The Money Myths They Taught Women — Part 2 of 6
Think about the last time someone asked you how much you make.
Did you answer? Did you deflect? Did you feel a flash of discomfort so automatic you barely registered it before you changed the subject?
Most women do. And most women have been doing it their entire lives — deflecting, downplaying, staying quiet about salary, savings, debt, investments, and financial struggles. Not because they don’t care about money. But because somewhere along the way, they learned that talking about it wasn’t something women did.
That lesson has a cost. And it is one of the most expensive lessons women are still paying for today.
Where the Silence Came From
Money silence in women didn’t happen by accident. Like most financial disadvantages women face, it was cultivated — taught through culture, manners, and the quiet enforcement of gender roles over generations.
Girls were taught that asking about money was rude. That discussing salary was tacky. That talking about what you earn, what you owe, or what you’re worth was somehow unfeminine — too aggressive, too ambitious, too much.
Boys, meanwhile, grew up in a culture where money conversations were normalized. Salaries were discussed. Investments were compared. Financial wins were celebrated openly. The playing field was never level — and the silence gap is a significant part of why.
There is also the shame dimension. Women are more likely to internalize financial struggles as personal failures rather than systemic ones. Debt feels like a character flaw. Paycheck-to-paycheck living feels like evidence of inadequacy. And when something feels shameful, we don’t talk about it — which means we never find out that the woman next to us is going through exactly the same thing, and that it isn’t our fault.
What Money Silence Actually Costs
Let’s be specific, because this is not abstract.
It costs you in salary negotiations. Research consistently shows that women who don’t discuss salaries with peers are more likely to be underpaid without knowing it. When women share what they earn with each other, pay gaps get exposed. Employers know this — which is why pay secrecy culture has historically been enforced most aggressively in industries where women are underpaid.
A single successful salary negotiation — made possible because a colleague told you what the role actually pays — can mean $5,000 to $15,000 more per year. Over a 20-year career, with investing, that gap is worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.
It costs you in financial decisions. When women don’t talk about money, they make financial decisions in isolation. They don’t know which brokerage their friend uses. They don’t know that someone they respect has been investing in index funds for five years and it’s working. They don’t get the tip about the Roth IRA contribution deadline. They miss the information that would have helped them decide faster and better.
It costs you in relationships. Financial incompatibility is one of the leading causes of divorce — and it often develops in couples who never talked honestly about money before committing to each other. The discomfort around money conversations that women carry into relationships means hard conversations get delayed until they become crises.
It costs you in confidence. When you never talk about money, you never normalize the act of engaging with it. The silence reinforces the idea that money is a foreign, complicated, intimidating subject — and that avoidance is safer than engagement. Confidence with money, like confidence in any area, is built through practice. Silence is the opposite of practice.
It costs you in community. The women who build real wealth almost universally credit the women around them — the friend who pushed them to open an investment account, the colleague who mentioned they were maxing their Roth, the sister who said “actually, I went through that too, here’s what helped.” That community only forms when women talk. Silence isolates. Conversation compounds.
The Sisterhood Tax
There is a concept I think about often: the sisterhood tax.
Every time a woman stays quiet about her salary, another woman in that company is underpaid without knowing it. Every time we avoid the money conversation with our daughters, we pass the silence — and the disadvantage — to the next generation. Every time we change the subject when money comes up with our friends, we miss an opportunity to close the knowledge gap together.
The sisterhood tax is the collective cost of individual silence. And it is enormous.
This is not about blame — we were all taught the same rules. But understanding the cost is what makes it worth breaking them.
Why It Feels So Hard
Even when women intellectually understand that talking about money is beneficial, doing it still feels uncomfortable. That discomfort is real and worth acknowledging.
Some of it is conditioning — the automatic response that says this is impolite, this is too personal, this is showing off or complaining depending on which direction the conversation goes.
Some of it is vulnerability. Talking about money means potentially revealing struggle, or success, and both feel risky in different ways. Struggle invites judgment. Success invites resentment. The safe middle ground has always been silence.
Some of it is simply not knowing how. We were never given scripts for these conversations. We don’t know how to start them, how to share without oversharing, how to ask without prying.
All of that is fixable. It starts with one conversation.
How to Start Talking About Money
You don’t need to announce your net worth at brunch. Money conversations can start small and still be transformative.
Start with a question, not a disclosure. “Are you happy with your brokerage?” is an easier opener than “here’s what I have invested.” Questions invite the other person in without putting you on the spot first.
Use content as a bridge. Sharing an article, a podcast episode, or a post about money gives you a low-stakes way to open the topic. “I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately — have you ever dealt with this?” is a natural, non-threatening entry point.
Normalize the struggle, not just the success. Money conversations don’t have to be about wins. “I’m trying to figure out how to start investing but I keep getting overwhelmed — have you been there?” is just as powerful as sharing a financial win. Vulnerability invites vulnerability.
Talk to your daughters, nieces, and younger women in your life. Break the generational chain. The single most impactful money conversation many women ever have is the one their mother or mentor had with them that nobody had ever had before. Be that person for someone.
Find your money people. Not everyone will be comfortable with this — and that’s okay. But there are women in your life who are quietly figuring out the same things you are. Find them. Start a group chat. Share what you learn. Build the community the financial industry never built for you.
A Note on Sharing What You Know
Here at Investment Babe, this is what we’re doing — out loud, every week.
Because financial education is not a competitive advantage to be hoarded. It is a resource that multiplies when it is shared. The more women who understand how to build wealth, the stronger the collective position of women becomes. That is not idealism. That is math.
The silence ends when we decide it does. And it can end today, in the smallest conversation, with the woman sitting next to you.
Read the Full Series:
- Part 1: Women Aren’t Bad With Money. They Were Just Never Taught.
- Part 2: Why Women Don’t Talk About Money — And What It’s Costing Us ← You are here
Want to start building your financial foundation right now? Grab the free From Zero to Investor guide — everything you need to get started, in plain English.
This post is for educational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice. Please consult a qualified financial professional for advice specific to your situation.
