Why Emotional Intelligence Matters in Financial Advice for Women
Have you ever felt a quiet sense of relief when you realize your doctor is a woman? I have, many times. At this point, I skip the guessing game and ask for a woman outright. I know I’ll be heard, understood, and genuinely listened to.That matters. Especially when discussing something with real implications for my health or future. I honestly couldn’t care less about credentials or years of experience if I don’t feel my questions are being answered in a way I can actually understand. I want to ask follow-up questions, and I want the person answering them to make me feel justified in asking.
Finances are no different.
The financial industry has long been dominated by men, specifically older, white men.
From the very beginning of modern markets, they were the rule makers and, for a long time, the only ones allowed to participate. In 1929, at the height of the market frenzy before the eventual Great Depression, Edward Benedere, a Philadelphia banker, even proposed banning women from buying stocks and bonds altogether, believing women were “temperamentally unsuited for trading.” Women weren’t permitted on the New York Stock Exchange trading floor until 1967, when Muriel Siebert became the first woman to buy a seat. And most people know this one: it wasn’t until 1974, with the passage of the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, that women could legally apply for a credit card without a husband’s signature. That’s less than sixty years ago.
Fast forward to today, and the industry still hasn’t caught up. A quick Google search for financial help overwhelmingly surfaces men. Yet here’s the irony: women tend to outperform men as investors over the long term. Multiple studies, including research from Fidelity, show that women earn roughly 0.4–1% higher annual returns than men, largely due to lower trading frequency and more disciplined behavior. Really strange, considering how emotionally stable men tend to be.
Women are positioned to control more wealth than ever before.
Estimates suggest women will control over 50% of U.S. personal wealth by 2030, driven by inheritance, higher educational attainment, and longer life expectancy. Women are now earning college and graduate degrees at higher rates than men. So with all of this stacked in their favor, why are women still being talked down to when it comes to money?
Because the industry hasn’t evolved alongside its clients.
We still have a long way to go in encouraging young women to pursue careers in finance, and an even longer way to go in supporting them once they get there. But in the meantime, the educated woman of today deserves better. She deserves a space where she can talk through the messiness of her finances or celebrate how well she’s done. She deserves advice that is fiduciary, transparent, and rooted in her real life. She can do without the fear mongering, jargon, and unnecessary complexity.
This is where emotional intelligence matters.
In areas where women feel less confident, they’re more likely to defer to the dominant narrative or the perceived expert in the room. My goal is to challenge that dynamic. I genuinely believe women are more than capable of building wealth and participating fully in the stock market, even when none of it makes sense at first. And I wholeheartedly believe they are far better off understanding this information themselves than defaulting financial decisions to a spouse. Women make better, self-directed decisions when they are in control of their finances.
Confidence comes from understanding, not blind trust. Women deserve advisors who educate rather than obscure, who welcome questions rather than dismiss them. More importantly, women deserve advisors who won’t exploit that trust by charging fees they don’t fully understand.
The future of finance—a world where picking individual stocks and bonds matters less—will hinge on advisors who lead with clarity, empathy, and trust.
