Smart money women: the hidden cost of financial feminism
“Soft life … Smart money”, “How to be a smart money woman’’, “How to have $100k in savings by age 25”, “Steal my 5-day debt free method”.
These are just some of the titles of the many videos being produced and shared by feminist financial influencers (“finfluencers”) across various social media platforms around the world. Recent years have seen an influx in these accounts, where women offer each other advice on personal finance, savings and investments, usually through the narrative of personal success stories.
There has also been an increasing disaffection with the modes of empowerment women have been offered through work.
Dr Rachel O’Neill
These accounts often frame their messaging around women’s empowerment and popular feminism. On the surface, this seems like a positive thing: women empowering other women to be financially savvy. However, a new paper by Dr Simidele Dosekun and Dr Rachel O’Neill, Department of Media and Communications at LSE, explores the worrying underbelly of tying feminism to capitalism and offering individual solutions to structural problems.
As Dr O’Neill notes: “Who could argue with the idea that more women having more money is a bad thing? This is clearly a nominal good. And yet, the way that it's being created or achieved, specifically through investing – we have a lot of concerns about what that means for feminism.”
In their paper, Popular financial feminisms: mapping new mergers of feminism and capitalism, Dr Dosekun and Dr O’Neill spotlight several influencers and other popular media around the world that have been central to this trend.
These include The Smart Money Woman, written by Arese Ugwu as a book and later turned into a TV show aired on Africa Magic and Netflix. This story follows a Nigerian woman who seeks financial freedom. Although fictional, the book offers financial lessons and workbook-style pages encouraging readers to reflect on different areas of finance, such as getting out of debt, saving an emergency fund and investing.
In the US, Her First $100K is a multimedia brand created by American financial influencer Tori Dunlap who was profiled in the New York Times in 2022 as part of a “growing tribe of largely millennial women aiming to change the narrative around women and money’’.
You would expect they would suggest investing in women-owned businesses...[or] in ethical and socially conscious enterprises as part and parcel of feminist politics. But instead, it's just pragmatics.
Dr Simidele Dosekun
Backlash to ‘‘lean in’’ and ‘‘girl boss’’ narratives
These are just two examples out of hundreds, maybe thousands, of influencers in this flourishing space. “When the New York Times piece came out in 2022, we started to realise this was a growing trend. But in the UK the cost-of-living crisis coming to its height about two years ago definitely sharpened discussion around women needing to be financially savvy, and added to the sense of urgency in this area,” muses Dr O’Neill.
On why this trend has taken off, she adds: “There has also been an increasing disaffection with the modes of empowerment women have been offered through work. We saw a big push 10 to 15 years ago with narratives around ‘lean in’ and figures such as the ‘girl boss’ calling for women to assert themselves in the workplace, particularly in more corporate settings.”
These phrases embodied the idea women could climb the corporate ladder if they had confidence, were assertive and mobilised their own resources. However, these narratives are increasingly facing a backlash with many feeling, as Dr O’Neill notes, “the whole idea of the ‘girl boss’ is actually overblown, unrealistic and even gaslighting, in a sense.”
Another reason ‘‘finfluencer’’ accounts have been taking off is the development of technology in the investment sector. “We are seeing the introduction of investment platforms that are very user-friendly and cut out the traditional professional intermediaries who, among other things, are relatively expensive for everyday people to use,” says Dr Dosekun.
Growing numbers of influencers have locked onto this confluence of factors and are harnessing them to offer alternative economic strategies to women, encouraging them to be ‘‘smarter’’ with their money through investment in the stock market.
What we see in financial feminisms...is a feminism constructed and promoted as very much an individual project...There isn't any idea about collectivity.
Dr Simidele Dosekun
What happened to intersectional feminism?
However, despite many influencers wrapping their messages and advice in feminist language around empowerment and independence, Dr O’Neill and Dr Dosekun were surprised by the investments being suggested by these influencers.
“They almost never suggest distinctions as to what is ethical to invest in or not,” explains Dr Dosekun. “You would expect they would suggest investing in women-owned businesses, for instance, and in ethical and socially conscious enterprises as part and parcel of feminist politics. But instead, it's just pragmatics. It's just invest in what pays best.”
As the authors suggest, this approach could lead to many investing in areas such as arms manufacturing, war and ecological destruction. They note this approach to feminism is very much at odds with concerns about social justice and intersectionality (the idea that different kinds of social oppressions intersect and compound one another, and that feminism should be concerned with them all).
“The awareness around intersectional thinking seems to have fallen to the wayside in a way that’s out of keeping with other forms of popular feminism,” says Dr O’Neill, rationalising that this might be something to do with financialised capitalism specifically.
“Its workings are so opaque and people understand so little about how financial markets really work, it's almost just completely invisible – and so the fact that money is going to be made at other people’s expense is less visible here than it might be in another context,” she says.
The whole idea of the 'girl boss' is actually overblown, unrealistic and even gaslighting, in a sense.
Dr Rachel O'Neill
What is feminism and who is it for?
“The leads us to the age-old question of what is feminism anyway? What should feminism be and who is it for?” asks Dr Dosekun.
“What we see in financial feminisms – although not unique to them – is feminism constructed and promoted as very much an individual project that is about individual women's advancement and progress. There isn't any idea about collectivity. There might be a certain collectivity around the generating and sharing of financial knowledge and maybe a sense of community around that. But ultimately, the advice is about everybody's individual pot of money.”
Dr Dosekun acknowledges that one influencer describes herself as ‘‘anti-capitalist’’ but reasons that, as we live in a capitalist society, that requires pragmatism. “This influencer suggests in a sense that we’ll fight capitalism later, when we’re financially secure, but that’s just a complete contradiction in terms, because she's inviting people to invest financially but also psychologically and emotionally and so on in the system. The idea that as they do better, they're going to want to then bite the hand that feeds them is completely counterintuitive. It is very highly unlikely.”
The rise of financial feminism has revealed a deep contradiction at its heart: a promise of independence and financial freedom that asks women to navigate – and buy into – the very financial systems that produce gross inequality and exploitation in the world.
What emerges is not a collective feminist politics, but a hyper‑individualised project. As Dr Dosekun and Dr O’Neill suggest, until this form of feminism wrestles with its entanglement in capitalism, it will continue to frame women’s economic security as a private responsibility rather than a structural one – and community will remain secondary to the quest for personal financial gain.
Dr Simidele Dosekun and Dr Rachel O’Neill were speaking to Charlotte Kelloway, Media Relations Manager at LSE.
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