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Why Men Earn and Invest While Women Love Shopping?

The equality of men and women is a political or moral issue, the essential difference is a scientific and psychological one. In Spite of both human species being vastly different, nature has made them to come together to a form a family for the survival of human species. And what is marriage – in very crude and simple terms marriage is the price which men pay for sex; sex is the price which women pay for marriage. A woman wants lots of sex with the man whom she loves while a man wants lots of sex with women. Human beings are essentially animals. In fact, almost 97% of our brains are like animals, only the remaining 3% is thinking brain which differentiates humans from animals. There is the tribune brain system which was formed during the evolution of human species – oldest layer is the reptilian (non-thinking) brain, the second oldest is the mammalian (emotional) brain and the most recent is the cerebral (thinking) brain. When it comes to dealing with money – whether it is earning, saving, spending, investing or insuring – men and women behave quite differently. Its pertinent to understand the interaction and relationship between the brain systems of men and women to decipher why they behave the way they do in different spheres of life like education, relationships, love, sex, society, business, politics as well as while dealing with money, finance and investments.

Just consider the following:

  • At the time of Earning

Men will not be able to focus on his relationship or love his wife if he is unhappy with his job or business; women will not be able to properly do her job or conduct her business if she is not happy with her love life.

  • At the time of Spending

Men will not mind giving a Rs.100 note in tip to a waiter at a luxury restaurant but will fight with a taxi driver for Re.1 change. Women will happily and greedily bounce onto thousands of rupees of expensive clothes and jewelries but will nag with a road shop vegetable and fruit vendor for a ten rupee discount.

  • At the time of Investing

Men can analyze vast amount of data and make logical rational decision. Women will get confused with numbers and make a more cognitive intuitive decision.

  • At the time of Insuring

Men will insure for their wife and family even is he is not earning while she is working; women will not insure her husband even if she is working while he is unemployed.

Humans are social animals. We have been in existence for thousands of years. Its only that in the past few centuries that we are living a civilized existence but before this for thousands of years we were like wild hunting animals living in caves. Men used to go out in the wild, hunt for food and protect their wives and children from the jungle. Many men used to perish in this constant quest with the wild in the jungle life. Women used to stay within the safety of the caves and protect, nurse their children. But nature did not want human species to perish. Hence, it provided males with certain hormones like testosterone which would multiply his sex drive by several times. The reason was simple. The surviving men had to plant their seed in maximum women so that the human species was not wiped out. Women were nest bearers. They did not just require to conceive but wanted to be made pregnant by that man who would respect and protect them while also taking care of her offspring. While men needs sex with women, a woman need sex but needs sex with the right man who will protect, preserve and nurture herself and her family.

There is a great difference in the behavior of both sexes when it comes to basic things of human existence:

Thinking

Men can think only one thing at a time and greatly excel in that work. Women are very good at multi-thinking and multitasking.

Talking and Listening

Women love to talk while men hate to listen. Men can mentally index and compartmentalize the problems while women want someone to share her dilemmas with. When men say a problem they are looking for solution; when women mention an issue she is generally looking at an attentive ear.

Working at tasks

Women love to multitask while men excel in single tasks at a specific points of time. A woman while brushing her teeth would be able to iron her clothes, dress her child or make and serve breakfast but the same woman will find it extremely difficult to reverse park a car. A man who can easily park the car between two close walls will find it highly arduous to concentrate on boiling milk or making an omelet while he is shaving.

When women sit together to watch a movie on TV, at the end of the movie they have also discussed a variety of subjects including children, men, careers and what’s happening in their lives. When men sit together to watch a movie, at the end of the movie they stand up, collect their wallets and mobile phones to return back home.

Spatial, mathematical and creative abilities

Women have very little spatial abilities as they have evolved over centuries chasing little besides men while most men can point north even when he does not know where he currently is. A man who is easily able to find directions without a compass or map will find it highly challenging to locate his socks in the cupboard. Men will excel in subjects like mathematics, physics and other exact sciences while women will make her mark in creative and expressive professions.

Thoughts, attitudes and Emotions

Men hate criticisms – that’s why they like to marry virgins. Men don’t want advice unless they specifically ask for it. Women are generally not looking at solution to her problems as she can herself manage the situation but only want her problem to patiently and honestly heard.

Brain chemicals

Men have primarily male hormones called testosterone while women mainly are gifted with female hormones known as oestrogen. Testosterone is the chemical which makes males more aggressive, helps them concentrate, improves their memory and spatial ability. Creatures with the highest testosterone levels rule the animal kingdom. And so is it in human beings as well. Oestrogen is the chemical which makes women emotional, dumb, moody, creative and gives her the ability to manage relationships. Given a choice women will prefer to be a mother and housewife. Those women who excel and achieve great heights in their careers are those with comparatively higher level of testosterone as compared to oestrogen.

