Latest / The Dr. Psych Mom Show with clinical psychologist Dr. Samantha Rodman Whiten / Why Women Can Be Scared Of Making More Money

Transcript

Why Women Can Be Scared Of Making More Money · The Dr. Psych Mom Show with clinical psychologist Dr. Samantha Rodman Whiten

• 0:05
  Hi guys, and welcome to the doctor.
• 0:07
  Psych mom show today, I'm going to be talking about why
• 0:12
  sometimes women do not make as much money as they are able to.
• 0:18
  And there are a lot of reasons for this and I'm not going to
• 0:21
  really get into. You know, the abstract social
• 0:26
  reasons for this, I'm getting into the psychological reasons
• 0:29
  that I see day-to-day so there is obviously difference between
• 0:34
  the sociological To go lens and the psychological lens.
• 0:37
  And we are going to be speaking to the psychological lens and
• 0:40
  things that I see in my client. So, the first reason that women
• 0:45
  sometimes have trouble making money as much as they would want
• 0:50
  to is because they are scared of money and they're scared of
• 0:55
  finances, they're scared of dealing with money, they have
• 0:57
  been taught, or they believe that they're not good at math
• 1:03
  and that they're really not good with numbers.
• 1:04
  Numbers. And so the idea of having to
• 1:07
  deal with like, for example, the accounting side of a small
• 1:11
  business makes them very scared. Now, sure.
• 1:14
  They could hire somebody to do this but sometimes they feel
• 1:17
  like they would have no natural facility with this.
• 1:19
  So therefore, they don't want to set themselves up to fail or to
• 1:22
  not know what's going on. So it's just easier to get a
• 1:25
  paycheck from somebody else which frequently isn't as
• 1:28
  lucrative as going out on your own like in a business like
• 1:31
  mine, for example, or really any business many.
• 1:34
  This is where you're working for somebody instead of going out on
• 1:37
  your own. So another reason is that women
• 1:42
  frequently want to take off time to have kids and there are
• 1:46
  there's only so hard that you can go at work.
• 1:48
  If you think that you want to take off multiple years really,
• 1:53
  or go part time to have children.
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  So this is something that a lot of women don't even know that
• 1:59
  they will feel until they get pregnant or even until they have
• 2:03
  the baby. Where they think that everything
• 2:06
  is going to be fine. They're going to go back to work
• 2:08
  and get a nanny, but then they see the baby and they don't want
• 2:10
  to, and this is, this is a common thing and then they want
• 2:15
  to go into something that is either part time and they can't
• 2:18
  in their field or they want to take a break all together.
• 2:22
  And so this, you know, really gets into some of the
• 2:25
  evolutionary reasons. I speak a lot about Evolution,
• 2:29
  and how biology and forms psychology and informs
• 2:32
  relationships. So, Lee women, they're looking
• 2:36
  for a partner that will kind of get them through that stage of
• 2:40
  having babies. And then they don't think about
• 2:44
  later after the babies are, you know, in school, that that same
• 2:48
  partner that was very stable and that was very appealing
• 2:52
  biologically. No longer fits with them.
• 2:55
  And I've done podcasts and links about this, you know, and post
• 2:59
  about this. But that is a separate issue.
• 3:02
  Now, another issue is that frequently women Do not feel
• 3:05
  confident in asking for more money.
• 3:07
  They don't feel confident asking for raises or promotions.
• 3:11
  They often think that they are not good enough.
• 3:14
  They have imposter syndrome. They think that you know somehow
• 3:18
  somebody else's better than they are and they shouldn't really
• 3:21
  ask for more. This also manifests in even
• 3:26
  early salary, negotiations, where women are more likely to
• 3:29
  kind of take what they can get. And this isn't all women
• 3:34
  obviously. But many women feel their risk.
• 3:38
  Averse, there's higher rates of anxiety and women, they're more
• 3:41
  risk-averse. And they feel like, oh, they
• 3:43
  won't like me if I ask for more. So I'm just going to stay with
• 3:47
  what I have. And be glad that somebody
• 3:49
  offered me a job at all and later.
• 3:52
  In life, women can get more confident with these sorts of
• 3:55
  things and then they're like, oh shit, I really should have
• 3:57
  negotiated differently in this job.
• 3:59
  This job, this job I should have asked for a bonus.
• 4:01
  Etcetera. Etc.
• 4:03
  But you know as women get older. Older.
