Man and Money!

Man and Money!

The Money-Less Women

Tania Kurd Mirza

A master’s degree holder in law LL.M, Constitution law, Criminal law, GBV Trainer

(“If there’s love, money has no value!”)—This is a French saying that implies when you love someone, you don’t count their money, you don’t interfere, and you don’t manage expenses and costs.

Many women have been burdened by this saying in the name of love —either placed under its weight by others or voluntarily submitting to it themselves. Some women, even after years of living together, never realized there was a problem, which later led their husbands to mistreat them, resorting to economic violence that, in extreme cases, ended in death due to poverty.

Maybe  a woman over the age of seventy finds its easier to be young women nowadays than being woman in their youth period. Women over the age of eghties find its easier to be young women then being woman in their youth period or even their mother’s gener, because currently women can work, easily obtain university degrees, secure jobs, and have their own independent income.

The modern woman, unlike the woman of past decades, knows where her rights lie, understands how to assert them, and knows how to protect herself.  Even if today’s woman has more opportunities in employment, career choice, and legal rights compared to her grandmother, this is not always the case, and even in these areas, women still face significant challenges—legal and societal obstacles that require ongoing struggle.

Being Woman has never been a burden or a problem for women in terms of life itself, nor has it been an obstacle to working, advancing to higher positions, or achieving wealth. However, the patriarchal system, from the beginning of time until today, has turned independence into a major challenge for women in life and work, keeping them confined to the home and limiting their opportunities.

The patriarchal system has cunningly created a narrative that women cannot escape or break free from her womanity, and even if they try, it labels their independence as rebellion. It imposes independence as an overwhelming burden on women, saying: “You are a woman, you cannot”; or when speaking of the future, “You will become a mother, so you shouldn’t or cannot.”

For a woman who raised in this way, yet opposed by society, systems, and laws, the only refuge where she can survive and protect herself is her home and kitchen—nothing more!

Globally, the proportion of working women is generally about 16% lower than that of men. Additionally, poverty rates among female pensioner are higher, with a striking statistic showing that 76% of female pensioner live in poverty.

The stereotype persists that money belongs to men. Men work, earn money, and a portion of that money is spent on their wives through buying daily necessities and food. 

A Man demands money because he has many needs that require it—cigarettes, alcoholic drinks, betting on horses, today’s gasoline for his car, and occasionally military expenses or satisfying his sexual desires. Why? Because he is the Man.

A Man must stay fresh and continuously buy new clothes because he works in the market and must look clean and presentable. He attends femicide session plan (this is traditional session in ignorant folks, they decide which woman should be killed) and then they attend peace or solution session (in the same folk, after killing woman, they come together to pay the family of killed woman to avoid vendetta) so must be well-dressed with clothes suited to those occasions!

Whatever his wife doesn’t need money, she eat the bread her husband brings home. She doesn’t smoke cigarettes or drink, and if she doesn’t need to buy expensive new clothes, because she is already married. If her husband desires a beautiful, attractive woman, he finds one elsewhere and finds prostitute, it means his wife doesn’t need to be beautiful clothes!

Whatever is in the kitchen, the wife cooks; whatever is in the fridge, she prepares; and after feeding her husband, she eats two pieces of bread which is left by her husband. So, why she needs the money for?

In Kurdish culture, there are sayings like “The husband means work” and “The woman and the home” or “The woman and the kitchen.” Till now, in Kurdish society and beyond, the husband remains primarily responsible for working, managing his wife’s expenses, household costs, and children’s needs—regardless of whether the wife has an income or not, works or not, or is expected to have children, she is expected to stay home, care for the family, and manage the kitchen and children.

Wealth, even today, is seen as something exclusive to men. Even if a woman works, society—and even the women around her—does not expect her to be wealthy, holding the view that money is a man’s domain.

Statistics tell us that men globally hold $105 billion more in wealth than women. This stereotype, to a greater or lesser extent, has persisted from the past to the present and has not been entirely eradicated.

Although today women are vocally demanding equality in all areas alongside men and form a significant part of the job market and workforce, they have not yet reached the level they deserve. Legally, women today have defined working hours, receive income directly into their bank accounts, and can seek legal protection in cases of exploitation or rights violations. However, they still lag behind in the job market!

From the very beginning, women have felt the injustice and unfairness in wages and rights. Since entering the job market, they have sensed oppression, but feeling oppressed is not enough for someone to loudly say “no,” nor does it mean a woman can always protect herself.

A woman worked but had no control over her earnings; she worked, but her money went to a man(husband) or multiple men(Husband, father, brother and etc.), and the normalization of this oppression became automatic.

