At times, it takes me a while to speak up. I blame my mom. For whatever reason, she memorized an Omar Khayyám poem and taught it to me at a very young age. I knew all about the idea of being unable to cross out a line after its been written, no matter how many tears are shed. As much as I’ve kept that sentiment in mind all these years, I’ve also been gifted with another piece of advice, this time from my father: “Don’t take shit from anyone.”
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I’d like to say there was a dramatic tipping point in which my father’s words finally drowned out my mother’s. But honestly, that tired troupe of the financial damsel in distress is passed around the internet on any day that ends in Y. So it wasn’t that.
Maybe it was my birthday. Or maybe it was just time. But for whatever reason, I finally put pen to paper finger to keyboard and wrote the words that had been rattling around in my mind for months. Maybe longer. The mentors I admire, the bloggers I read, the followers on social media who have become very real friends, well, that post was as much theirs as it was mine. I was very much writing on the shoulder of giants. Still, I didn’t realize how loudly it would echo.
Now I realize that there was one hole in the piece. The call to action was loud. So loud, in fact, that The Financial Diet turned it into a pull quote. (I know. I’m not even dying. I’m dead dead dead.) In it, I implored men to invite women into conversations. I later requested that women use their own platforms to uplift other women and scale back on the likes of Dave Ramsey and Tony Robbins. They don’t need anymore of the publicity or our dollars.
But I failed to do what matters most. I didn’t call myself to action. I’m exempt from the first request in my piece by the sheer fact that I am not a dude. As for the second part, well, let’s just say you won’t find me quoting either of Those Experts Who Shall Not Be Named on social media. So I completely let myself off the hook, which defeats the point of a personal finance blog.
Both by profession and by hobby, I know that words are powerful. While I like to hope that my post might make even one person reconsider their words or alter their actions, I am not so naive to think that there are really any words or actions that I can control other than my own. Which is why it is so problematic that I left out that piece.
Though I pride myself on still commenting on and sharing as many blog posts as I can get my tired eyes on these days, I, too, have fallen short when it comes to amplifying other voices to the best of my ability. Even though I know better.
Professionally, I have always looked for small ways to recognize coworkers. But until this school year, I never did anything beyond the scope of the building in which I worked. When I came back from my maternity leave this fall, though, I realized what a remarkably selfish thing I was doing by not lifting up others. So I worked with a coworker to nominate another coworker for an award at the district level.
She is a coworker, a mentor, a veteran teacher who is my senior and yet even more in-touch with best practices and popular culture than I am. I can’t nominate her into a raise. But I could show her my gratitude and let her know that her hard work hasn’t gone unappreciated. The look on her face when we read a brief excerpt from the nomination form at a staff meeting was worth its weight in gold. Not just for her, but for me as well. To put it simply, having my gratitude received so warmly was a greater gift to me than what I gave her.
And yet, I never made the connection that one of the easiest ways to start the slow process of change in the money world is exactly the same. Sure, I have made gestures before. From open invitations to guest post to doing various round-ups and shout outs. But those are akin to the type of in-house recognition I was doing in my professional life.
I’m ready to do more. I’m ready to be louder. In addition to promoting resources like Women Who Money and Women’s Money Talk, I am going to push voices that need to be heard into as many spheres as I can. I will submit them to Rockstar Finance, I will submit them to Camp FIRE Finance, and I will submit them to any other forum I can find. (Heck, maybe I’ll even really give Facebook a go this summer.) I will nominate blogs and individuals for the Plutus Awards. I will do as much as I can with my own platform to raise up the voices of those women and yes, those men, too—all of whom I have come to call some of my closest friends.
So Tell Me…Can you think of other platforms or forums or mediums that I (or anyone) can use to shine a light on all the awesome-sauce that needs to be seen and heard and read?