• 4:04
  They see those things, but especially when they're first
• 4:07
  starting out, they're less likely than men to ask for more
• 4:10
  money up front. Now, moving into the relational
• 4:14
  realm, Sometimes women don't want to make more money because
• 4:17
  subconsciously they don't want to Outer in their husbands and
• 4:20
  if they outer in their husbands, they feel like there's nothing
• 4:23
  going to be there in the relationship.
• 4:25
  So on some level, they feel like a big reason that they chose
• 4:29
  their partner as I alluded to before is that he was a good
• 4:33
  provider and if they A common good provider.
• 4:36
  Then they may have to look at things in the relationship that
• 4:39
  they wouldn't want to look at, for example, what else does this
• 4:42
  person bring to the table? Besides being a good provider if
• 4:45
  I can provide for myself and that those therefore good
• 4:48
  provider cancels out then? Is this really the person I want
• 4:52
  to be with and that leads to, you know, some tough questions
• 4:56
  internally that a lot of people don't want to deal with, you
• 4:59
  know. Particularly if they have
• 5:00
  children with somebody, it's easier to stick in the same old
• 5:03
  Dynamic. Where Are you are grateful and
• 5:05
  appreciative for the paycheck that somebody brings home
• 5:08
  because you couldn't do it. Otherwise, and it allows you
• 5:11
  various flexibilities and security, then to take that on
• 5:15
  yourself and then to wonder kind of what else is there in the
• 5:19
  relationship. And now another reason that
• 5:23
  women are in some ways scared and making money is they don't
• 5:27
  like the boss roll. So if a woman is a people
• 5:31
  pleaser and has been raised to be a good girl by her family.
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  It's not offend anybody then being a boss or CEO or managing
• 5:39
  people, especially if you have nobody above you.
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  If you manage people, then somebody's above you, you can
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  always kind of say, well that's what they're telling me to say
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  in a sense. The my boss is making me do this
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  to you, but if you're the top dog, then you are the one who's
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  coming up with any sorts of rules restrictions and and
• 5:57
  policies. That others may not.
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  Like if this has been something that's hard for you to have
• 6:03
  people, not like you, So then you can see how this would
• 6:06
  manifest and really be a sticking point.
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  That makes women subconsciously, not go for the highest highest
• 6:14
  head, boss job. Now, in some cases, the women's
• 6:19
  husbands by the way, just going back to the other one.
• 6:22
  Sometimes women do not like to make money so they don't want to
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  rock the boat and be the provider when that was their
• 6:27
  husband's role. Sometimes their husbands are
• 6:29
  just really not supportive of it because they kind of implicitly
• 6:33
  understand. At the whole dynamic will shift
• 6:36
  if their wives were to out-earn them.
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  This is certainly not all men and I speak to this in a podcast
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  that says, it's not true. That men don't like
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  high-achieving or high earning women.
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  Most men do. But some men that are very
• 6:49
  insecure about themselves and or the relationship or really
• 6:54
  picking up on a deep ambivalence in their wives about them.
• 6:58
  They necessarily honestly, they want to keep the status quo
• 7:01
  because on some level, they fear the Leti, which is that their
• 7:06
  wives are not with them because of much else than their ability
• 7:10
  to be stable and to provide a paycheck in this case.
• 7:14
  Yeah, they're really not going to want the status quo to shift
• 7:17
  because it's pretty dangerous because then the woman could
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  leave and of course there's other men that are just
• 7:22
  narcissistic and want to be the top dog just as there are women
• 7:26
  that are narcissistic but overall when we look at gender
• 7:31
  roles, the more classic one is for the Male to provide.
• 7:35
  So if a male feels that he cannot and that she's not going
• 7:39
  to even value that anymore because she's making her own
• 7:42
  money, then he may feel more insecure.
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  This could again, either be due to his own levels of insecurity
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  as a person or picking up on something real, about the
• 7:51
  relationship, you know, and being scared that any loss of
• 7:55
  value here, is not going to really work.
• 7:59
  So another reason and this, by the way, expands on a post that
• 8:04
  I wrote about six reasons, that women are scared of making
• 8:06
  money. I think I came up with more than
• 8:07
  that just talking but another one, you know, that I don't
• 8:13
  cover is that really frequently. Women have different kinds of
• 8:18
  values than just making money and they want to provide some
• 8:23
  sort of service to other humans in the world.
• 8:26
  And this is why women go into caretaker occupations.
• 8:29
  Often and teaching occupations, and those are low-paid.
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  It is there's flexibility of hours that they could take care
• 8:35
  of their own family, which is very frequently, a major value.
