Warning: this episode contains mild language and themes that some listeners may find upsetting. It’s hard for us to talk about money. We often squirm a bit, glance at each other, and muddle through most discussions about personal finance. But we also don’t talk about it enough…especially as it relates to gender. Kristine Beese is the founder of Untangle Money. We talk about sexism in the workplace, the different ways in which it can present itself at work, and how widespread sexism persists on both a macro and micro scale in our professional lives.
Warning: this episode contains mild language and themes that some listeners may find upsetting.
It’s hard for us to talk about money. We often squirm a bit, glance at each other, and muddle through most discussions about personal finance. But we also don’t talk about it enough…especially as it relates to gender.
Kristine Beese is the founder of Untangle Money, which aims to teach financial literacy to women everywhere. Kristine’s inspiration came from the glaring reminders about her gender that surrounded her at work. In both the engineering and finance sectors of the Oil & Gas industry, sexism was baked into workplace culture, in different flavours and severities across different cities and sectors.
We talk about sexism in the workplace, the different ways in which it can present itself at work, and how widespread sexism persists on both a macro and micro scale in our professional lives.
Kristine talks about:
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Hosted by Katherin Vasilopoulos. Made by Cansulta and Ethan Lee.
Music by © Chris Zabriskie, published by You've Been a Wonderful Laugh Track (ASCAP).
Songs used in this episode include: "Air Hockey Saloon," "Cylinder Nine," "Heliograph," "Stories About the World That Once Was," "Your Mother's Daughter," "Short Song 020223," "Short Song 020423," "Short Song 030623," "The House Glows (With Almost No Help)."
Used under the Creative Commons 4.0 International License
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:00:00]:
It's hard for us to talk about money. We often squirm a bit, glance at each other, and muddle through most discussions about personal finance. But we also don't talk about it enough, especially as it relates to gender. Kristine Beese is the founder of Untangle Money. The company's end goal is to teach financial literacy to women everywhere. Kristine's inspiration came from the glaring reminders about her gender that surrounded her at work. In both the engineering and finance sectors of the oil and gas industry, sexism was baked into workplace culture in different flavors and severities across different cities and sectors. Her day to day brought back memories as a young national figure skater.
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:00:47]:
She remembers being consistently and superficially judged for things that had no bearing on her performance. Suffering multiple injuries and concussions, she's built a fiery sense of resilience that continues to guide her work at Untangle. Through it all, Kristine continues to pull back the curtain on gender double standards, reaching deep into her engineering background. She knows how rare it is to find products and services that prioritize women in their design. And she knows how the standard of designing for men keeps these unsavory cycles of production in motion. You're about to hear Kristine's own experiences with sexism in the workplace, the different ways in which it can present itself at work, and how widespread sexism persists on both a macro and micro scale in our professional lives. I'm Catherine Vasilopoulos, and this is And So, She Left, the podcast about incredible women founders and the wisdom they uncovered beyond the corporate world.
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:02:01]:
Right from the start, Kristine refused to travel down the traditional path. She started figure skating full time after dropping out of high school, competing at a national level.
Kristine Beese [00:02:16]:
I think once you've strayed from the traditional path, it it gives you permission to do so again. So I think it really set me up for this sort of entrepreneurial journey later on.
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:02:25]:
The concussions and other injuries she sustained as an athlete have caused her joint pain and short term memory loss, which she's actually taken in stride.
Kristine Beese [00:02:34]:
It made me reflect upon the unintended consequences of the outcome.
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:02:39]:
From there, Kristine went on to acquire an MBA in engineering, which she put to good use going into oil and gas. But lately, she's been reflecting more and more on her time in figure skating.
Kristine Beese [00:02:53]:
You know, I built skills along the way, and the toolkit that I I bring to the table now is probably perfect for where I need to be, which has been it's a really neat moment. And it all started with as, you know, as a skater and you're you know, they say it takes about a 1000 attempts In trying something before you can actually land a jump or a skill. And you would pair figure skating, you find the biggest man you can, the strongest man you can, to skate as fast as both of you can together, and he wants to throw you as hard as he can into the air. And then, you know, a 1000 times later, you know, if you're lucky, a little bit less. But, all of a sudden, you're standing, and I see so many parallels to that in entrepreneurship.
