March was Women’s History Month and in honor of that, we offered some sponsorship spots to women content creators on FIRE Drill Podcast.
It was pretty amazing to be supported by three amazing women. I’ll feature them below and recommend you check out their sites and show them some love. I also recommend you read to the end of this post where I share some um, interesting feedback we’ve received on FIRE drill.
But first – other content related to Women’s History Month:
- Angela at Tread Lightly Retire Early produced a post of over 100 women producing personal finance content – Meet the Women of the Financial Independence Movement.
- The Fairer Cents podcast also released a great episode for International Women’s Day on March 8th that went through a bunch of prominent women in history – Bonus episode 3 – International Women’s Day.
Thanks to our Amazing Sponsors
PS – If you want to sponsor an episode of FIRE Drill, email us at [email protected]
Peti Morgan of Leveraged Mama
Peti Morgan is The Leveraged Mama. She helps mamas find financial freedom through conscious, clever and creative money management. You can find her at https://leveragedmama.com.
- Get her FREE debt reduction cheat sheet: leveragedmama.com/firedrill
Olivia at Birds of a FIRE
Olivia is a 25 year old woman who lives in New York City, is a spreadsheet and programming nerd, and saves a whopping 70 percent of her income. She believes everyone should be able to retire early so she created a FREE 20,000+ word financial independence 2 week email course that comes with a super in-depth spreadsheet. My favorite post of hers is about the Me Too Movement.
- You can find her at birdsofafire.com/firedrill.
Military Dollar
The Military Dollar writes about military-specific topics such as the Thrift Savings Plan, GI Bill, and military pay. She also covers all things Financial Independence/Retire Early and traveling on the cheap. She was featured on Fire Drill podcast episode 37 as well.
- You can find her at Military Dollar.
2 Facebook Groups you should know about
Angela at Tread Lightly Retire Early also created two Facebook groups for women interested in personal finance (because she’s awesome). I’m in both groups and we have good discussions about many things – both related to women in personal finance and some just finance.
- Women in Finance Facebook Group
- Women in Finance Facebook Group (this second one is for bloggers and podcasters only)
Are young women who talk about finance annoying?
This is a bit random but do any other women personal finance content creators notice that they get different feedback than the guys? I scan relevant Facebook groups every so often to collect feedback on Fire Drill and we’ve been told we’re “annoying” and “gigglers” quite a bit.
We’ve received a lot of positive press too in Facebook groups – thank you all for recommending and sharing FIRE Drill! This is just one common thread that I noticed a few times and figured I’d include in this post. Also thanks again to Military Dollar who had our back in one of the posts I found! XOXO
Here are a few examples:
And another one:
I’ll leave it at these two ..but there were one or two more Facebook comments I found with the same type of comments.
I’m 29-years-old with a successful career and own multiple profitable small businesses yet I’m annoying like a little girl and hearing me talk about personal finance is annoying.
Anyone else find that interesting?
I removed the names and pictures from the above Facebook posts but I want to say that it was both women and men who said we were annoying and had annoying giggles.
Are women’s voices judged more harshly than men?
I’ve written about the subject of policing women’s voices briefly before: Why Woo Girls are More Popular. I also notice that there is another dual-female-hosted personal finance podcast that has received similar feedback to us.
It has led me to think that maybe people find female voices more annoying than male voices.
Here are two articles I found on this subject that are enlightening:
- Why are women’s voices judged more harshly than men?
- Why old men find young women’s voices more annoying
Interesting, no?
For the Record – I DON’T believe that women are less interested in money than men
While also creeping Facebook groups, I found one thread where two women commented that I said (on the podcast) that women are less interested in managing money than men. My bad.
I definitely don’t believe that women are less interested in managing money than men. In fact, it drives me nuts that women are thought to be “less interested” in both personal finance and technology. I believe it’s total b.s. and it holds women back in both spaces.
I have both a personal finance podcast and blog, and I work in tech so I definitely don’t believe women are less interested and I am extremely passionate about the topic.
My apologies if anything I said on the podcast came across that way. I definitely don’t remember saying that (or atleast it came out wrong or was edited differently than I meant).
I cared more about getting this feedback than being told my giggle was annoying, hence including it here! Sorry, everyone!
And I support stay at home moms !
Someone else also let me know that they interpreted something I said on the podcast to be throwing shade at stay at home moms with me saying the phrase that I don’t want to be “just a stay at home mom.” I remember saying that but it was not what I meant! Sorry!
The context was that we were talking about FIRE bloggers and podcasters saying that they are financially independent when they have income from a spouse who is still working. In that case, many people think that they are not “retired” but a stay at home parent instead.
This is quite a controversial topic in the financial independence blogging space right now, so I was addressing that – not trying to reduce the work of a stay at home mom.
I just read a study that stay at home moms work 2.5x times the equivalent of a full-time job.
I’m actually considering being a stay at home parent myself and I do believe that stay at home parents or people who have working spouses can be financially independent.
