Why Stock Market Jargon Turns Women Off Investing | Financial Inclusion

The language used to describe investing in the stock market is skewed towards masculinity. It is full of metaphors that come from domains traditionally associated with, occupied by, or deemed appropriate for men.

Examples are “beating” the market (war, combat, physical fight), “level playing field” (soccer), and “building” your portfolio (construction). This is the case for different languages and for both websites targeting beginning retail investors and stock market reporting in national and financial newspapers.

People use conceptual metaphors like this in their language, often without realising it, to make abstract concepts (such as financial events and objects) more “imagineable”. A conceptual metaphor is a word or combination of words taken from the concrete, physical world to describe a concept from an abstract world.

Stressing the “need for creating financial awareness among women and girls” is therefore not only belittling to women, it also misses the point when it comes to explaining the gender difference in investment attitudes and behaviour.

If policymakers, regulators and the financial industry wish to reduce this difference, they could start by paying careful attention to their financial language use which reflects their traditionally gendered culture. Adapting and changing this language might not only contribute to lowering women’s psychological barriers when it comes to the stock market, it could also reduce the male tendency of trading excessively and taking on too much risk in the stock market.

---

Olga Leonhard, communication specialist at Framer Framed, contributed to this article.