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:03:39]:
Yes. Absolutely. I can't think of a better analogy to being an entrepreneur. I think you're like the this is the the golden example of it. You know, try, try, try, and then you're probably gonna stumble or fall, and then the one thing that you change, those look it could be microscopic, and then it gets you to that level of success that you're looking for. And you've developed some really good resilience, skills as a result of trying and and being in these high performance environments. Like, what's kind what kind of skills did you have to have?
Kristine Beese [00:04:12]:
It feels sometimes unique to athletes, but it isn't. In that, One of the things that, as an athlete, you do is you really have to focus on what you can control. There's so much especially, in figure skating, especially back then when I did it, it was somewhat you know, if they didn't like your dress or, you know, you had underwear lines, they would deduct you points, which really didn't have anything to do with the skills or the performance you were giving. And so you could only control, We called it, you know, your effort and your attitude. So the effort was always a 100%, and your attitude was always positive and aggressive. So when you combine those things together, you just it's a it's a skill set that really lends itself to a lot of success in the future because you are looking at it half glass, half full always. You bring this positive mindset, and you bring this idea that, like, I'm gonna do this to the best of my ability. I don't want it to get into this you know, everybody can do all things, and and we can have everything if we just work harder.
Kristine Beese [00:05:18]:
That's not quite it. It just means that when you are showing up to work and you are able to give the effort, you're giving as much effort as you have your reserves that day, and you're doing it with a positive frame of mind, and you're doing it in a in an aggressive manner. And and by that, I mean, you're you're attacking your goal, and you're making strides towards it, and, you know, that that can make you really unstoppable.
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:05:42]:
On that point, I just wanted to also get, a bit of a background from you on what it was like to be one of the 1st women to be on an all male team and, you know, pioneering and and being in the in that lane, so to speak. Tell me about your experiences there in in mining and oil and, in finance.
Kristine Beese [00:06:02]:
So for those who aren't familiar with Canadian geography, Toronto is is sort of close to where I grew up. It's a main city in the sort of Middle Eastern part of the country. Feels a lot like New York City. Calgary is on the western side of the country, feels a lot like Texas. And they're very geographically and culturally different. And so when I went to oil and gas, it really felt like stepping backwards in time on a sexism scale. I just remember, like, couple times, I was like, can you? I'm I'm pretty sure you can't say that. Right? Like, can you say that? And there were some there were some strengths to it.
Kristine Beese [00:06:41]:
You know? It was a very gentlemanly sexism, I felt very safe. I didn't I felt you know, I've I've been in situations in Toronto where I felt less safe. There was a real idea of you had to prove your worth to be there, and that meant you had to prove that you could take the joke. And I get that it's important to be able to laugh at yourself, but when when when sexism is the or any of the isms are the root of any joke, eventually, you get tired laughing at your expense when it doesn't go backwards as well. Right? Like, there's no there's there's not the equivalent sexism that you can then make a joke back so that it feels equitable and fair. And and I think the power dynamics when you layer that on as well, it makes it really challenging. So that was just getting into oil and gas. And then I came back to Toronto, and I got into capital markets, which is really seen as the wild west of finance.
Kristine Beese [00:07:35]:
And they call successful people in this field big swinging dicks. So you have your rainmakers and your big swinging dicks. Was almost as if they looked at oil and gas and were like, hold my beer. You think that sexism? And they just took it to a new level. And then at that time, I was getting older, I'd been successful financially, and I just one thought was, you know, when does this stop? And it seemed like the answer's never. And, you know, everybody said, you know, it's so much better than it used to be, and I'm like, oh, that's great.
Kristine Beese [00:08:06]:
It still sucks. You know? Right. I just I'm thinking about it.
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:08:10]:
I'm thinking about the term you used, and that they're all I get is an image. Like, when you say gentlemanly sexism, what is it? It's it's men in suits with cowboy hats, but they're So, giving themselves the right to be crude? I mean-
Kristine Beese [00:08:23]:
Yes. Yeah. So and they do wear the cowboy hats. They generally wear jeans, and they just make lewd comments or they comment on your appearance or, like you know, I would say it's wholesome sexism, kind of like the kind when you think of back in the day, where they you're underestimated. They open the door for you, which is you know? So that's nice. And, like, they'll they'll make sure you're protected when you go out and that you know? But it also, very, like, chauvinistic. Oh, here's a great example. When I went to the field, which is, you know, normally in the middle of nowhere, and it's a bunch of trailers that's that serve as offices.
