Well Suze O's theory is that women are so busy nurturing others that they have little left over to care for themselves. That is true some of the time. But there are also lots of young single women who do have enough time and energy but do not spend it on learning about money managment.
Where does the resistance come from? I think from my own analysis that many women are willing to trade competence for the feeling of "being taken care of" and loved by having their money managed by someone else...and if no one else is there to do it, they would prefer not to be reminded of that. This is one of the last hallmarks of "feminine privilege"..that we will worry about everything and take on every task except the money.....and turning it over reminds us that we don't have to do it all. We feel loved and cared about in this way and that feeling is just too pleasurable to question too much. Many times it doesn't matter to us to whom we have turned it over..to a partner, a parent, a professional...as long as we do not have to worry about it. If you examine it, most adults at some level have dependent longings..it looks so easy and inviting. Men long just as much as women to "be taken care of" but they have less permission to enact it.
The difficulty with this option is that we are exchanging genuine adulthood for dependent pleasure and along with that we also sacrifice self-esteem, power and control over our lives. Money is like oxygen in contemporary society...it sustains and supports your life by buying you food, shelter, medicine, transportation,recreation, utilities, social connection in the form of phones, etc. It is too important to turn it over and risk that you may end up without enough to sustain your life through to it's natural conclusion. It also takes 2 adult partners working in sync with each other to learn all the skills necessary to make the complex decisions they need to make about their resources and their life paths.

I just finished my copy of Suze Orman's new book called "Women and Money" and I am glad that she is talking about the dysfunction that so many women have with money. The book is just fine and so is the information it it. But I wonder about a woman being able to work a 5 month program with a lot of information in it on her own. Women just do so much better when they are using personal support and relationships and talking to help them make lifestyle changes. It's the difference between going to Weight Watcher meetings and reading a diet book on your own.
I notice that so many get excited and engaged when they start to talk and relate about themselves and their money but when their attention is moved to technical information, they tend to lose interest. There seem to be only a few women who truly relish all the technical information about money management. The majority of women can take this only in very small bites . It seems preferable that they come up with a simple system of their own devising that keeps them learning in a more involved way than trying to incorporate a lot of financial wisdom from the printed page. The biggest change that a woman can make in her money management is not just to master the skills but to begin to talk about it with her closest friends and loved ones. Talk about it openly. Ask questions to get a little bit of information given person to person.
This is how most women build their emotional and relationship skills. They discuss every detail of conversations with others and then ask their friends about it. A money group that you form with your group of girlfriends where you begin to share the skills that you are developing is really a great way for women to begin to overcome this. If you think about it, invite a friend over and have her/him teach you how to use financial software or how to balance your checkbook..in exchange you can do something for your friend. This is the way that women learn best and stay motivated.......there's nothing wrong with Suze's book but most of the women I end up working with already have the money managment books on their shelves, unread and it is not until we start exchanging small bits of information through personal contact that the real changes begin.

This letter is written to all young women who are in their 20's and have the opportunity to go against the crowd and get on an unusual path. The way things are currently imagined in womens' money lives is as follows:
the 20's: student loans, travel, have fun, buy clothes, go out to eat and drink. This fits our culture's ideas of the young years when one is supposed to be free before settling down.There is a lot of support for this way of being.

You may be hearing, "do it now before you are tied down."

This is also a great time to get really serious about your money life.
Why now?
The 20's are a time when you are laying down life patterns that will be in place for decades.
You can see this time as an investment in yourself, setting your self up to have options later.

You can get going on a career path and take the lower jobs that will take you up later.This is harder to do later on. Getting into a new system often means starting at the bottom.

You can live cheaply with roommates to share the cost.
You can use your natural ability to play and have low- cost fun.
You can use your free time to learn about investing and get started making your money work for you.
You can start a retirement account that will be working for you for 40 years.
You can question the ways you see and come up with original life patterns.
You can develop good habits of understanding your money to be sure you will have what you need when you need to be free later on in life..whether that means quitting a job, starting a business, staying with children, leaving a partnership or staying single.
You will have money to put into the opportunities that come your way...and they will come if you are watching for them.
You can see how your parents did it with more clarity and question to see if that is right for you.

You give yourself more choices down the line when you learn to think independently about money and don't follow the current forces. This is the first mantra of succesful investors and there is no better investment than using this stage of your life to lay the foundation for a solid future with choices and options.