Exploring Gender Cross-Culturally: Black and Asian Women More Likely to Be In Debt

So this week, actually this moment, I am taking control of my debt. I got more than I ever thought I would ever have. My first experience with money was a passbook savings account from my mother. It had $500 in it. I spent it all within months on candy and other miscellany at 15. My mother gave me money but no context for what to do with it. All I knew was spending, not generating more income with money. Boy if I had to do it all over again.

Here I am. I have made more money than probably anyone in my family as a professor and I am still that 15 year old spending and not investing and creating new income. I might as well have a nine-to-five the way I operate around money and my job. I behave like a slave to my work instead of making work and money work for me. I have some much clout and credibility and I resign myself to be a sort of wage laborer in my mentality. And being a woman on top of that doesn't help.

I found this great TV show produced on AlJazeeraEnglish TV called Everywoman. It features excellent journalism on women around the world and fits perfectly into my theme this week on cross-cultural perspectives. This show pointed to some revealing insights.

In this episode: Men owe twice as much money as women, but women are more likely to struggle with debt and more likely to use 'sub-prime' credit - credit which is easier to access, but costs more in interest rates.

Everywoman - Women and Debt - 28 Dec 07 - Pt 1


PS. I may be offline til Monday as I am heading to DC area, Rockville to be exact for a performance at the Caribou Cafe on Norbeck Rd July 5th at 6:30 - 9:30pm. All my peeps from my hometown are coming and I am so excited! More next week.

Caribou Cafe Jul 5th 6:30 - 9:30pm
301-460-0047
5562 Norbeck Rd Rockville MD 20853
Photo credit: Gerald Peart 2007, Geefoto.com

Exploring Gender Cross-Culturally: Africa, Gender and Development

In the representations of Black America we see through media and even through our neighborhoods, patriarchy tends to dominate. Even when it is said that women run the church, the school and even the home, it is men whom tends to be seen as the head of the household. Even his absence points to this as we speak often about the impact of not having a father on the wife/female partner, sons and daughters not to mention the community from both a generational and an economic development perspective. Women are increasingly becoming the heads of households around the world and since women tend to be paid less than men but often have children, this has led to the increasing femininization of poverty. So gender and economic development should be a concern for us all.

PRIORITY AFRICA - Gender Equality


Today, I found an interesting article online by Elizabeth ANNAN - YAO titled "African Gender Research in the New Millenium" She writes:

Gender relations in patrilineal communities differ greatly from those in matrilineal communities. In the former, women tend to be totally submissive to men (their
father, brothers, husband, uncles… ) and have hardly any decision-making powers nor the freedom of speech in public. Some common examples are that women easily yield to forced marriages; they have no political attributions and cannot inherit property…

On the other hand, in matrilineal communities, although women are submissive to men, they have some decision-making powers and liberty of expression and can generally choose their own husband. They can be Queen-Mothers in the political domain and can even inherit property from their maternal uncles and their mother...

Gender relations in general, but particularly in Africa, are always patriarchal in nature ... whether in a matrilineal or a patrilineal community, or whether in the upper classes of society, men always impose themselves on women and insist on the subordinate status of women. There is therefore the need to challenge gender inequalities, gender stereotypes, biased attitudes and harmful practices against women and also all forms of discrimination against women in order to promote gender equality which is a necessary tool for development.

I know you readers out there are reading. I can see I get hits everyday. My blog gets traffic. What would really make a difference is for this blog to live in both a read and write culture. Try commenting once a week if you read once a week.

Stephen Lewis on Gender Equality and the Women of Africa. - 1 min - Sep 29, 2006

Here's a question for the day: What differences do you perceive around your gender expression or role and your relationships with the economy, finances, money, your earning power aka your job/career, power relations at work or home, and even in dating or marriage relative to money?