In the past 100 years or so, the world has come a long way in terms of gender equality. Women now have the right to vote, to work, to own property and to get equal pay, however not everything is perfect. Underlying bias exists in many facets of our society, business and entrepreneurship being one of them.
Women make up only a third of entrepreneurs around the world. While that number is growing, many women are put off by the perceived extra challenges associated with women and the business world. The first and perhaps the most obvious challenge is that of children. Many women have it imposed upon them that they either have to choose their career or their family, they can’t have both. Even if they attempt to ‘have it all’, there becomes issue with maternity leave and the amount of time a woman has to be away from work to recover. In fact, when I was speaking to a senior member of SBS Australia about this issue she said that often when women took maternity leave, due to the cut throat nature of the journalism industry, they would not have a job to return to.
In addition to this, there is a lack of female role models in the entrepreneurship scene. When you think of an entrepreneur, the names that instantly jump into your head are rarely female.
While there are female entrepreneurs around the world, they don’t tend to be as publicised or as numerous as their male counterparts.
Despite the fact that challenges do exist, it does not mean that women shouldn’t try to become entrepreneurs. In fact it means just the opposite. We may not have as many role models or mentors to look to for guidance, but we just need to work harder to become those role models for future generations of female entrepreneurs. Equality has been achieved in many other areas of society, there’s no reason we can’t achieve it here too.
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