Kristine Beese [00:09:06]:
And I went into the operator's room. You know, I'm wearing the same gear that they do. So, Nomex hard hat, steel toed boots. You walk in, and there's naked women and or provocative women on the on the walls. Right? Calendars, posters, what have you. And the difference between oil and gas and finance was this. You walked in the next day or the second you turned around or you left, they took them down. They were apologetic that you had to see that.
Kristine Beese [00:09:34]:
And whereas in finance, they're like, does this bother you? This shouldn't bother you. Why is like, you need to just focus on the job. And they'd, like, almost rub it rub it in your face that they were allowed to say whatever they wanted. And and could you take the joke? Were you a good cultural fit. And and, you know, I recently talked to someone who was on I knew on the trading floor, and he's like, it's just no funny anymore. You can't say anything. And I was like-
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:09:58]:
But do you feel that you made a difference? Do you do you feel like by you being there, it it maybe moved the needle a little bit?
Kristine Beese [00:10:04]:
No. No. I don't think I moved the needle at all. I think I ruffled feathers. I'm slightly autistic, and so sometimes things fall out of my mouth. And I think I was just such thorn, and I it bothered people. And and I think, you know, when I talked to this gentleman who was, you know, a friend and a colleague, when he says I can't we can't have fun anymore, I'm like, yeah. But if I bet you if I was your counterpart, I'd be having a better time because I wouldn't feel like I had to diminish myself to 30% just so that we could be colleagues and shove myself into this little acceptable box what you're allowed to be as a woman on the trading floor.
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:10:42]:
Good point. Well, that's great. Sometimes when people are poking fun of or they're making jokes, it's at the expense of someone else.
Kristine Beese [00:10:50]:
There was like, when I sat on the the trading floor for interest rate swaps, they had a recurring joke about rape. And it was just not funny ever. You know? And, like, that's what I mean. And so, I just I it was just untenable after a while. I just I didn't wanna be there anymore. I just You know, I was lucky that I was transferred to the UK shortly after, and I didn't have to decide if I was gonna stay in the trading environment. But, Interestingly, I was an excellent trader. You know, I you they give you some money to trade. I always did well with my they call it prop accounts, my trading accounts.
Kristine Beese [00:11:32]:
It wasn't performance on the job, but it was it was a lack of cultural fit. You really need to ingratiate yourself on on the floor because everybody's busy and everybody is stressed. You're working with 1,000,000,000 of dollars. So they called it yards to take some of the mental anxiety rounded out to use different words to trick yourself into thinking it's no big deal, and they're stressed. They want to encourage people that they like, and those people often look a lot like them and are more than often than not male. And don't, yeah. And are able to laugh along at the jokes.
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:12:15]:
So do you believe that certain women just stay and they tolerate the sexism and the gender differences and all that because The payoff is so great that it just doesn't matter what's being said around them. It's all for a a really good payoff.
Kristine Beese [00:12:31]:
Yeah. I think partially. I also think, partially, there's, you know, there's an archetype of woman who it doesn't impact the same way. They just are able to not take it as personally. I do have quite a lot of incredibly impressive, incredibly talented, incredibly successful women and friends who are still in the industry, and they are just able to make it work for them. It's just that there are I think there aren't as many women who who fit that archetype They can conform themselves to that idea of of who can be successful in that environment as there are men. And I think that's because of the power imbalance and and because of the sexism. So and I think that's why we see numbers sort of plateauing across industries, across the board at sort of 20, 30% women representation because I think that is the limit of that style of person.
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:13:28]:
Well, that's at the level of tolerance is different for certain levels of language and maybe you're able to compartmentalize that, okay, well, this behavior is expected, and therefore, I know when it's coming, and therefore, I can just ignore it or whatever the the coping mechanisms are, but in order for them to survive and thrive in in that kind of environment. And speaking of statistics, tell me about the book that you read called Invisible Women. I'm very curious about that.
Kristine Beese [00:13:53]:
Yes. Caroline Craido Perez wrote Invisible Women in 2019, and the Financial Times and McKinsey Consulting called it the business book of the year for that year. And it was a woman introduced it to me, and she looks at the tended implication of data bias in design. And so what she means by that is when you look at the data and you sort it by gender. All the examples she uses, you'd see 2 distinctive peaks that you would design around, and they're not the same. But she argues that we under sample women and has the data to back it up. And so we only end up designing around the male peak. You know, snow clearing, car design, health implications.
