“What money brings happiness?”, Annalisa Monfreda tells her book in Bisceglie

From the desire to narrate and give life to a conversation about money, Annalisa Monfreda tells the starting point that allowed her to construct the essay “What money brings happiness? Why women aren’t paid enough, and other bold questions.” The presentation of the essay took place yesterday afternoon in the setting of Old Mastrototaro sawmills in Bisceglie.

The first step was to look at her bank statement, after leaving her job as a newspaper editor, and ask herself whether its value was proportional to how much she earned. The important thing, explains Monfreda, is to be aware of being paid the right amount, but to remember that money says nothing about us.

The book was born from the “Rame” Podcast of which she has been co-founder since 2022, which aims to narrate women’s interest in money, in a society that revolves around money. It is a revolution that puts money in the hands of women, involving men too. As Monfreda states “Economics is a relative of philosophy. It is a way of seeing the world, which can be changed above all by a female gaze.”

In the classic narrative, man’s goal is to make money and manage it to achieve a life project; vision that should be reversed by designing a financial project, after having made one’s desires clear. However, scientific literature demonstrates how money affects our lives and represents a limit to happiness, in a world incapable of creating true relationships and in which everyone is judged for what they do and consume.

The essay focuses on the problem of money management which finds its first obstacle in family conditioning. Monfreda wonders: “What stops women from being paid more than a man?“, the answer lies in the fact that women often ask for raises, but are told no and face self-censorship.

The problem must be solved at the source, dividing the care work between men and women, to bring about a revolution at home and at work. The problem of managing finances can be traced in quantitative analysis data, which reveal that only a third of women in Italy have their own current account.

Economic violence is an underlying problem in society, which can be resolved through a dialogue on how to manage money, in order to place women on an equal footing with men and be more independent and happy.

With her essay, Annalisa Monfreda brings with her stories of women and desires for transformation, in a field considered “to be avoided”, such as that of money.