[Cara Reynolds – SUM180 Community Manager]

In an open letter to Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen late last month, Ralph Nader criticized her for not raising interest rates sooner, arguing that this decision benefits Wall Street at the expense of small-time savers. Bizarrely, he then went off topic and invoked Ms. Yellen’s husband:

Chairwoman Yellen, I think you should sit down with your Nobel Prize winning husband, economist George Akerlof, who is known to be consumer-sensitive. Together, figure out what to do for tens of millions of Americans who, with more interest income, could stimulate the economy by spending toward the necessities of life.

Whether or not we agree with Nader’s analysis re interest rates, the careless sexism in his tone and language are problematic precisely because it’s so familiar. Here at SUM180, we’ve heard too often from our women clients about the patronizing attitude that they encounter from the financial services industry. Too many of them, for example, meet with a financial services professional for the first time, only to be dismissed and told to return with their husbands. Many are ignored altogether when their husbands are present. Is it any wonder that so many women have opted out of financial planning altogether?

Now, if the Chair of the Federal Reserve isn’t immune to mansplaining and condescension in her own field of expertise, what chance do average women have of receiving straightforward, condescension-free advice from the financial services industry?

No doubt about it – it’s time for a fundamental shift in how the industry views and treats women.

Ralph Nader to Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen: “I think you should sit down with your Nobel Prize winning husband.”

(Read Janet Yellen’s response to Ralph Nader’s critique on Bloomberg.com, here.)

[Stacey Daprile – Ambassador]

Cara, somehow I missed Nader’s comments to Yellen when thy happened. While I found the comments shocking, they are really not that surprising. Last week one of my friends was complaining that the man she hired to replace her floors kept emailing and deferring to her husband even though she was the one making the decisions, the one paying for the project, and her husband kept redirecting the contractor’s questions back to her. I once had a doctor share more about a medical condition I was dealing with with my husband than with me. When I confronted the doctor his reaction was one of surprise. He felt I didn’t need to be bothered with the details. Crazy!

The good news is that slowly shifts are being made. I was in Starbucks last week grading papers and a man was meeting with his financial advisor at a table near to me. While I wasn’t listening to what they were talking about, snippets of their conversation floated my way. He was clearly looking for and taking financial advice from a woman. More and larger shifts are needed, but that meeting stood out to me.

I really appreciate the community that SUM180 is building. We as women need to straightforward financial advice and we need to continue to have conversations about money and investments.