After years of women working and participating in the job market, they began to feel wage inequality, disparities in working hours, and taxation. This led to collective protests and pressure on governments, resulting in the establishment of labor laws, defined working hours, continuous wages during illness or motherhood, health insurance, and the introduction of a new term in the study of violence: economic violence.

Yes, there have been many achievements, and today’s woman should take pride in them and feel confident in her successes. However, these achievements do not fully reflect the capabilities and potential of women.

In the past, without labor laws and due to the suppression of women, they had no right to enter the job market or access education. Today, with labor laws in place across many countries, women have rights, and economic violence against them is being addressed.

It must be emphasized that women working is not a new concept; however, work that leads to owning a bank account and controlling finances is very new. Even in a country like France, women did not have bank accounts until 1965, and it was only then that they gained the right to have independent bank accounts and control their own money and banks.

Next, just before providing a definition of economic violence against women, I will explain some examples of economic violence against girls and women, and then let the definition reveal itself.

First: Girls Receive Less Daily Allowance (Pocket Money) Than Their Brothers

In households with both sons and daughters, whether intentional or not, economic discrimination occurs. Girls receive less daily allowance than their brothers. The entity responsible for this disparity—distributing daily money unfairly between sons and daughters—is often the mother, as mothers are primarily responsible for their children’s daily needs! According to a study by the French organization “Pix Pay,” this is the case.

For example, a girl receives $10 daily, and her brother receives $10. At the end of the day, the girl has spent only $5 (girls and women tend to save part of their allowance and don’t spend it all, which is linked to women’s psychology, while the boy spends everything and asks for more). The brother has nothing left. The next day, the mother or father gives the boy the full $10 but only $5 to the girl because she didn’t spend it all the previous day. This cycle continues, and the girl faces economic violence from her parents, receiving less money. Over time, this becomes normalized and extends to her life as a wife, where she later inflicts economic violence on her own daughter-in-law.

The “Pix Pay” organization notes that between boys and girls under 18, girls receive approximately 200 euros(230$) less per month than their brothers. In Kurdish society, it’s often said, “What can I do? She spends less, she’s very smart, and she saves money.”

It is often said in Kurdish culture: "What should I do? she spends less? she is very wise and takes care of money!"

Parents should give girls more money than their brothers because girls have specific needs, such as a fixed amount for menstrual hygiene products and medical care. Due to menstruation, girls also face physical discomfort and require specialized medical attention, which costs money. As a result, a girl receives less money at home, saves less, and sometimes struggles to afford her needs. Ultimately, she becomes dependent on cheap, low-quality products, leading to health issues, infertility, and even death.

A girl faces her first instance of economic violence at home from her mother and father.

Second: Girls Are Forced to Choose Fields Labeled as “Suitable for Women” Due to Stereotypes

Girls are raised and prepared to become a husband’s wife and later a mother, meaning they must choose a field deemed “feminine” that doesn’t interfere with their homemaking duties. This upbringing frames independence as a burden in life, requiring them to align their lives and income with this role (similar to how a chronically ill person adjusts their diet to their condition). “You will be a man’s wife, so your job shouldn’t require late hours or travel; you must be available for your husband and home.” “You will be a mother; when the child needs you, you need rest, so don’t choose a man’s job.” These are examples of stereotypes imposed on girls, steering them away from “men’s fields” and training them to be women who do “women’s work.”

The first “women’s work” is accepting a lower daily wage and limited income, followed by choosing “feminine” university majors. In the best-case scenario, this happens; otherwise, before reaching that stage, they get marrying and focus solely on being a husband’s wife and mother, with their finances controlled by that husband, over whom they have no control.

Teaching is one job universally considered “feminine” across societies and planets. Today, in developing countries and third-world nations like ours, teaching—along with nursing—has become dominated by women. In many countries, 80% of teachers, nurses, and caregivers are women.

A woman becomes a teacher because society believes teaching is convenient, has holidays, allows her to stay home, and lets her return to her kitchen. Teaching isn’t seen as an obstacle to motherhood, childcare, serving her husband, or hosting guests.

A woman becomes a teacher not because society thinks she can be a good educator, but because it believes teaching suits her gender! Kindergarten teaching, social work, and counseling young children (not older or advanced ones) are jobs deemed suitable for women by patriarchal societies.

Women in these fields work less than their male counterparts, meaning they earn less monthly income and have lower overall earnings. This prevents them from saving, buying property, or investing—they merely survive!

Fewer working hours mean less money at the end of the month, increasing women’s financial dependence on men. Interestingly, in major U.S. cities like New York and Washington, D.C., the proportion of young women in the workforce exceeds that of young men. This is an exception, possibly because the age at which they start working plays a role in determining workforce participation. Women who start working earlier have a better chance of matching or exceeding men’s participation.

