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In the 1970s feminists first called attention to the source of a common pattern in women's financial behaviors - a pattern of passivity and doubt in our ability to take control because of childhood socialization as females. We have commonly been taught and encouraged to leave to men any issues relating to power - specifically control of money. A popular statement was "Oh, don't worry your pretty little head about such things." Psychologist Phyllis Chesler in her 1976 book Women, Money and Power explored women's attitudes, values, and ultimately our habits and actions regarding money in relation to our training and life experience. This social-psychological perspective struck a responsive chord with many people, but not until the 1990s were these psychological insights adopted widely by mainstream financial experts and used to help the general consumer. National bestsellers like Your Money or Your Life by Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin and The 9 Steps to Financial Freedom by Suze Orman are two excellent examples of very helpful books that use this approach.

People of all races and both genders are products of distinctive cultural histories and family messages that are passed on from generation to generation. These familial and social expectations influence the capabilities, competence, and expectations we have for ourselves in all areas of our lives. Black women, even though we have a longer collective history in the paid labor force than white women, may be especially weighted down by negative messages from our families and the larger society regarding both our personal and economic status, so it's hardly a coincidence that our financial affairs often mirror an underlying personal sense of inadequacy. In actuality, black women today are the products of generations of resourceful women and men who held their families together with little support - material or otherwise - and despite a lot of economic deprivation. But too often society calls attention to our historically degraded social status rather than our triumphs over it.

If we're going to get our money straight, we must become aware of various kinds of emotional conditioning and how we act it out in our financial lives. Perhaps black women more than anyone else can benefit from a holistic approach that addresses our commonplace emotional conflicts. Of course, there are many African Americans who do not struggle with money issues and who have perfectly healthy spending and saving habits. But those of us who do overspend are often caught up in an unconscious attempt to make ourselves feel acceptable in a world that often seems to be working against us.

In a society in which financial status is an important part of what makes people "successful," spending often becomes a means of self-affirmation. But spending to make ourselves feel better - to feel as though we have a certain place in the world - can actually trap us in a downward spiral: The more shame we feel over mounting debts and finances that are not as we'd like them to be, the more paralyzed we become, even prone to depression. And the worse we feel, the more we spend. Ultimately, our money woes can feel like a festering wound that never heals. Consider the following stories of two sisters who found themselves in a dangerous cycle of feel-good spending and debilitating debt.

Living Beyond Your Means

A typical client is Felicia, who at twenty-seven is challenged by the most important mental hurdle in controlling finances: setting priorities and making choices. Five years out of college, she landed a dream job as a marketing communications assistant in a cosmetics company. But despite its glamorous aura, the entry-level job pays only $27,000 a year. That doesn't go very far in covering her average monthly expenses of about $2,100. Her monthly take-home pay: $1,640. She has been living in the red and falling in deeper.

A young single woman with no children, Felicia loves to travel and has taken a big trip almost every year since college. She financed trips to Paris and Jamaica by using her rent money, after which she spent months juggling her other bill payments, scrambling to play catch-up. Delinquent payments severely affected her credit standing. Today she takes cash advances on her Visa just to buy transit cards to get to and from work.

Copyright © 2002 by Glinda Bridgforth

Tags: Personal Finance

About the Author

is founder of Bridgforth Financial Management Group, a company that emphasizes holistic coaching. In 2006, Glinda appeared on Oprah in a five-part series called "America's Debt Diet." The author of the bestsellers Girl, Get Your Money Straight! and Girl, Make Your Money Grow!, she writes articles for Essence and is featured regularly on television and radio programs nationwide. She lives with her husband in Detroit.