“Boys are raised to think about earning, about being providers,” says Priti Rathi Gupta, founder of LXME, a women-focused financial platform. “Girls, on the other hand, are taught how to budget, how to run a household. But not how to grow wealth.”
Even in homes where money is openly discussed, implicit biases seep in. “I come from a family that talked about money all the time. But even for me, the messaging was clear- manage your spending, be careful. For my brother, it was about running the entire household’s financial needs,” she recalls.
This social conditioning shows up later in life. While men often experiment with trading in their early 20s, women tend to defer financial decisions to fathers, brothers, or spouses, even if they’re earning their own money.
Gupta recounts how, at Anand Rathi Wealth (before launching LXME), she would meet dozens of freshly minted chartered accountants each year. “In induction sessions, I’d ask who manages their own money. All the boys would shoot their hands up, talking about intraday trades and returns. The girls who were equally qualified would mostly say, ‘My dad does it for me.'”