Oú sont les femmes

This article was initially written in French and published on the 19.06.24 - view here

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Written by Jean-Michel Jarre and composed by Patrick Juvet, contrary to what you might think, this song became the first major French disco hit, selling over 250,000 singles and topping the charts in the summer of 1977.

In the lyrics, Juvet sings, "Elles portent un blouson noir / Elles fument le cigare / Font parfois un enfant / Par hasard !" Provocative for its time, just two years after the abortion law, it sparked controversy, particularly with the Women's Liberation Movement (MLF). But the MLF has faded away, nobody smokes cigars anymore, and Patrick Juvet passed away in 2021.

He left behind "Le lundi au soleil", a song written for Claude Fran?ois, and some debts. He designated a former classmate and his manager Yann Ydoux as heirs. His chalet above Montreux, once a symbol of his success, was seized by the tax authorities and now belongs to a bank. And though his sister, who had his body cremated, never revealed where his ashes rest, Juvet's fans continue to gather at the foot of a Himalayan pine tree he gifted to his friend Eugène Chaplin in 1973 on the heights of Vevey.

Women and Money

Last week, I attended a Zwei Wealth conference where about twenty institutions presented their investment policies. Congrats to J. Stern & Co for winning and to Lapis Asset Management for their third-place finish. Among the presentations, VP Bank's on women and money caught my attention. Three comments stood out:

1. Eight out of ten women don't want to talk finances: Honestly, I doubt this statistic. My wife, my mother, and my mother-in-law would then be exceptions that prove the rule.
2. Seventy percent of women change their banker when they become widows. Side note, women live an average of six years longer than their male counterparts.
3. A satisfied woman is six times more likely to recommend her banker than a man. So, to grow your clientele, nothing beats a female clientele.

Women Are Wealthy

Currently, women hold about 40-42% of the world's wealth, a significant increase from previous decades. This share is expected to grow faster than men's in the coming years.

In 2023, there were 43,457 ultra-wealthy women (with over $30 million in assets) and 337 female billionaires worldwide. I don't understand why the wealth of female billionaires declines faster in rankings than that of men.

There's nothing particularly distinguishing a woman's asset allocation from a man's. The difference is in the approach. Women tend to be more cautious, favoring a long-term perspective and investments aligned with environmental, social, and governance (ESG) criteria. Despite often achieving better investment performance than men, women are usually less confident about their financial knowledge and more open to seeking advice. Wealth transfer is a significant factor.

Women and Deep Fake

The digital world isn't immune to old habits. When it comes to online manipulation, the most effective technique seems to be posing as a woman. Wen-Ping Liu, a disinformation researcher (I didn't know that existed), discovered that during the recent Taiwanese elections, fake female accounts had a much higher engagement rate than their male counterparts. Indeed, gender stereotypes persist: women are perceived as warmer and more approachable, making these fake profiles more credible and influential. Whether it's for Chinese or Russian propaganda agencies, online scammers, or even chatbots, adopting a female identity remains the most profitable strategy (AP, EN, 2min).

Not everything is negative with the arrival of hyper-realistic female avatars generated by AI. They could make the use of human actresses in the porn industry obsolete, thus reducing "sexploitation" (Johan, FR, Youtube) For the record, today the markets in the USA are closed to commemorate the end of slavery ("Juneteenth Day").

If you want to see the animated version of the cover image