Women are incapable of strategizing

In the spirit of International Women’s Day on March 8^th, I wanted to share a story about how I discovered my place in society.

When I was growing up, it wasn’t uncommon for my family to invite people over after church. Guests would come over to our house for a bite to eat and would sit and chat about the service, religion in general or politics.

One time my mom invited a guy that was new to church for cinnamon rolls. Let’s call him Michael.  Michael was older, maybe in his early twenties which kind of intimidated me since I was in middle school.

Middle school was the worst, wasn’t it? At the end of 6^th grade I felt confident, smart and liked but then middle school suddenly replaced those feelings with their opposites, plus acne…so much acne…

But back to Michael.

Michael, my mom and I were sitting at the jungle green breakfast bar that my dad built himself. We were sitting in our orange vinyl swivel chairs which had sharp cracks on the sides from repeated use by the butts of my many brothers and our random guests.

We were talking about the bible story where Lot’s wife looks back as they fled from Sodom and is turned into a pillar of salt.

I don’t remember exactly how it came up, but we started talking about other women in the bible and Michael at one point confidently said:

“Women are incapable of strategizing.”

I chuckled towards my half eaten boxed-cake-mix cinnamon roll and then turned to look at him.

Turns out, he wasn’t smiling, and he wasn’t joking.

At first, I had no words to say…just sat quietly trying to come up with something intelligent to say. My mom had no retort either.

Is that true?

He went on to claim that women lack the part of the brain that is used for strategizing and that this is part of the reason that women are inferior to men.

Up until this point, I had never felt inferior to my three brothers while having discussions, solving problems or playing games. Then I finally thought of a reply.

Are you familiar with the game Risk? It’s a strategy board game of diplomacy, conflict and conquest that creates irreconcilable fights in homes across the globe. The board depicts a political map of the earth and each player controls an army that they use to try to dominate the continents. Much like the conversation we were having, it’s long, drawn out and only one person is happy by the end.

“Well,” I told him confidently, “I’ve beaten my brothers at Risk, THE game of strategy, many times.”  Being able to strategize while playing a game isn’t an excellent real-life example of strategy skills but it must prove something.

He clapped back saying that since dice are involved, I must have won based on luck and continued to “educate” us on both our physical and mental shortcomings.

I was aware that sexism existed, but I had never faced such blatant sexism.

I could feel my neck turning from its usual pasty white to a vibrant red.  That moment, is the moment I became a feminist. “Feminism” simply means “the advocacy of women’s rights on the basis of the equality of sexes.”  I believed that I was equal to my brothers and other men, or at least I wanted to be considered equal. Sure, we have our differences, but it seemed unlikely that women lacked such a basic and important function as the ability to create and execute strategies.

The impression I got was that Michael wanted to believe that women are inferior because that made him superior.  That’s understandable isn’t it? Everyone wants to feel powerful. Believing that your ownership of a dick makes you better than 50% of the people around you must be a real ego builder. I’m sure I argued the case for my gender poorly and I’m also sure his mind wouldn’t have been changed had I argued it expertly.

Now that I’ve spent 20+ years crafting my counterargument, I hope you don’t mind if I woman-splain for a moment:

*Definition of strategy: A plan of action or policy designed to achieve a major or overall aim.

*The prefrontal cortex is the part of the brain that is implicated in a variety of complex behaviors, including planning. And women do in fact have…prefrontal cortexes.

You know what requires strategizing? …

Setting financial goals and creating a budget that will support those goals.

I’ve been doing that for years and know many women who excel at crafting a strategy for their financial growth.

I apologize for telling you a frustrating story with a frustrating ending but that is kind of the point. We may not be able to change how the world views us, but we just shouldn’t let that affect our opinions of ourselves or let those views define what we are capable of.

These are the kind of opinions that can leak into our self-identity and cause us to believe we are somehow unworthy.

Many of us are told, indirectly or sometimes even directly, that….

The man is the one that manages the money.

Or

The man earns the money and the woman is supposed to stay home.

Or

A woman’s place is in the kitchen, not the checkbook.

May I just share reminders for both of us…

Budgeting is for me and budgeting is for you.

Managing money is for me and managing money is for you.

Investing is for me and investing is for you.

Strategizing is for me and strategizing is for you.

Take my word for it, one capable woman to another.