Y’all. This is trash. First things first, you’re a grown person. In what world do you need to hide anything from anyone? B, since the meme assumes you are a woman married to a man, why would he have any say over where or how you spend money yet it’s implicit that you have zero say over where he spends money. Actual trash. Three, why aren’t you both sitting down and coming up with a budget like grown humans?
Here’s the background: particularly now when I am home 99% of the time because pandemic times are what they are, I am on social media far more than I should be. I see this meme at least once a week. It’s always something to the effect of the wife hiding her Amazon or Target purchases from her husband or telling people to hush about her secret splurges. No. The misogyny here is ridiculous. The meme makes quite clear that the wife is doing something wrong by making whatever purchases she’s made and the husband will be upset about it. And then what? He’s gonna yell at her? Or hurt her? Where are we going with this?
Listen, I know I might be alone in feeling this way or stretching the bounds of what was probably intended to be a humorous meme, but it’s still trash. If you are living in a relationship with someone where you share money, as many married people do, the finances and expenses of both people should be all the way transparent. It doesn’t matter who makes more money or who does what when, equal partnership means equal say and equal access. Period. Yes, you run big purchases by each other because that’s a matter of mutual respect. But the assumption that a husband has any more control or say over frankly anything in a relationship doesn’t fly for me.
Now that doesn’t mean that we all shouldn’t check ourselves from time to time to make sure we are spending well within our means. During these times when we may find ourselves mindlessly shopping, it’s important to recognize when we perhaps didn’t need to buy that fifth scrunchie (even though it was on sale for $4 and had a bow and was so cute. Nobody needs that many scrunchies, Mary). If you spend outside your means and have debt issues, please seek the advice of financial professionals who can help you get things in order. But you check yourself. You do not have your husband sit in judgment of your purchases. No ma’am.
I think this upsets me so much because for a frighteningly long time, women were quite literally their husband’s property. They “belonged” to their father until the time they got married, at which point they “belonged” to their husband. Up until the 1970s, women could not buy or house or get credit without a man’s approval and cosign. Marital rape (aka the notion that a man can be convicted of raping his wife) was legal in some states until 1993. That’s right, up until the 1970s in some places and as late as 1993 in certain states, it was accepted law that a man could force his wife to have sex with him whenever he wanted and it was a-ok. I still today don’t think that a lot of women feel that they have the right and power to deny consent to their husband. I saw it when I was a prosecutor and women who much older than me would come into court and disclose that their husbands raped them on a regularly basis. So for me this whole let me hide my purchases from my husband thing is just a slippery slope into the I am his property and he gets to tell me what to do when mentality. Trash. Dangerous, stinky trash.
It is Domestic Violence Awareness Month and while many people do not see husbands being able to dictate when, where, and how their wife spends money as abuse, it can be and often is a form of abuse. Limiting or controlling another person’s finances serves to isolate them and diminish their agency and power over their life. It is a form of emotional and psychological abuse that in some cases can lead to physical abuse. If you find yourself in a relationship with another person who seeks to control you and isolate you, there is help. And a meme that was probably intended to be funny that is shared widely on the internet normalizing the necessity to hide purchases from your partner sucks. And if you are someone sharing this meme, please know that you might be reinforcing the notion that it is ok for a man to control a woman.
Intention matters, but impact matters more.
Put Mama First 
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