• 8:40
  But there's also the idea of taking care of others as a major
• 8:43
  value versus making money, this could be different
• 8:46
  socialization. This could be an eight different
• 8:48
  caretaking desires. So either way, you know, working
• 8:53
  at kindergarten is not going to be as highly paid obviously as
• 8:58
  being an investment banker so everybody knows that.
• 9:01
  But there are various reasons that women gravitate to certain
• 9:05
  occupations and a lot of times those are caretaking occupations
• 9:09
  because that feels to them like they are giving back to the
• 9:12
  world and that they are being a good person.
• 9:14
  Whereas men frequently do not think that is incompatible being
• 9:18
  a good person and making money. So they could say I'll make a
• 9:23
  lot of money and finance and I'll be a philanthropist and
• 9:26
  really net-net they're probably More people write that the
• 9:30
  person who just, you know, stays home with their own kids.
• 9:34
  Not that that isn't helping people, but if you look at it
• 9:37
  really numerically, if you give a million dollars to a
• 9:41
  nonprofit, that helps kids your help in a lot of kids.
• 9:45
  So, you know, there's no one, right?
• 9:47
  Or wrong way to think about. This is my point.
• 9:50
  It's just that from what I see obviously and from what you guys
• 9:53
  see, I'm sure women and men manifest the desire to be a good
• 9:57
  person very differently. Lee and that seeps into their
• 10:01
  occupation and their choice of what what to devote their life
• 10:06
  to. So if this stuff resonates with
• 10:09
  you and you are a woman who is really could use some more money
• 10:13
  and knows that they have the intellectual and the physical
• 10:17
  kind of capacity and stamina for more work and would find a
• 10:21
  challenging. But you feel like one or many of
• 10:24
  these reasons are stopping. You are holding you back then,
• 10:27
  therapy can be very Useful in kind of elucidating and
• 10:32
  clarifying what your unique issues are and your ambivalence
• 10:38
  about going more, Full Throttle in.
• 10:41
  Either the career you're in or a different one.
• 10:44
  If you are really torn between the idea of making more money or
• 10:49
  more working more hours and how you could still be, for example,
• 10:53
  a good parent, a good partner, what it would do to your
• 10:56
  marriage, what you would internally Feel in terms of
• 10:59
  anxiety, every day, if you had more on your plate and you were
• 11:03
  in charge of more people, you know, therapy can really be
• 11:06
  useful with clarifying. A lot of these issues situating
• 11:11
  them in your earlier life and your earlier learning about the
• 11:15
  world. So like obviously if you grew up
• 11:17
  with let's say a stay-at-home mom that was very scared and
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  overwhelmed. Whenever her routine changed,
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  it's going to be hard for you to be a CEO.
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  It's not impossible. It's Possible.
• 11:29
  But it requires learning completely new scripts about
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  what women are competent in and what they're capable of.
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  And what the daily life of a female can look like because
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  it's going to deviate. So significantly from what you
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  saw growing up. And if you are somebody who just
• 11:50
  from listening to this understand on some level that
• 11:53
  there's a delicate balance in your marriage that you don't
• 11:56
  particularly want to tip by, By earning more then therapy can
• 12:01
  also help. You understand what's going on
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  in that relationship? Such that you feel that it is
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  very fragile and would be impacted badly by you being more
• 12:11
  successful. Sometimes that could just be
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  something that you're scared of, that isn't true.
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  Sometimes it could be true and if there are issues in your
• 12:19
  relationship that you feel are stopping you here, then it is
• 12:24
  always good to suss out what those are so that you don't end
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  up bitter and resentful. One full and one day thinking,
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  you know, I could have done something differently in my
• 12:32
  career, except that my relationship did not really
• 12:35
  allow me to and or my own preconceptions about how a
• 12:39
  relationship should work held me back.
• 12:43
  Alright, so if this spoke to you, then I am glad please reach
• 12:47
  out and let me know if you would find more podcast episodes on
• 12:52
  women and money and work more useful to you.
• 12:56
  And as always, I Except all of your suggestions and feedback.
• 13:01
  Please do subscribe. Then you have bonus episodes,
• 13:06
  and other content. And I've actually done 40.
• 13:10
  This is gonna be my forty seventh episode.
• 13:13
  Just last time I miscounted, I was doing that wrong.
• 13:15
  My husband pointed it out. So I really have done a lot more
• 13:19
  of these than I thought. So soon, I'll be at 50 and that
• 13:23
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• 13:26
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• 13:31
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• 13:35
  wonderful day. Bye guys.