Why Barbie, Greta and You Should Invest in a Better World
Why Barbie, Greta and You Should Invest in a Better World
8/17/2023 by Rickey Gard Diamond
In the U.S., there’s a growing movement for wiser, more sustainable investing that better reflects women’s values. I’m hoping Greta Gerwig—whose Barbie film surpassed the $1 billion mark—will join.
It’s time to talk about women’s economics with attitude. It’s time to laugh at what is often absurd and call out what is dangerous. By focusing on voices not typically part of mainstream man-to-man economic discourse, Women Unscrewing Screwnomics will bring you news of hopeful and practical changes and celebrate an economy waged as life—not as war.
Women have won enormous change since Carol Channing first sang “Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend” on Broadway in 1949, echoed by Marilyn Monroe in the 1953 movie Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Back then, everyone knew a gentleman’s interest would fade as your sex appeal aged. But, hey, any diamonds given for your ornamentation remained yours—essentially as payment for services rendered, and rarely talked about until Betty Friedan and the ’60s. Given the centuries that women were kept isolated in the domestic world, where her education and presumed capability peaked at grocery receipt calculations, it perhaps shouldn’t surprise us that Barbie became the meme of U.S. women’s empowerment. She’s been a fashion model, ballerina, nurse, student teacher, astronaut and has even run for president. Overlooked were real women like Mary Gage, who opened a women’s-only stock exchange to trade in railroad stocks in 1880, or Hetty Green, called “The Witch of Wall Street” for her uncanny investing skills and frugality. At least we can celebrate the even earlier Madam C.J. Walker, daughter of slaves and entrepreneur who became our first female millionaire. She was honored with her own Barbie doll in 2022.
A girl with her mother look at the window of the Zara store on Gran Vía street in Madrid with an advertising campaign for Barbie on July 22, 2023. (David Canales / SOPA Images / LightRocket via Getty Images)
We must not discount the huge economic changes since Barbie was created in 1959. Today, 73 percent of mothers with kids under 18 are working, and women are outnumbering and outperforming men at universities. One female economist, Janet Yellen, has even been appointed to head the Federal Reserve, becoming the first U.S. secretary of the treasury not to wear a tie. Yet surveys tell us that women’s insecurities about money remain. Woman’s Day magazine reported in 2018 that 52 percent of their respondents cited finances as their number one trigger for anxiety, which grew worse as they grew older. Then COVID-19 deepened women’s stress and worries. How do we connect that reality with a surprising fact that Janine Firpo, author of Activate Your Money pointed out in a recent interview with Ms.? Forty-five percent of millionaires today are female, and the number of wealthy women is growing at a faster rate than that of wealthy men.
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Firpo, an early innovator at Apple, who later worked at the World Bank and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, points out another important trend. Women tend to reject the prevailing investment mentality of winner-takes-all.
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Is it worthwhile, taking time and paying attention to where your money is taking the nation, your community and family, and our planet? Can women and their money really make a better world with their investment decisions? No doubt, there are limits. Greenwashing makes third-party verification a good idea. That’s why it matters that Better Finance, an NGO organized as “the voice of European savers and investors,” has recently launched plans to replicate Invest for Better’s Learning Circle curriculum for women investors in France, Germany, Spain and Poland.
Personally, I’m hoping Greta Gerwig, whose Barbie film has now surpassed the $1 billion mark, will join the ESG movement here in the U.S. for wiser, more sustainable investing that better reflects women’s values. As Barbie aspired to (though admittedly she wasn’t talking about ESG): “We fixed everything in the real world, so all women are happy and powerful.” Plus, there’s even a pink Barbie Deluxe Cash Register that makes cute ca-ching sounds and a touchscreen calculator that Amazon claims really works.
https://msmagazine.com/2023/08/17/greta-gerwig-invest-billion-money-womens-rights-banks-esg/