Most of us hope it isn’t of course, whatever James Brown thought. A leading businesswoman Gina Miller has recently spoken out in favour of a better business investment culture for women.
Ms Miller wants young women in particular to take control of their finances and invest for their futures, and to start early with this. She says the culture around this is wrong and male centric.
So why am I, a male middle aged divorce lawyer, writing about this? After all I have men and women clients in almost equal measure. Here’s why. The number one reason for me is that I have a daughter, and of course so do many of my clients. I have always told my daughter to follow something like the Miller approach - be smart and take control of your finances. Don’t depend on your partner for this. I might not have taught her much else but I think I have got this right.
After doing the job for more than 25 years I am amazed to see in 2025 situations on divorce where the spouse, usually the man, has at the outset of divorce nearly all of the assets.
There are many reasons for this. Some of them are often perfectly understandable. There may be inherited wealth, or he may have started a business, or not have taken a career break whereas his spouse did to care for children. On divorce the role of the judge is to equalise the assets in many cases, and certainly to adjust in favour of the financially weaker spouse to meet needs.
But wouldn’t it be great if in say another 25 years, when the next generation of middle aged lawyers like me review assets of their middle aged clients they see much more equal asset tables.
If they do there will be less financial power imbalance (divorce or not), and better long term provision for pensions (divorce or not).
More importantly we will have done right by our daughters and that equality will make everyone a bit happier and wealthier all round.