Interesting question, without getting involved in the rest of the discussion but rather focusing on the initial question I might have an answer or clue for you. Quite early on while I was learning and trialling on demo accounts and micro accounts I realised emotions are a big factor in trading. I quickly surmised that a higher EQ (emotional quotient) might be more important than a high IQ. Thus I realised trading should be more naturally suited to a feminine leaning personality. I thought my wife could benefit from learning what I am doing and I quickly and enthusiastically offered to teach her.
I was quite disappointed, she flat didnât believe she was capable, and I know she is fully capable. Generally I realised a lack of self belief stopped her even trying, she had no interest. I wonât go into the details but generally she did not believe she could do it. I think the lack of self belief may also come from society, just looking at the very strong responses on this forum might be indicative of how society frames us and even makes us believe what society would have us believe.
So as to reasons why their are fewer women traders (and at the seminars Iâve been to, Iâve also seen a distinct lack of female traders, but they did ask all the good questions) the reasons may be to do with self belief, societal beliefs and pressures. Perhaps there is something that can be done to change this. Personally I would be well pleased to lounge on a yacht that my wife bought with her expertise than even having to bother about trading!
Slowly I will try to convince her again though, thanks for your question and good articles, it has convinced me what I know I should do to get a better living through trading!
My wife doesnât drive, doesnât want to - I tried to convince her how easy it was once or twice, but that is her decision. Why should I insist sheâs wrong in making it ?
I donât want to drink soya milk and fake chicken made out of fungus and she doesnât insist - why should I insist she drives a car ?
Sometimes what we think we do âfor your own benefitâ - can be perceived as âControllingâ behaviour"
There are several reasons. Firstly, if something should happen to me then she will have more chance of being financially independent. Second, Iâm lazy, if she can make money and enjoys it, then I can go fishing or doing other hobbys that are more enjoyable / travel / cruise / retire early. Third, if she can make profit it may increase her feelings of self worth and pride. Fourth, she may be better at it than me.
As for controlling, she is free; if she where financially independent, she would certainly be more free from me, free from relying on my finances. Instead I will offer to turn that reasoning on its head. Perhaps the reason there is so much insistence that women should not trade is because of insecurities around being a male provider. Keeping someone from being able to provide for themselves, (or twice as much as I could) could be seen as a way of controlling them as they could not leave the relationship due to financial control one has over the other, or financial dependence versus Independence. For in this world, if a man is no longer a provider, what is his purpose?
These are just some of the reasons I could give to convince her to give it a try.
It is in the black, however, if I had a more stable emotional response to the market I would have been better off, hence my idea that a female counterpart trades with me. I will also state I am new < 2 years actual trading. Often we have had discussions while trading and her decisions or recommended actions, based not on charts or Forex understanding or techniques, but solely on her emotional response and understanding, her decisions turned out very good and I would have made much better profits had I listened. Now I listen to her, and listening has been profitable!
I believe the emotional part of trading to be a high percent in making profits in trading, perhaps a Spock like personality is the type to make good money.
I think the reverse case âemotions are a large contributor to making lossesâ - is certainly true and your discussions with a person who is Not involved are helpful for you. Whether that would be the case if the person was involved in the trade, Iâm less sure.
Very often someone who is distant from the problem, can see it far more clearly than someone close to it. Iâm not sure that holds more for women than it does for men.
Often women let their emotions out and often men internalise them, but that is a generalisation which may not be helpful. Emotions are evolutions way of controlling our behaviour - in fact that of all animals and birds.
In modern society emotions ar geared to problems of 30,000 years ago, which simply do not apply nowadays to most of us. So the emotions are usually wrong !
Yes, I phrased that badly, perhaps a better way of saying it is:
I believe the emotional part of trading to have a very high impact on our profitability of the trading system, in that emotions can make us trade badly, or outside of the system parameters.
Hereâs an inspirational story. (Technically, sheâs a market maker, not a trader, but still inspiring.)
