Businesses Run by Women

.....entrepreneur one must endure multiple hardships. These hardships define people as leaders or failures. Women in the last few decades have amidst gender inequality, started businesses. This had led to a major growth in the number of women entrepreneurs in a predominantly male-dominated area. However, while women entrepreneurship has written, the persistent inequalities and continued views of women have led to the assumption that entrepreneurship may still be gendered. Meaning, society views only men as the main bread winners and capable of being effective leaders that entrepreneurs are defined as.

This paper supports this assumption and will provide evidence of gendered entrepreneurship as well as literature that goes against such notion, demonstrating the potential for the gender gap to narrow in the future. To first understand the potential of gendered entrepreneurship, one must first define it. Gendered entrepreneurship is a hypothesis considering entrepreneurship to have gendered patterns. The UK was the first to provide gender-specific statistics that demonstrated both gender orders and gender systems exist in all spheres, including the third sector (Lundstrom, 2013, p. 287).

While the information provided may not dictate how people within the business world feel about women entrepreneurs, it does reveal certain patterns. For instance, women across the globe are paid less than men (Lundstrom, 2013). The wage gap has not leveled even in countries like the United States and England. Further exploring the meaning behind gendered entrepreneurship, one must look at how women see entrepreneurship. A 2006 article by Lewis, suggests women entrepreneurs have the tendency to see entrepreneurship as gender-neutral while also seeing entrepreneurship as part of the masculine norm.

"By considering the way in which some women business owners not only treat entrepreneurship as gender-neutral, but also seek to conceal its gendered nature, we can see how some women entrepreneurs are trying to avoid being identified as different from the masculine norm of entrepreneurship" (Lewis, 2006, p. 453). This appears conflicting. If women entrepreneurs saw entrepreneurship as gender-neutral, why do they attempt to keep others from seeing them deviate from the masculine norm? There could be several reasons for this.

The first reason is businesses have been run by men for many years. It was not until recently that world has witnessed women leaders in business, politics and other male-dominated areas. With no real basis to draw upon, women entrepreneurs must use already available information and then merge this data with knowledge of the differences they experience and witness daily. Lewis explains this merging of information in a 2013 article on entrepreneurial identity.

Drawing on Charme's notion of existential authenticity, which places an emphasis on the cultural, historical, political, economic and physical limits to being 'true to oneself', the article shows how the situated nature of women's search for an authentically driven entrepreneurial identity means that they draw on a feminised discourse of difference and a contrasting masculine discourse of professionalism in their identity construction labours (Lewis, 2013, p. 252).

Essentially, Lewis states women attempt to unite their awareness of gender differences with the accepted norm of a business ideal that leans towards masculinity to create and assume their own entrepreneurial identity. Entrepreneurial identity remains an important aspect of being an entrepreneur. It is not simply becoming a leader, or assuming responsibility. An entrepreneur must think a certain way, behave a certain way, be a certain way. Unfortunately, because women entrepreneurs are a recent breakthrough, women can only base their ideas of what an entrepreneur is from men.

How is that not engendered entrepreneurship? It appears women must learn to be like men if they are to gain a firm understanding of what it means to be an entrepreneur. Of course, as the future comes and more women take on the role of entrepreneur, future generations of potential women entrepreneurs will look towards these role models and develop their entrepreneurial identity. Whether that identity includes archaic masculine architypes is left in the air.

However, in the present, that women entrepreneurial foundation is not yet there and so women wishing to dive into the business world must do so with the information and role models provided by this period's societies and cultures. As explained earlier, today's society has move progressively towards gender equality, but has done so at a slow rate. What does this mean, 'slow rate'? Women do not get paid as much as men.

Their businesses are not as expansive or profitable as men's are, and they are consistently seen as in need of assistance or help due to the social constructs belonging to the image of 'woman'. "What is consistently shown, however, is that women's businesses are smaller than men's are, they are less profitable and they do not grow as rapidly. Whatever we call masculine or feminine is something of our own making" (Jonson Ahl, 2005, p. 54-55).

While research shows male and women entrepreneurs perform relatively the same, the image of the woman being feminine and therefore weak, is still there. Society still views women as the weaker sex and therefore the less capable. Women are still mistreated and seen as objects rather than people. Not all men view women in this regard, but some do. Often men in power regard women as objects because they have the money and power to buy women's sexuality.

These are the men that control and influence the work environment for women. If they still have negative beliefs concerning women in the workplace, how has progress truly been reached to a level where prejudices are non-existant? Women must contend with a millennium or more of society dictating what is feminine and masculine, and who is feminine and masculine. This leads to the assumption that women entrepreneurs cannot perform as well as male entrepreneurs or that they need assistance.

By literature pointing towards women entrepreneurs not having the same level of success as male entrepreneurs even if they perform roughly the same, it seems to reinforce this notion of weakness and fragility in women entrepreneurs. While this is not the case, it certainly appears that way because of the lack of established foundation for women entrepreneurs. Women entrepreneurs do not have the connections, the funding, nor the family birthright males do when it comes to establishing a business. They must do so (typically) on their own.