In the U.S., women have surpassed men in obtaining degrees. For example, in a city like New York, 60% of working women have at least a bachelor’s degree, compared to only 40% of men. Despite this, it hasn’t translated into equal wages, as women still earn less than men! University majors and fields have no inherent gender bias—neither for women, men, nor both—only knowledge across all disciplines like philosophy, history, and law, which are neutral and independent.

A woman can be a teacher, caregiver, painter, musician, driver, translator, president, politician, or journalist without considering stereotypes, menstruation, reproductive organs, or hormones when choosing a major or career.

Ultimately, forcing a choice of field or job based on gender stereotypes is sexism, which leads to economic violence due to wage disparities.

Third: Merging and Mixing Money

After experiencing two stages of economic violence—receiving less daily allowance than her brother and lower wages due to choosing designated fields—a woman enters the third stage of life, another layer of economic violence.

This stage involves merging and mixing assets with a husband, and while I’ll discuss the merging of a woman’s and husband’s money together, I also want to highlight the non-merging of a woman’s and man’s finances.

Not merging a woman’s and man’s money and finances inherently leads to economic violence, entirely to the woman’s disadvantage. It also perpetuates wage inequality, increases her poverty, lowers her standard of living, and ultimately leads to her financial ruin.

When a woman’s and man’s income isn’t merged, several reasons emerge—reasons men have cleverly exploited, while women either don’t understand why or know but remain silent.

Why don’t men merge their income with women’s?

Those men who earn more than their wives, whose monthly and annual income far exceeds theirs, avoid merging because it would mean sharing their wages equally with their wives, which they resist.

These men don’t want women to know how much they spend daily, weekly, or monthly, or what they spend it on or where. Merging a man’s money with his wife’s means giving her power over his finances and reducing his total control over his income by half, which a patriarchal man finds intolerable.

Not merging income isn’t just economic violence at one point; it also means a woman remains unaware of her husband’s income and expenses (in today’s world with bank accounts, this is nearly impossible, as it’s no longer like the past where a man receives cash and a woman knows the amount). A man owning assets or property without the woman’s knowledge (also nearly impossible due to travel freedom and a man’s ability to buy property without her knowing, or sell it and register it under someone else’s name), or a woman accessing his money without discussion—because no one can access another’s bank account, making this also nearly impossible.

Not merging money means playing with finances, spending without the woman’s knowledge, while most women contribute everything they have to their husbands, with men often controlling all of a woman’s income. This creates another layer of inequality and economic violence.

Merging Money and Economic Violence

Working women today—though not all, but a significant number—agree to a 50-50 or half-and-half split when married. A woman, like a man, contributes 50% of her monthly income, and so does he. At first glance or in the initial agreement, this seems equal and fair, but is it really?

For example, a man earns $4,000 monthly, while a woman, working less, earns $2,000. The woman contributes $1,000 (half of her income), and the man contributes $2,000 (half of his). At the end of the month, the woman is left with only $1,000, while the man has $2,000!

Due to this 50-50 split, a woman unknowingly faces another layer of economic violence, with the layers accumulating to three, forming a chain of violence that grows longer.

In third-world countries, women’s participation differs significantly from the developed world. In third-world countries, even if a woman works, she has no control over her money, while in developed countries, the focus is on the wage gap between men and women. In third-world countries, we must ask: Why is a woman independent yet penniless, and why, due to low wages and lack of income, can’t she sustain herself?

Fourth: A Man’s Income Secrecy and Buying Property Under Others’ Names

Men globally use various methods to deprive their wives—and sometimes their children—of their wealth and assets. One such method is buying property or land and registering it under someone else’s name to exclude it from their own name or that of their wife and children.

This is another form of economic violence a man inflicts on his wife and children, often leading to self-inflicted economic violence (because the person whose property is registered under someone else’s name loses control, fearing exposure, and in case of death, it becomes an inheritance for that other person; or in cases of sale or leasing, the money doesn’t reach them or is only partially received).

Men do this to prevent their wives and children from sharing half the property or inheriting it. This is economic violence, the fourth layer in the chain, where men become both perpetrators and victims of the person under whose name the property is registered. This situation often arises from the non-merging of a man’s money with his wife’s (men who hide their income from their wives are those who spend it without accountability, serving other men!).

Fifth: Motherhood as a Societal Excuse for Economic Violence Against Women (Motherhood Penalty)

The fifth layer, which society imposes on women in the chain of economic violence, is motherhood (whether biological or due to adopting a child).