Lauren Simmons is the only full time female trader on the floor of the New York stock exchange. At 23, sheâs also its youngest. And she joins just one of two African-American women to sign the constitution of the exchange
Good guidance there I think, but perhaps there is room for more than one thread on this subject, bearing in mind perhaps the lack of âlisteningâ to alternative viewpoints on the other.
OK, Iâm going to take the bait, though my viewpoint might be unfashionable.
There are few female traders because few females want to be traders. Theyâre not wrong, theyâre not right, but its their free choice.
One of the very very few female traders I can think of is Linda Bradford Raschke. And I only know here through her writings, not directly through her trading. However, there appeared to me nothing in her writing that suggested she traded differently to a male trader. And certainly nothing she wrote suggested a female trader would do better listening to her than to any male trader.
This whole âissueâ is illusory and unreal. If youâre female, get on with trading if you want to trade. Get on with something else if you donât.
Only with a very small minority of vociferous people mate - Only around 7% of people say they are âFeministsâ.- the rest, both male and female share your (and my) thoughts that people are individuals and are capable of deciding the course of their lives for themselves.
Actually we have learned a LOT since this thread started - about those like the OP (who only visited this site on 7 consecutive days in June '17) - and more importantly perhaps about the real differences between men and women and the choices they make.
Firstly we can see that many of the posters found her assertions impossible to accept and when pressed she resorted to Ad-hominem attackes and insults, as a first resort - whether those attacks were directed at the individual poster or âmenâ in general (Something Freud would have diagnosed in a specific way ! )
However I have had issues with the word patterns and the refusal to consider Evidence in a reasonable way - particularly the Weaponisation of words rather than using them to discuss with civility to seek for understanding as we in our day were taught to do. A pattern observed in several posters on these threads over the years and surprisingly, since âtheyâ have absolutely zero interest in converasing with âUSâ or explaining their thought patterns we have to look elsewhere !
The beginning of understanding - or at least the understanding of what we are up against is to be found here ;-
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Incredible though it sounds - this is the basis of the stuff which the Universities are teaching as âcoursesâ and those who have taken those "courses are now teaching our kids, running our media and seeking to be MPâs ! - just look at the "Democrat seekers for nomination and those seeking to âLeadâ what used to be our own âLabour Partyâ if you think Iâm crazy (as indeed as a thinking man - you should !!
But I quote Sherlock Holmes (Loosely) - "When you have eliminated the impossible - whatever is left - however improbable - MUST be the truth !
For a deeper discussion on the subject and how it works - there is a good second lesson here;
To get a "Feel of how classical Marxism became "identity Politics - listen to the first 10 minutes or so of this - Go on to listen to the rest or to his conversations with Peterson if you become as fascinated as I did !
are generally MUCH better traders than men are (sorry fellows, itâs true we arenât just better, weâre a lot better) and yet so few of us do it.
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Can we get away from sexism and discrimination? I thought women wanted equality which I fully support but attempting to stereotype people can put negative thoughts into peoples minds.
I can suggest a few reasons why women donât trade
Psychological the majority of women are not keen on risk. They take the safe option. Forex is risk. The male was the hunter gatherer, the woman the homemaker - You need to deal with evolution for that one.
Advertisements on social media generally aim trading towards men and male-positive images.
I once saw an advert with a woman and Forex. Personally if I was female, that advert would discourage me. This was a celebrity from a reality program who is better known for fake tans than for tradingâŚYes it was a paid advertisement but still to me that sends the wrong image.
Advertisements for women are generally about creating the perfect feminine image - the house, the car, the make upâŚnever trading. Men is about excelling at sports, business and finance etc.
Trading has been forever a male dominated market. Much like other professions, women are more than capable of doing it but due to society they donât. Females are often swayed by other persons thoughts. So if the majority of her social network likes clubbing on the weekend, it will be hard for her to bring that up without risk of being an outside in the social network
At the end of the day, everyone has the choice. Our choices are influenced by social media and society at large. It does show this as a male dominated profession, true. Yes women can do things just as well as men, somethings better.
