The Extra Cost of Being a Woman, with Marisa Bate
The Extra Cost of Being a Woman with Marisa Bate
💸 Do you find yourself worried about personal safety and economic security? Are you frustrated by the inequalities women still face in 2023? Do you find yourself increasingly fed up with the patriarchy?
Well, you’re not alone. One in six UK women will experience economic abuse, which exists in 95% of domestic abuse cases. These stats have worsened due to the aftermath of the pandemic and the cost of living crisis. While the world celebrates International Women’s Day #IWD, we question whether there’s all that much to celebrate at all – given the terrible state of affairs when it comes to everything from the gender pay gap to violence against women.
On today’s episode, we speak to Marisa Bate – a freelance journalist, author and regular commentator on feminist issues about the extra cost of being a woman, the importance of women taking charge of their finances, structural inequalities and more.
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“It feels like we’re literally buying our way and our acceptance into society.”
the pink tax women pay
A lot of products are targeted at women to spend on themselves in a way that is not targeted at men, and it is relentless. It’s also not new - the tampon tax has been around for a while.
A pair of women's Levi's costs more than a pair of men's Levi's and yet women are paid less. Women have less savings, less opportunities to make as much money, are excluded from the workforce more than men and so have less opportunities.
There are also the endless gaps from the pension gap, the pay gap, and more. There is absolutely a tax on being a woman and there is a cost, a very real kind of economic cost that women are expected to pay.
It often feels like women are literally buying their way, buying their acceptance into society.
The tax is, essentially, women’s existence and their participation in society. Then, there is a lot of pressure - to look a certain way, keep your body a certain way. There's a pressure to be a certain type of woman.
Women pay more but have less — it is so tied up in how society values women.
A lot of women feel the pressure to at least respond to the question, ‘are you having kids’? Whether they choose to or not, there's still an expectation to receive an answer. And if you choose to, that pressure can be very loud, especially on social media.
Women are also turning increasingly towards freezing their eggs, so there's that end of a huge amount of money that goes with it. What you're starting to see is that society is putting this pressure on women, that only someone will be able to access the solutions to getting the family that they perhaps want.
The flip side to that is then childcare. Women are choosing not to have children right now, or not to having any more children because we have some of the most expensive childcare in the world in this country, and that doesn't look set to change anytime soon.
We have expensive childcare and typically not brilliant childcare and caring in all its forms is still seen as a woman's domain. It's a very feminised profession. The majority of the workforce is women, and because of that it's completely undervalued.
The women in the middle who perhaps are paying for childcare and are working, they are usually completely exhausted and overstretched.
THE MOTHERHOOD PENALTY
A lot of women feel that choice has been robbed from them — some stay at home after having a child out of choice, but too many women don’t end up returning to the workforce simply because of unaffordable childcare.
When it comes to strikes and schools closing in the middle of the week, leaving parents unable to get to work, it’s typically the mother who is expected to stay home. The mother is probably working, on average, less hours than her partner because he probably earns more because there’s gender pay gap and it's entrenched.
Having children really highlights exactly who earns what and how these systems work.
Women have been talking about this for decades. Nothing that anyone's asking for is new. It's just that things have been compounded.
Now we have problems with housing costs the cost of living to contend with and what that will mean for rents and mortgages. If you were just about managing your childcare bill, just about saving up for freezing your eggs or managing as a single woman paying rent in London in a flat on your own, you haven't got any room left.
The problems that come up in society are manifested in a very gendered way, but we never have a gendered response. The problem is never addressed as it should be.
90% of single parents are single mothers, and a lot of single parents are on universal credit. They are trapped in this kind of space of not being able to afford childcare, so therefore they can't work and therefore they're reliant on benefits, which causes a stigma.
Single parents are penalised and expected to be superhuman. There is also a kind of classist snobbery toward single mothers. The law still believes that the presence of a father is better than no presence, even if that father is violent or abusive.
are we asking too much of women?
If you are a woman with disabilities, if you are a woman of colour, if you are a woman living in poverty, if you are a young mother, there are groups that fill these things more acutely than other women.
We’re not even addressing the tip of the iceberg. Women pay this cost of being a woman. And yet, women are not as informed economically. Often, women don't have the same knowledge as men.
Women are purposely kept in the dark about how we can be smart with our money. And women are often told that money is not ‘a woman thing’.
It boils down to women being told that we have to earn more, save more for your pension start investing - but how do you even start these things in the first place?
Women live longer than men so we also have to think more about the long-term.
The gender pay gap is going to have a lot of other issues rather than not only on women’s savings, but also having a lower credit score, because maybe you're struggling with your repayments, and that's going to have an impact on how much money you can borrow, the interest rates you can get — loan rejections are often linked to lower credit scores.
Historically, women have been told money is not their forte, this is not their landscape, because money is power and that's not something that women have been granted.
That’s why it’s important to have these conversations again and again and understanding you're not on your own and that you can start making changes for yourself and for those around you on a micro level. These things really compound over time, and it’s all about taking those small actions.
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