Kristine Beese [00:14:41]:
It's it's fascinating all the different impacts that it has. But the one that really struck me as an engineer was she looked at car design and safety, and one of the outcomes was a 5 star safety rating for a car would only have a 2 star safety win rating if a woman is in the chair and the chair is in a different position than the standard. It was it was seen as an atypical seating orientation. And I had seen this before in engineering. You can design for any set of conditions. That's your job as an engineer is to make it work with this outcome. And what they were saying was they only looked at the typical position as the design standard. And when you deviated enough from that, like women would because they need to move the seat forward closer to the steering wheel, then that design isn't as strong, and therefore, it fails.
Kristine Beese [00:15:30]:
And therefore, you get huge injuries from women in car crashes compared to men. And it it horrified me because I know as an engineer, we can design to anything, and it really bothered me that we inadvertently picked men as the only thing that we designed around, and we never looked at the average woman. And so one of the really horrific ones was, if seat belt design seat belts are designed to catch on your hip bones and catch on those bones to prevent you, the passenger, from moving forward. But women's hip bones are wider, and so they don't sit as prominently up, and the seat belt doesn't catch on them. So instead, it catches on our spine having already then severed through all of our major organs, and it's a very common injury.
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:16:17]:
Oh my goodness.
Kristine Beese [00:16:18]:
And it it just changed the way I saw everything, the way the world is designed. And so when I was looking at women and money and who we've designed finance for, you know, we've inadvertently designed it for people who have money, so we've redesigned it for the wealthy. And who has money? It's mainly and overwhelmingly male. Men control 70% of the wealth globally, and women control 30%. So when you're designing something, You're gonna just design it for the people who can afford it and for their typical life, and women's lives are atypical in that design. And and It just it that book, I nearly threw it out the window so many times. I was so angry, but it is paradigm shifting, and... Yes. I encourage every listener to read it.
Kristine Beese [00:17:08]:
It's called Invisible Women, and it's fabulous. It's a little statistics heavy.
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:17:12]:
But, I can imagine that this now played a huge role In your quote, unquote, and so she left moment, which is to then jump into what you're currently doing. Am I am I wrong? I don't know.
Kristine Beese [00:17:23]:
No. That's exactly right. I I, you know, I don't think oil and gas does any great things to the world. It was part of my discomfort with that industry. And then I'm not entirely sure finance is doing great things in the world either, and and you get to a certain age where you really wanna have a positive impact. Especially as I became a mom, I formed some really close and deep friendships with fellow moms, I think, really reconnected with my feminine side and the the part of me that felt like a woman. And you hear story after story, you know, even on this podcast. And, eventually, you think, you know, I wanna put my brain and my skills and my attitude and my effort towards something that improves our collective experience because I'm at a place where I'm able to, and it's going to fill me up on the inside.
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:18:13]:
I perked up when you said that because I'm really curious to know if if when you were in your more, like, engineering and finance mode, it made you feel less feminine. And now that you're in a more maternal role, that that shift you back into your more feminine side. I'm really curious about that.
Kristine Beese [00:18:33]:
Yes. You know, I grew up in the age of the cool girl. Right? The cool girl, She ran with the boys. She took the joke, you know, the one that could get along. And then I was really strong at math and science, so I...they were highly male dominated. I'm a people pleaser, so it was incumbent upon the woman and or the girl in, you know, growing up situations to change her attitude to appease the patriarchy. And and, you know, simple example of, well, what were you wearing? Right? That was a really common question when people talked about inappropriate comments or touching and so you do sort of shut off your femininity. And you do sort of I remember thinking, you know, I'm not I'm just not one of those girls.
Kristine Beese [00:19:19]:
And when I had the opportunity to make some, she needed to make some really deep friendships with women. I realized I wanted to be one of those girls. I...those girls were strong, powerful, life giving, deep thinking, interesting, lovely individuals who all were suffering in a similar way than I was, and, you know, some more than others. And and I just think that as a society and as people, we can do better, and I wanna add to that. But I think there is also a doubling down of the under recognition when you call someone a female. So in a lot of areas and arenas, we're we're seeing the removal of the differentiation. So actor, actress.
Kristine Beese [00:20:11]:
A lot of actors are asking to be called actors, full stop, and not having the delineation between gender. I think it really depends on the intention, and and then you also have to worry about the unintended consequences. But if the intention is to help by showing it's possible and giving people the strength and the belief that they could do it too, I think then it's great. But I think when it's used to divide and subcategorize, then it can be really harmful. And And so I'm I'm torn on that one. Yeah. And it really just depends on the intent.