I have to be more careful with how I word things because I can totally see how that was taken as reducing the work of stay at home parents. My apologies if I offended anyone!
At the same time, I have to be comfortable with a little scrutiny.
Clearly I feel bad about the last two pieces of feedback I got, but I need to be brave enough to keep putting content out there and keep building my businesses.
I believe that I am actually helping women in personal finance and technology by using my platforms to talk about them, so I have to keep doing it despite scrutiny!
If you don’t put yourself out there in small business (or in life), you won’t get the results you want.
Any thoughts on anything above?
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I struggle with the “little girl voice” all the time, especially because I go up in pitch when I get excited about something. It’s so frustrating to be something I’ve had to work on, but I do get better responses now that I’ve learned to talk slower and lower.
And the SAHM thing I’ve only been more aware of since becoming a mom myself and having a handful of SAHM friends. It’s hard to notice nuance like that until you start living it (though not impossible, of course).
Noted and I’ve definitely worked on slowing down when I talk and attended toastmasters. I think this is definitely a gender thing though playing out. We can try to improve our podcasting voices but I don’t really feel like breaking out my best female newscaster voice twice a week.
I have seen those types of comments before on how (mostly men) do not like the sound of the hosts voices for other women-led podcasts as well (outside the personal finance space) so it’s not just you all. It’s a real issue and one that needs to be addressed.
For the record I love the podcast as is! You and Gwen should keep doing what you’re doing and have fun, that’s what makes it awesome!
Aw thanks!~ Glad you like the podcast and thanks for the support. Yeah, it’s definitely a weird phenomenon and I’m not sure what I can do about it. I listen to male-hosted podcasts and I hear them laughing and telling dad jokes too, so maybe we just ignore the feedback.
A wee secret: I find your voice and humour hilarious! It’s half the reason Iisten to the podcast ? keep it up!
Thank you! We appreciate it. We like to have a bit of fun with it. Keeps us enjoying it.
I got your back! I think there are probably a few things that lead to the “women talking about money are annoying” thing:
– up until the last year or two the vast majority of the money podcasts were run by men, and people don’t like change!
– yes, it’s been proven that people are more bothered by women’s voices than men’s. The ‘why’ behind that is what’s most interesting to me.
– there is just some weird tendency to think that if two or more women are talking it must be about a “silly” topic. At work I’ll be talking to our political advisor (who happens to be female) and we’ll be deep in conversation about the struggles of balancing military operations and diplomatic outreach. The guys will be having a conversation composed entirely of movie quotes. Guess which side gets mocked for having “silly” conversations?
I say, just keep doing what you are doing. I appreciate that your podcast isn’t the same as the others – that’d be boring! And you are obviously finding a lot of other people who think the same given the great success you had in 2017. Keep on keeping on.
Thanks so much, MD, for both this comment and for having our back in the Facebook groups! You rock! Yeah, I was pretty surprised that it was both women AND men who said we were annoying and that our giggles were annoying. Who are these women? I clicked through the pictures to try to get a sense of the demographic that felt this way and they were all older women and varied generations for men. Maybe it’s a generational thing for some women? We have awesome listeners in all demographics though. Just noting a trend among the giggle-haters.
Your podcast is one of about four I listen to, and the only one where my wife likes to listen along. I love how you all put yourselves out there and you have great personalities that play well off of each other. Keep it up, and don’t listen to the haters.
Part of the appeal of your podcast (to me anyway) is that you and Gwen have your personalities shine through – the giggles/humor and enthusiasm are part of what I enjoy. It’s ok to have fun talking about money!
There are some other FI podcasts I’ve tried to listen to and I gave up pretty quickly. So I say ignore the haters! Everyone has their preferences and you can’t cater to everyone.
Ugh, yeah like Angela I totally change my voice and remember to speak slow and low in many business meetings. I’m frequently the only female (engineer) and the youngest person in the room by a decade. I don’t wear make-up and don’t like to dress super fancy, so I adjust my voice and mannerisms instead. Way to roll with the feedback and keep improving the podcast!
It’s absolutely infuriating that women have to moderate their voices to try to please everyone, but even then we can’t win: either you’re too annoying and sound like a little girl, or you sound bored and don’t have enough energy and enthusiasm. Since you can’t win, keep doing what you’re doing. The podcast is awesome as it is 🙂
You already know it’s not about you guys at all, but yeah, I think every woman who has the audacity to speak ever has heard some criticism of it, and all the more so if you choose to amplify your voice in any way like daring to launch a podcast. In our case, I think Kara and I have darn excellent radio voices and yet we still get those stupid comments. That we sound too girly (the horror that women might sound feminine!), that we laugh too much (how dare we enjoy talking to each other!), that we say “like” too much (the Queen’s English, only, please). Obviously we all know we’re getting judged at all times and some people will find us annoying no matter what we do, but the fact that people feel the need to say that crap to us is what continues to shock me. Don’t they have anything better to do with their time?? Get a hobby, dude! (And “dude” refers to both men and women. We’ve heard it from both sides.) Hahahahaha.