A working woman who becomes a mother takes maternity leave and stays home, resulting in reduced wages. However, her share of household expenses remains the same. According to statistics, 35% of women in the U.S. lose part of their income due to motherhood. Some don’t return to work after their child’s preschool years; others return after nearly three years, switching from full-time to part-time work.

Meanwhile, men continue working as if becoming fathers has no impact, and their wages aren’t reduced. The reduction in a woman’s income due to motherhood, shorter working hours for childcare, and lost opportunities for promotion or leadership due to motherhood—combined with sexism—is economic violence, which Americans call the “motherhood penalty.”

A woman faces economic punishment because she becomes a mother, as if to say: motherhood or work! Ultimately, a child isn’t brought into the world by a woman alone. In a marriage between a man and a woman, both contribute to the child’s existence. Thus, roles shouldn’t be divided in a way that caregiving, serving, and raising the child fall entirely on the mother while the father is exempt!

Motherhood shouldn’t be turned into an economic punishment for women, depriving them of all financial rights and hindering their progress in their careers and lives, especially when the father shares equal responsibility.

Sixth: Retirement and Poverty

Women who retire often do so with lower pensions than their male counterparts of the same education and age because they worked less, often part-time due to motherhood, and took breaks from work, returning later.

In France, women’s pensions are 30-40% lower than men’s, a trend seen in many countries worldwide! Working women in retirement, due to lower pensions, must work part-time based on their capacity to fully sustain their lives.

Delivering newspapers to homes, working in bakeries or grocery stores, or tutoring children are jobs retirees with degrees take up. The poverty and wage inequality of retired women compared to men is the sixth layer of the economic violence chain—the final layer, but not the least severe, as the previous layers have accumulated over the years of a woman’s life!

As noted, economic violence isn’t just a husband (father, brother, or man) or mother giving less daily allowance to a daughter, wife, sister, or mother in the household. It’s a broader violence where, due to being a woman or mother, society and employers exclude her from wealth and ownership.

Ignoring a woman’s abilities, degrees, and experience when determining wages, and men controlling her income and finances, are forms of economic violence. Women must first recognize this and then work toward solutions.

Any exploitation of someone’s wages, income, or money by another (regardless of the name) and using that money or assets for someone else’s benefit is economic violence. Its outcomes include humiliation, suppression, investigation, poverty, exclusion from progress, and trapping the victim in a cycle of dependence and submission to the perpetrator (by the name mentioned).

Economic violence isn’t limited to working women who earn wages; it also affects women with no income, no education, and those confined to the home.

For an unemployed woman, economic violence stems from unemployment, lack of education, and exclusion from wages and income at the first level. For a working woman, lower income is violence; for an unemployed woman, the absence of income is the violence. For a teacher or nurse, being forced into specific fields is violence; for an uneducated woman, the lack of education and exclusion from learning is her economic violence. (Economic violence against unemployed women and specific job-related types is a separate topic, with another layer not extensively covered here.)

Steps toward solutions in developed countries have been partially implemented, while third-world countries need to enter this solution framework.

Solutions

•  At home, daily allowances for sons and daughters should be equal. If a girl spends less and saves, she should receive her full share the next day, and this shouldn’t be used as an excuse for disparity with her brother. Beyond daily allowances, girls should receive a specific budget for menstrual hygiene products, medical care, cosmetics, accessories, and occasionally dining out with friends, as well as a dedicated budget for books and pursuing interests like music, painting, or singing.

•  Families and governments should work to break the stereotype in girls’ and women’s choice of majors and careers, offering programs to guide them toward fields like IT, business, and others dominated by men.

•  In marriage, a woman should contribute to household expenses based on her income, not a fixed 50-50 split, as this can lead to economic violence, poverty, and health issues, including death. Yes, a woman may contribute half her income to household expenses, but this equal approach can still result in inequality compared to her husband, leading to self-inflicted economic violence and the need for protection under the guise of equality.

•  When merging finances, a woman’s income should be considered, and if a man’s income isn’t merged with hers, it should be transparent to her to reduce economic violence, even if it can’t be eliminated entirely.

•  In third-world countries, maternity leave should be renamed from “maternity leave” to “parental leave,” followed by specific legislation in parliament ensuring both mother and father receive a defined period of leave with full pay. In developed countries, this is resolved, with parental leave available to both parents (e.g., eight months with full pay for each in Sweden, four months in Spain). If these steps are taken—equal daily allowances, access to high-paying fields, full-time work, motherhood not hindering career progress, and fathers sharing parental responsibility—then at retirement, a woman’s pension won’t be lower than a man’s, and economic violence in these areas will be minimized.