"Boys, girls, and the money divide"

I just finished reading an article about the differences between boys and girls when it comes to money, and with the teaser, "Young women are still falling behind when it comes to financial skills and savvy. Do they really still think that money is a guy thing?" ... it seriously appalled me. I'll tell you why.

The article focuses on kids 16 or younger and how they spend/save their money, and it basically implies that girls spend money on frivolous things while boys save up for more important purchases. Granted, it's not completely sexiest, because the article brings up the nature vs. nurture point, explaining that boys are more likely to be included in talks about money at a young age, while girls are led on to believe that a man will take care of them financially one day, so they don't have to worry about money. So all in all, it's not that girls are simply stupid with money, it's that society as a whole doesn't educate us about the importance of taking control of the economics in our lives.

The first reason I found the article appalling is because it chastises girls for wanting to buy "short-term" items, like purses and shoes, while it congratulates boys for saving up for a car stereo. Umm, can someone tell me what the difference is here? Aren't both items equally unnecessary? The article says girls will spend on lifestyle items, while boys spend on status items - if you ask me, both an expensive purse and an expensive stereo fall under both of these categories. I'd like someone to tell me exactly why one is better than the other.

The other reason I didn't like this article is because it didn't even include girls who might be good with money or boys who might suck at it.

As far as my own experience goes, my mom is a banker and my dad spends his free time investing, so my sister and I have been trained since the very beginning about how important money is. When my sister graduated from high school, she put all her graduation gift money into a CD. When I was just a kid babysitting and busing tables during the summers, my parents talked to me about starting a retirement account. Ever since then, I've invested in it with every job I've had.

Now when it comes to my dear boyfriend, he is nowhere as good as I am about budgeting, though he's not completely terrible. He saved up money to buy an Xbox 360, and now he's in the process of saving up money to buy a 37" flat screen TV. Granted, our TV is so old that the picture and sound cut out on occasion, which is really quite inconvenient when we play RockBand, but I still don't think it's a good idea.

I, on the other hand, am saving up money for when I want to move out of Kearney after college graduation. I'm determined to move no more than a month after I finish, and part me thinks that if my boyfriend doesn't have his part of the money saved up by then (as we agreed), I'm leaving him and his big, fancy TV behind. We've got more than a year before we have to worry about that, though.

Now, does that mean I never buy extra things? No, because I definitely buy things like bath salts, cappuccinos, striped knee-high socks, nail polishes, and other things I could probably live without. I'm also pretty bad at starting a new hobby, buying everything I need for it, then setting it aside for a new hobby not long after (which is why I have a huge box full of sewing machinery, fabrics, threads, etc., another huge box full of old books and cutting equipment for hollow books, and yet another huge box full of collage and scrap booking stuff).

In the end, I just hate reading these kinds of articles that pit gender differences against each other. A lot of it is, excuse the language, absolute bullshit.