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:20:47]:
intent. Exactly. It depends on the intent, and that's very well said. I mean, it depends on what the intention is behind the whole, segregation of the of the 2 things. But I wanna go back way at the beginning. You mentioned something, and I made a mental note. Tell me what you think about this. You know, you you said that when you're used to straying from the traditional path once, Then it's not that difficult to do it again at some later point in life.
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:21:14]:
I feel like that's that describes you. Am I, Am I right? What do you think about that?
Kristine Beese [00:21:20]:
I think so completely, and I have to thank my parents for giving me the permission to do that in the 1st place. Good. They were immigrants to the country, so I think they modeled, not taking the traditional path really well for me and my brother. But once you've done it once, it's just like any other muscle. The 2nd time isn't as hard. And also when I look at you know, when you take skills and learnings and your toolkit from other industries and other spaces like athletics, When you bring them to a new world or realm like finance, you also see things very differently, which is another strength. So not just stray from the path and having the permission to try something different being important, but having a different lens through which you view something being important. So, you know, when I looked at the financial plan and I looked at the way women were talked to about money, you know, the language that they use, you know, they sort of imply women's spending is frivolous. You know?
Kristine Beese [00:22:20]:
And it's not it's spending to bring you joy just like men's discerning spend brings them joy, or saying, hey. I think we should have maternity leaves as something we consider right away because that is a well worn path for women versus it being something that, you know, the industry says, well, it doesn't have that large of an impact, and it it'll be fine. You know, you really see things differently, and having that permission to be different, I think, is the pebble that starts the giant snowball or the pebble that starts the avalanche. I would recommend to listeners, try and find something that is small that you can maybe break or do differently, and then you realize it's not critical or it can be done a different way.
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:23:08]:
You said something too about, how we talk about money to women, versus men. And In your current company, Untangle, I'm curious to know how that impacts, the way you operate and how your your mission is to then Provide a proper portfolio to about what was it the one number? A 1,000,000 women across Canada?
Kristine Beese [00:23:29]:
Yes. Yes. And and this is another example of where we fell down the first time because I was trained by finance. Right? The with the traditional classic structure, and have this notion that you should put enough money away for you to retire, and then you can decumulate your wealth. It's a very North American or Western concept as well, And I really brought that to the table originally. I was fortunate enough to be called in by some of the people I was working with that you know, saying even that even having that as a target of what I need to save or, you know, have at retirement feels like a judgment of me. What if I don't want to do that? Mhmm. And it was really hard to sit with that and unlearn some of these notions and and to realize that your education had an implied judgment to it.
Kristine Beese [00:24:21]:
And so how do you walk that back? And so, you know, instead, we show If this isn't something that resonates or these trade offs don't work for you, here are some other ones you can make that can get you to the same spot so you can work later. You can have a we call it the Golden Girls' lifestyle, so you can have roommates in retirement to lower your cost of living and lower your needs. And and we just had to come up with yes. We just come up with different ways to solve for the end goal. So it's like, finance told me your your car seat had to be in this position. And I really got to kind of stretch that and say, well, what happens if I'm sitting closer to the steering wheel with my money? How can I then rebuild this so that that works too? And and so when magazines talk to men about money, the words we see are aspirational. Buy that car, buy the luxury watch, buy the scotch, buy the and then empire build. Those are there's a lot of language around that.
Kristine Beese [00:25:17]:
Doesn't resonate with all men, but that's the language that we see in a lot of male oriented publications. And then when you look at female oriented or women oriented publications, it's about stretching the dollar, managing a budget, volunteering your time, and and then giving your money away. And those are 2 very different financial archetypes. And when you take you know, I had the experience where I worked with a financial professional early on, and I was still waitressing, at university, and, you know, he kind of, like, made an offhand comment about the fact that I shouldn't spend money on my nails. And, you know, It was that, like, that whole trope. Like, if only you didn't have the coffee, you'd have enough money for retirement. And he's, like, kinda like, you know, how much are you spending on your nails? And A few things hit me at that point. You know? 1, I was serving people food, and I had, there's a clause in my contract about appearance.
