Financial feminism

In recent years, there has been a surge of financial self-help literature written under the banner of feminism. Initially emerging in the Anglo-American context at the end of the 2010s, feminist financial self-help books are now available in many countries and languages, offering women everyday financial advice on how to spend, save, and, crucially, invest their money. These books reside at the intersection of several trends in contemporary feminism and political economy. First, on a broader level, they reflect the convergence of the individualism of neoliberal feminist politics with the financialisation of everyday life that responsibilises individuals for their personal and economic well-being and integrate women into a financialized ownership society. Second, they can be seen as a new offshoot of well-known neoliberal feminist self-help literature, such as Sheryl Sandberg’s seminal Lean In. Third, instead of offering career advice, however, financial feminist books focus on personal finances, tailoring long-standing investment advice traditionally targeted at men to a politically progressive female audience. Finally, because many financial feminist books offer a programme of financial self-improvement through ethical investment, they also incorporate aspects of ethical consumerism and commodity activism. We analyze eight financial feminist books in Finland and in Anglo-American context. Drawing from feminist scholarship on financialization of everyday life and neoliberal feminism, we make sense how financial feminist self-help literature refigures the meaning and purpose of feminism. We examine in how these books construct feminism, money, and state, and assess their political implications.