Relationships and Sex: Men want a safe place and a woman for sex while women need emotional connectivity and togetherness. For men sex is a stress buster while women generally can’t have sex when in stress. Marriage is the price which men pay for sex; sex is the price which women pay for marriage. A woman wants lots of sex with the man whom she loves while a man wants lots of sex with women.

As seen above there are fundamental, scientific, emotional and psychological differences between male and female species. Armed with the knowledge of it, now let us apply them while dealing with various facets of finance and money to a modern day family:

Earning

Due to their high testosterone levels, men are naturally more aggressive and able to concentrate and finish tasks, therefore men would normally excel in careers and business. Most women would work if they are required to support their families or else given a choice prefer motherhood and taking care of their homes. Men should take higher challenges and larger responsibilities when it comes to earning money while women should generally prefer creative fields as that would enable them to express herself better and automatically excel in her work.

Protecting

Living in the jungle during thousands of years of evolution, men have a natural ability to protect their families from threatening danger from hostile situations. Therefore, it would be more prudent for men to deal while protecting their money and wealth from financial predators be it the tax department, government authorities or road side burglars and thieves. Men should be more proactive in framing strategies to protect their earned income.

Budgeting

Women have been nest bearers from pre-evolution times caring and providing for her family. They have a natural ability to conserve and put the scarce resources to maximum utility. Women should come forward to take the lead in drawing the family budget, paying themselves first and putting the limited family money to maximum utility creating a budget surplus.

Investing

Investing is an exercise which requires proper asset allocation between the various asset classes like equities for growth, fixed income for capital protection, commodities or gold for preserving the purchasing power of money and real estate for use, growth and income. Because of his high spatial and concentration abilities, men would be best positioned to take major decisions when it comes to investing. Women should generally play a supportive role in this activity.

Leveraging

Debt is the power to multiply one’s wealth by unleashing the advantages of positive leverage. Women can comprehend the power of family and relationships and are best positioned to judge and differentiate between a positive or negative leverage. While men can take risks and leverage it would be ideal for women to decide on whether it would indeed be a positive wealth creating leverage or a negative wealth destroying one.

Spending

For women shopping is a rejuvenating and relaxing exercise, similar to endless meaningless talking. On seeing signs of “Sale Boards” outside major shopping malls, there is an immediate rush of pleasure chemicals like dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin in a typical women brain attracting and binding her towards it. While men become anxious and frustrated in a dress shop, women love testing a wide range of clothes because it fits the pattern of her brain with each dress teasing a different emotion or feeling of her various unimaginable moods. To make women in charge of spending is like making a butcher the safe keeper of a goat!

Insurance

Men, even if he is not earning, subscribes to insurance because having the inherent protector in himself, he feels it’s his duty to protect his family against any kind of catastrophic event. Women, even if she is earning, does not like to take an insurance policy on herself as she does not believe that she is the family protector. Financial principle will call for the safety and protection of the family and hence insurance would have to be taken both for the husband and wife, irrespective of who is earning or who survives whom because insurance is for the protection of the family and not just an individual.

Speculation

While I don’t encourage or advocate speculation of any nature in financial markets there are various unavoidable important decisions in life which are not lesser than speculation – whether to leave a job and start one’s own business, whether to get out of a rented accommodation and buy one’s own dream house, whether to embark on a costly foreign vacation or upgrade one’s skill through some course or workshop, whether to prepone accumulating gold for daughter’s wedding or to wait for her to grow up, whether to spend money on son’s higher foreign education or save for one’s retirement and so on. While taking such delicate decisions, it would be advisable to act as a team – the husband because of his male dominant brain doing more of the financial calculations and implications of the decision while the wife chipping in with her intuition and timing of a particular decision and event.

Relationships between men and women work despite of the overwhelming sex differences and most of the credit for it goes to women because they have the necessary skills to manage relationships and family. Having said that, a male is equally required to hunt and provide for the family. So rather than wasting time in complaining about each others’ weaknesses and trying to mold the opposite sex to our own preference which is scientifically and psychologically not possible, it would be best advised for husband and wife to work together as a team drawing on each others strengths and minimizing their weaknesses when it comes to earning, protecting, budgeting, investing, leveraging, spending, insuring and speculating on the family money so as to create long term sustainable wealth for the financial security and freedom of the entire family.

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