Mar 29, 1999 -- Okay, Women Really Could Use Special Advice About Investing
But why does it have to be so brainless?
Amy Kover

"Close your eyes. Take a moment to remember when you were a child," the psychologist intones. "What was your first experience with money? Was it a good experience?"

A group meditation class? A therapy session? No, it's the kickoff of an investment seminar that Michelle Smith and her mother, Corinne, financial planners at Paine Webber, organized for about 40 women back in January.

While the Smiths' approach may be unusual, they are far from alone in targeting investment advice specifically to a female audience. In the past seven years the number of books, seminars, investing programs, television shows, and magazines designed to help women "get smart" about money (as they frequently put it) has exploded. More than 20 investing books included the word "woman" or "women" in their titles this past year or so, as opposed to just four in 1992. Worth magazine put out a women's investing supplement called Equity. (Sample story line: "The history of women is told through the history of handbags.") Says Deena Katz, president of Evensky Brown & Katz, a financial-planning firm in Coral Gables, Fla.: "Everyone is pandering to the women's market these days."

It's really no surprise. Whether it's to sell jeans to black teens or cruises to homosexuals, segmented marketing is everywhere. And now that women work and earn more than ever before, the financial industry naturally wants to tap into those dollars. Moreover, several trends having to do with women started to coalesce around 1992--Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas' confirmation hearings, the "Year of the Woman" that saw an unprecedented six women elected to the U.S. Senate, a groundbreaking survey by Oppenheimer Funds showing that women felt alienated by financial advisers. "When you have an investing seminar just for women, it allows their concerns to be the focus," says Louis "P.J." Patierno, a financial planner in Colorado.

The problem is that with so much "pandering" --or, at least, segmented marketing--going on, women's financial materials can range from worthwhile to offensive. As Melissa Moss, who heads up the Women's Consumer Network, points out, "Women don't want to be talked down to, nor do they want to feel ghettoized." But even if the material is superb, do women need a special approach? "There's nothing in men's genes that makes them better at investing than women," jokes Alexandra Armstrong, a well-known Washington, D.C., financial planner. Nor is there any reason women as well as men can't pick up a basic investment primer. Money is supposed to be gender-neutral, after all. Microsoft will perform just as well in a woman's portfolio as in a man's.

But there are demographic differences between men and women that can affect financial decisions. For one thing, women probably need to be saving more money. They live an average of about six years longer than men. At the same time, because of their work history--women tend to hold service-sector jobs, work for small companies, or drop in and out of the labor force, all situations that make it difficult to accumulate much of a retirement nest egg--relatively few qualify for pensions, and those who do, receive only half as much as men, on average. In the end women wind up living longer--but with less money to live on.