Providers: we don’t need your sexist preaching

So this is how press releases work: provider (or its press team) puts the ‘lead’ they want you to take in the subject header of the email, which they will then follow with further information or stats to back up said story. Sometimes the lead is interesting, sometimes it’s a load of nonsense.

Anything that takes a sexist stance gets my blood boiling – this isn’t the first time I’ve become frustrated with this industry's view of women – but I thought I’d give this press release the benefit of the doubt.

Anyway, I scroll down to look at the stats, and what do we find? Okay, 18 per cent of women prioritise saving for a holiday compared to 13 per cent who consider saving for retirement a top priority.

Well now, that 5 per cent difference certainly does show something shocking. This proves conclusively that all women are more interested in lying on a beach than saving into a pension.

But hold on – what about the fellas? This is the interesting part: 18 per cent of men prioritise saving for a holiday, with a hefty 3 percentage points more than women (16 per cent) prioritising retirement.

Come on, Friends. Don’t be so bloody ridiculous. The story here is not that women are too busy picking out their bikinis and curtain patterns to think about their retirement. Your survey demonstrates that an equal number of male and female respondents prioritise holidays first, and that there is a marginal 3 percentage point difference between the number of men and women who prioritise pensions. Let’s focus on the fact that a) those numbers are very close together so we shouldn’t be drawing gender-based conclusions and b) those numbers are still shockingly low.

There is enough sexism in this country – not just in financial services – that is ingrained and outdated and creating a glass ceiling for women everywhere. Providers with their heads screwed on are realising that women are an equal part of the finance game and must be treated equally, even if that doesn’t necessarily mean being treated the same.

What we do not need is made-up headlines distorting data and compounding views of women as carefree, irresponsible spenders.