No Thank you, Forbes. I don't need a blouse.*

Last weekend, I attended World Information Architecture Day Boston hosted at Hubspot. The speakers were well-seasoned professionals in the Information Architecture, User Experience, and Design fields, with a lot of great knowledge to share. Of all the talks, statistics, graphs, images, and ideas shared that day, one stuck in my head.

During Joan Vermette's talk, she brought up a startling graph. Women's earnings peak, on average, at the age of 39. I'm 37, and of the belief, there's still much room to grow in my career. I'm looking to double my salary by the time I'm in my mid-40's. Yet here was Joan telling me, I might just be fooling myself! Could this be it?

Shortly after that, Sallie Krawcheck posted Ellevest's financial playbook for women, "Mind the Gap - and Close It". Ellevest's guide provides plenty of data, showing how much the wage gap truly impacts us over a lifetime. This got me focused on figuring out if this "peak-earnings-age-of-39-for-women" was a reality, the law of averages, or fancy footwork with data.

This morning, I did what any good curious person would do. I started my own investigation via Google, looking for anything that refuted these numbers. Did this apply to all women? Those both employed and working in the home? Or did it only apply to those with salaries?

After the Wikipedia-provided information from Google, the first organic listing was this Forbes article: Why Women's Pay Growth Slows by Age 30 and Peaks by 39. Why Forbes? Tell me!

When I clicked on the link, the screen image at the top of this page appeared. You know the one, the splash screen with the thoughtful quote before you get to the real article on Forbes? Take a close look at the image and I hope you see it too. Forbes, is the best you can do? I'm searching for information about salary and you choose to show me the following list of "Interesting Topics":
  • Women's Clothing
  • Blouses for Women
  • Designer Tops for Women
  • Women Clothing Catalogs
  • Woman Apparels - What even is this category? "Apparels"?! Grammar Nazi's, what say you?

Forbes, you should be ashamed! To the rest of you out there, who want to actually improve your financial education and future, what are your thoughts on this?

* Article originally published on LinkedIn and titled "Forbes, I'm calling you out!".

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