Love this! We’d love more submissions to Women Who Money (and actually now to the other site we had planned – Women’s Money Talk!) That’s where we will be sharing women’s posts and having the directories link and money blog feed! It is really hard to read through all the posts each week. Have a great one? Share it with us! We’ll pass it along too! Thanks for all you do, Penny! SO happy to call you my friend!
I am updating this with Women’s Money Talk RIGHT NOW!
Penny, you are an amazing person! And also way too hard on yourself. But I love this vow and I promise to do the same. It’s so important to support one another and it speaks volumes of how amazing this community is given that I’ve been able to find half of the bloggers (now friends) that I have.
You have knocked so much out of the park, lately. We are not worthy!
Amazing? Maybe. Hard on myself? Duh!
But really, this week has been so eyeopening. If I see a problem, I have to work to fix it, right? Thanks for all of your encouragement and friendship and strength, Alyssa <3
Penny, you’re awesome-sauce. You should give yourself a little more credit for the work you’ve put into bolstering female voices in the personal finance community. Its one of the reasons I love your blog!
One other way to bolster other blogs would be to create a page on your site with your favourite ones? Like a permanent directory? One of my favourite simple living bloggers has one on her site and I’m thinking of doing one up for mine. Its a small way to pay homage to other bloggers.
I love that idea, Britt! My only problem is what I faced when I tried to do #FollowFriday last week. I tried to send a shoutout to the 406 people I follow. And I ran out of Friday by person 48. So I guess I live in fear of leaving people off!
I don’t know very much about the mechanics of blogging or working with computer programs/algorithms (?) but couldn’t you start with person 49 the following Friday? And maybe do 20 or 25 per Friday instead of trying to work your way through the whole list?
Ha! It’s not the mechanics of blogging or algorithms. You give me FAR too much credit. It’s my brain that’s the problem! 😉 I type all my tweets manually. Just imagine that monkey-at-a-keyboard GIF. And you’re absolutely right. Pacing myself is the way to go! 🙂
Oh! Sweetheart! I use what my husband refers to as the “hunt and peck” method of typing, lol! I don’t know how to post a link to something and was excited to the point of tears the first time that I managed to send an email to someone…..and that wasn’t so very long ago! But, yes Dearest, pace yourself. It doesn’t have to all be done NOW. I know that when I have an epiphany of some kind, I feel like I have to act on it and do all the things IMMEDIATELY. But your shout outs will be more thoughtful, deep and meaningful if you don’t rush through one to get to the next one, yes?
I absolutely love the leadership/imitative you are taking with helping others get recognized! Using your blog as a platform to lift others is wonderful, and I definitely need to take a tip from you in doing the same on mine.
Unfortunately I don’t know of any other platforms, other than the ones you have already mentioned. I have heard that reddit does have a pretty good forum for personal finance, but I have never quite dived into that arena yet.
Keep up the inspirational work!
Thank you, Sean! Reddit scares the bejeezus out of me, but if I can brave the waters of Facebook and essential oils, I can probably handle Reddit, right?!
Do you have any female personal finance podcast recommendations? I’d love to listen if one exists. Thanks for your sharing and writing!
DO I EVER! Women Who Money put together a whole directory: https://womenwhomoney.com/female-personal-finance-podcasts/
I applaud you for bringing this topic to light and then doing something about it. There are definitely voices that need to be heard more in personal finance, including women, people of color, and those in the LGBTQ community.
You’ve listed some great ways to help amplify those voices. Another way is nominating someone for one of the personal finance blogger awards at the WFL Project (https://www.wefindlenders.com/blog/).
Thanks for all you do!
Have you thought about doing interviews on personal finance podcasts as a platform? I’m sure that they would be more than happy to let you recognize that coolness of other people, blogs and groups that needs to be heard.
So great of you for taking the initiative to helping more people in the PF community be recognized. It’s so awesome to be part of this community and many should be recognized more.
I must tell you how ardently I admire you, Penny! Every day you work on making the world better and it is great to be your friend.
I’ll say it again, you Rock! Many, thanks for all you do!