Kristine Beese [00:26:09]:
Like, you had to come at a certain standard of appearance. And I don't remember what it was, but that's probably pretty sexist in and of itself. So he's telling me something that would probably limit the amount of tips I'd get in and limit the comfort or service that I could provide to my customers. And he also made me feel like my The name was frivolous, and I just it it never left me. Societally, we we call women spending frivolous, and we call men spending discerning even though when we look at Research, we spend pretty similarly in the amount of money we spend, wants versus needs when you break it down that way. So I it just it was amazingly creative and hard and difficult, and we definitely failed the 1st time we went out. But I think we've landed it now where we balance, you're spending, and we ask you to find joy with your money, and we don't label it anything. And so that was a really neat solution that was offered.
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:27:03]:
And I really enjoyed that. Find joy with your money. Yeah. It's true. I mean, yes, maybe that extra coffee, the 4 or $5 Could have gone towards a retirement fund, but money is also there to be spent now. Yeah. You can't just be saving all of your money. Yes.
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:27:18]:
You can have a percentage of it that you're judiciously putting aside. Yes. But that that shouldn't change the fact that you still have to live today.
Kristine Beese [00:27:27]:
And it actually goes beyond that. It's interesting. The research and this was done on middle income individuals when we didn't have a certain amount of money that we could spend on the things that we needed. So I I don't mean needs as in housing, shelter, food, but that we but that brought us joy. We would go we actually, as humans, will go into debt. We need a certain amount of our money to spend joyfully to make it worth going to work all that time to get the things we want.
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:27:52]:
So the things we want. The things you want, not the things you need.
Kristine Beese [00:27:53]:
Yes. Otherwise, you will take on debt. So we really want to encourage people to spend money where they find joy and try to get everything else free or cheap. You know? It's you can't want all the things, but if you want your nail center, you want that morning coffee, it's your money. And if that brings you joy, We are not there to judge you, and so removing that judgment, removing the shame, on spending choices you know, shame on you for not putting enough money away for retirement. We do not do that ever. We we don't shame your choices, and we don't judge your spending.
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:28:31]:
Last question in your opinion quickly. Like, what do you think explains this difference in the paradigm between the the way money is being marketed to men versus women?
Kristine Beese [00:28:41]:
I think it's history. You know, women weren't able to open account an account by themselves until, you know, certainly my mother and my mother-in-law had their husbands countersign for them to open an account. We know that women get less In terms of credit line, like, the size of the credit, and we pay more for it, but we know we're a better credit risk. And what I mean by that is we know that women are more likely to pay the money back. So that means that the credit score design has does a really good job of predicting if a man's gonna pay back, but it underestimates if the woman's gonna pay it back. So that's, you know, a design flaw there. And I think that, you know, we weren't able to have property, and we we were property for very like, I think people forget how recently some of these changes have been made and how long a legacy some of these things that we use as tools have been around and how How difficult it is for companies who have done things a certain way for a certain amount of time and have 80% of the if not 80, 90% of these decision makers not really understand the lived experience of what it's like to be different.
Kristine Beese [00:29:57]:
I think it's gonna take a really long time for them to be able to have the humility and the curiosity to change some of those things because for them, it's worked for so long and it's been so successful that they haven't needed to offer something else. And I think it's it's also risky. Right? I I think when you have a product made for a woman we get this all the time. Did you pink it and shrink it, or are you implying that I can't understand the numbers? And I say, no. Not at all. We We are gonna talk to you and paint some pictures for you and and translate finance into, images that you can understand If you don't have a financial background, but we're actually gonna go further in some ways than the finance industry takes you because we want you to understand more fully the choices you're making so that we we're not telling you what you need to do. We're helping you figure out what will work for you. So some of that judgment removal meant we actually had to do more education. Mhmm.
Kristine Beese [00:30:53]:
To get you to the end point. So, I think I think it's history. I think it's the people making the decisions being a little bit having some blind spots, and I I think women aren't used to asking for what they need because we've been told not to for a long time.
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:31:21]:
Thank you so much to Kristine Beese. You can learn more about Untangle Money through the link in the episode description. If you like the show, please rate, review, and subscribe to And So, She Left wherever you listen. Your feedback helps us to better serve current listeners and reach new ones. You can also fill out our quick feedback form. It's just 5 questions long, and your response helps us to make the show that you want to hear. And so she left is made by Cansulta and Ethan Lee. We'll be back next Wednesday with a new episode.
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:31:51]:
Our music is by Chris Zabriskie, edited for your enjoyment. You can find a list of all the songs you heard here in the episode notes. I'm Katherin Vasilopoulos, and thanks for listening.