls with a nice paint, she buys stock in that paint company. Or that she noticed old people use oxygen, so bought stock in it. That's like saying, "I should invest in Apple or Tesla or Netflix because they're popular."
That sort of anecdotal evidence shouldn't even be a part of investment research.
"-It doesn’t require leaving the house therefore even “house wives” back then could use investing.-"
Wait... if you didn't even have to leave the house, how was it even difficult at all, then??
There were a TON of things that were far more difficult for women to do than a man in the past (and sadly, still to this day). But it seems like investing might have been one of the most equality-based, accessible things that a woman could do to get ahead. Give company money, get stock -they don't care who you are.
If anything, the problem was that women who were housewives had no income and were beholden to the will of their husbands. But that's not 'investing's' fault. And it sounds like Ginny had no issue with this to deal with at all. And I doubt the writer of the article does, either.
"-You need money, a sense of risk and a sense of numbers, that is something the majority of people have, including 1960’s “house wives.”
Confusing. I would've actually guessed a typical 1960's housewife wouldn't have that open access to money. If they did, along with the other things listed, then investing would've been easy for them to do. And that totally ruins the writer's implication that it was so tough for women to do it back then. Which was it -hard or easy?
"-Ginny taught me a lot about being a female investor. You have to stand up for yourself and work twice as hard to get the same treatment.-"
What does a 'female investor' even mean? How's it meaningfully any different from just 'an investor'? Of all the things where there's a clear diff. between men and women in various pursuits, I don't see it in investing.
And what work does this young, female blogger have to do that's twice as hard to get the same treatment? She just kinda makes this claim and moves on like it's self-evident. That kind of hyperbole (or fiction) does a disservice to feminism.
I mean, I wrote 95% of this not knowing, or caring, if the article was written by a man or woman, their age, anything... so they got equal (if very critical) treatment from me.
The article ends with the 'important' question 'why do you invest?'. Ginny says it's so she doesn't have to slave at a hamburger place. Isn't that just implying the same answer everyone has to this question? We all invest to make more money, which gives us a higher standard of living. Far from an important question, it seems like one so obvious and simple I don't even get the point of asking it? But it gets it's own key bullet point? And unanswered by the author. weird.
If this blog was by a middle-schooler, I would be feel bad about being this tough. But I'm thinking it's written by an adult.
