Women are better at investing. So why is finance still made for men?

April 26, 2026 — 3:01am

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Whether she meant to or not, actor and producer Reese Witherspoon sparked a major online debate with just one Instagram post this week.

In the video, Witherspoon said that when she was at a recent book club with 10 women, she asked how many of them used artificial intelligence. Apparently, only three said they did and of those three, only one said they were confident they knew what they were doing and that they were using AI the right way.

“That means 70 per cent of that group is not keeping up,” Witherspoon said.

In a caption accompanying the post, she wrote: “The AI revolution has begun, and I need to learn as much as I possibly can about AI. Also, FYI: the jobs women hold are 3x more likely to be automated by AI, yet women are using AI at a rate 25 per cent lower than men on average.”

Much of the ensuing online drama centred around Witherspoon then calling on other women to learn with her, the ethics of someone within the creative industry promoting AI, and whether the A-list celebrity was paid to promote AI or is an investor in the sector and therefore stands to financially benefit from more people embracing the technology.

While all of those questions deserve their own discussion, what’s stuck with me since all this kicked off is how it relates to another example of what happens when women don’t participate equally in what are historically male-dominated areas – specifically, finance.

What........

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