Please take the following not as a rant about sexism, but as how luck played a part in changing the ingrained attitudes that were prevalent when I was young. I don't want the thread to go off track!
Yes - I was born in "the Lucky Country" (not the US). I was lucky to go to University when I did - it was made free the year I went, and if not for that I would not have gone - after all, I was a girl, and at that time just over 30% of Uni students were girls.
But I think that comments people made have been real turning points for me. It was expected that women wouldn't be financially independent - for instance, at my first "real" job the Head of HR said to me that there was no point in me joining the company superannuation scheme because I was a woman (and I took his advice).
Over time I became what would today be a Network Administrator, and I got a trainee. He was into "wheeling and dealing", and was trying to drum up interest from a mate in providing capital for a new venture. His mate looked toward me and said - why not ask Deborah. He replied - she wouldn't have any more than $xxx - and he named about half my savings - but the remark really annoyed me. What was my trainee doing looking down on me! That remark really got me thinking. I put together a 5 year plan and bought a house (single women didn't buy houses, so it was rather nerve racking), got my license, and really leaped forward financially. If not for that one statement, I would have gone on like I was for years. Sure, I was saving - I always had, but it was in a bank account, loosing value all the time. My little green workers had definitely not been working!
The next piece of luck was being retrenched from that job. I got a payout - not much by today's standards, but part of the package was an hour's financial training. It got me thinking, and I had the foundation of my stash. In my next job, I joined superannuation because I realized that I should have been in it from the start.
If neither of these things had happened, I would not be retired early today.