As part of my everyday job, I manage Facebook Ads. While doing this, there’s something particularly strange that I have realised. I work for a charity and it’s quite common for women to tag their partners and then ask them if they can sign up to make a regular donation. In almost all cases, their partner will say no, because all charities are a scam (of course.)
It baffles me for two reasons. First of all, why do all of these women feel the need to get the approval of their partners before making a relatively minor financial commitment? Obviously, I don’t know the exact details of their situation, but just hovering the mouse over their names shows me that more often than not they have a pretty good job. If they’re earning a pretty good salary, what concern is it of their partner if they decide they want to give a small amount to charity each month?
The second thing which baffles me is that their partners never, ever encourage them to go ahead with it. Often they’ll use arguments which are objectively wrong to try and persuade them otherwise. What I can’t help but wonder is, surely someone in a healthy relationship would say “Spend your money in whatever way makes you the most happy” rather than actively trying to dissuade them from making a generous and charitable donation? And it’s weird to me that they all seem to be so anti-charity too. It’s a shame that there’s so much ignorance around the subject. Plus, while consenting adults can have have romantic relationships in anyway they want to, I can’t help but think it seems a little unhealthy that these women feel the need to run these things by their partners…
It’s a weird parttern and not something I would have expected to encounter – but I think that’s one of the joys of working with social media. It provides insights into people’s thoughts and habits and is often very interesting (at least to me.)
