What is holding women back when it comes to financial empowerment? - Women's Agenda

What is holding women back when it comes to financial empowerment?

When it comes to women’s empowerment, ‘money’ can still feel like a dirty word, as though there is something about financial independence that is still frowned upon, according to Dream Collective founder Sarah Liu. 

That’s exactly why The Dream Collective has organised a conference to give young, ambitious, professional women the tools they need to take control of their wealth. It aims to remove the barriers to financial independence created by the persistent negative connotations surrounding discussions of finance.

The Dream Collective is a network for professional women under the age of 35, that helps ambitious young women build their careers early on. The Collective’s next event, Think and Grow Rich aims to complement this career development by encouraging young women to start building wealth and learning how to manage their finances.

The conference will feature Australia’s third richest person under 40, Ruslan Kogan, founder of Kogan.com and MilanDirect. Joining him will be Melissa Browne, author of More money for shoes and SMH money columnist. The two financial experts will talk to young women about the tools they need to better manage their money, as well as the mindset they need to adopt in order to become rich, and stay rich.

The conference will focus on seven fundamental principles of acquiring and maintaining wealth: Desire, purpose, planning, sacrifice, visualisation, knowledge and persistence.

Dream Collective founder Sarah Liu spoke to Women’s Agenda about what young women can expect to learn from the conference.

“The insights we consistently get from young women aged 25-35 is that they need stronger financial literacy and better skills to manage their money,” Liu said.

“Money is still a bit of a dirty word for women. We happily talk about our fitness regimes and our career plans but we never talk about money. Verbalising financial goals is still frowned upon for women,” Liu said.

“As women are so used to giving and giving and giving. We are not used to thinking about what we can have for ourselves. We are not used to identifying our financial goals and then chasing them.”

Liu stressed that becoming financially empowered takes more than just knowing how to do it; it also requires an attitude shift.

“Financial literacy is crucial, but courage and a positive attitude are equally important. We need to change the way we think about money, because the reality is that financial success is integral to overall success,” she said.

Liu said the need for a new attitude to women and money is demonstrated by the persistent financial inequalities women face throughout their lifetime.

“Women hold less than 2% of the world’s wealth, and that desperately needs to change. Women still retire with 20% less super than men,” Liu said.

“Seeing statistics like that is incredibly confronting, and tackling them requires a total overhaul in terms of mindset.”

Liu said the two speakers, Kogan and Browne, will each address the two skills the conference aims to empower young women with – the mindset required to be financially empowered as well as the tools required to build and maintain wealth.

“Ruslan Kogan has been able to accelerate, build and maintain his own wealth and I want the young women at the conference to experience that mindset and perspective,” Liu said.

“Kogan also shows that you don’t have to be born with a silver spoon to achieve financial success, you can get rich from humble beginnings – as long as you have the right mindset. Kogan will explain exactly how to achieve that mindset.”

Liu said Browne’s presentation would focus more on the tools women can use to accelerate their wealth once their mindset has been adjusted.

“Browne has a huge wealth of knowledge on money matters and she knows what you need to do to achieve financial success. She can give us the tools and technologies that she knows are effective from her many years of experience,” Liu said.

“If I were to categorise the purpose of each speaker, I would say that Kogan is more about empowerment and letting us know what is possible, and Browne is more about equipment and showing us specifically how to achieve our goals.”

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