That is not to say women entrepreneurs are not receiving the kind of perks and assistance male entrepreneurs have been having for years through family money and inheritance. They are and as recent news articles note, millennial women entrepreneurs are making more than the women before them. This presents a potential counterargument. Women now, in the last few years, have emerged as successful entrepreneurs, more so than men, and more so than the women business leaders before them.

"Millennial women also reported even higher revenues than their already-above-average gender group for the coming year: for women, revenues were 9% above the overall average, and for women "millennipreneurs," it was 22%" (Petrilla, 2016). Millennial women are the new face of the women entrepreneur. One who can generate high profits, expand their business globally, and create a vision of leadership that is both effective and uniquely their own. They may point to an inevitable change in how society perceive women in business. Still women are not quite there yet.

With cultural norms reflecting a sexist society across the globe, there is a long wait before women are seen as equal universally and especially in the business world. No matter how much progress women make now, it will take decades for this progress to translate to equality and perception of equality.

The article by Petrilla mentions three key areas women entrepreneurs excel in: "According to the report, women entrepreneurs are making most of their money in three sectors: retail; professional services such as consulting, accounting or law; and fashion" (Petrilla, 2016). Two of these areas, retail and fashion are women dominated areas due to shopping practices of women versus men. For equality to truly emerge, women entrepreneurs must excel in more areas, especially presently male-dominated areas.

A decade ago, Ahl wrote a research article explaining the results of research in women entrepreneurship. The researcher discovered despite "intentions to the contrary and in spite of inconclusive research results, a tendency to recreate the idea of women as being secondary to men and of women's businesses being of less significance or, at best, as being a complement" (Ahl, 2006, p. 595).

When comparing it to a recent 2016 article of the same topic, the field of women entrepreneurship is still at an adolescent stage, suggesting a long way to go concerning research on how women function as entrepreneurs and their abilities to succeed in this area of business. This could be because of a positive paradigm means of research that must be replaced by more innovative methods via use of a constructionist approach (Yadav and Unni, 2016). Such a change in research methodology may yield clearer results.

The article by Yadav & Unni (2016), reveals a need to foster professional communities and construct transnational networks to further the growth of research in women entrepreneurship and women entrepreneurship in general. To do so, researchers must examine through the feminist theory perspective. Many studies in the past borrowed theoretical concepts from areas that were not valid for the women entrepreneurship domain. There is a need to be inclusive of diverse voices and consider constructionist approaches to explore traditional as well as non-traditional questions.

Particularly, there is a need to use the lens of feminist theories to capture heterogeneity in women entrepreneurship research and extend existing entrepreneurial theories" (Yadav and Unni, 2016, p. 10). They must also expand the score of research in not just the context, but also the content of the research. Most articles on women entrepreneurs only discuss their progress in western nations without looking at eastern nations and economically developing nations. Expanding the scope to include developing nations can improve the understanding of women entrepreneurs.

Research should expand into other key areas such as class, sectors, regions, and countries. "study comparisons among class (upper, middle and lower), sectors (manufacturing, services and others), regions (urban and rural) and nations. Scholars can design studies to examine the impact of factors like industry, family, culture and goal orientation in women founded enterprises" (Yadav and Unni, 2016, p. 7). By expanding to include these key areas, the understanding of women entrepreneurship increases.

It can lend not just to detailing how women deal with being an entrepreneur within such varied settings, but it can also provide a means of helping society see how innovative and progressive women entrepreneurs can be when faced with the multiple challenges presented in a developed nation (for example) or starting off in a lower to middle class. As the business world knows all too well, many entrepreneurs come from wealthy families. One such notable figure is Donald Trump.

He did not achieve the level of success he had on his own. He came from a wealthy family with a father who loaned him a million dollars' worth of start-up money to invest in his new company. "Fred Trump, was at one point one of the richest men in America after constructing apartment complexes for the middle-class in Brooklyn and Queens.. There was a nearly $1 million loan from Trump's father that was part of the deal" (Kessler, 2016).

Not only did his father loan him a large sum of money, his connections and wealth furthered Trump business negotiations and helped him build the 'empire' he has today. This image of Trump is an all too common one where children of wealthy or well-off individuals gain success as entrepreneurs and then sell their ideas to the major companies or continue their business on their own/with the help of their families.

By researching women entrepreneurship in impoverished areas or with women from differences races, cultures, and ethnicities, a better picture of the woman entrepreneur can be created. Women entrepreneurs after all, are just as diverse and skilled as men entrepreneurs and deserve to be seen as such through broad-based research initiatives. Such initiatives can help future generations of women entrepreneurs build entrepreneurial identities that can lead them to a successful business venture. An archaic notion of business and society is that women are feminine and men as masculine.

In a 2000 article discussing leadership and masculinity/femininity, the researchers state leadership is associated with masculinity (Due Billing and Alvesson, 2000). As such, when women leaders come in to the scene, they may not be regarded as leaders due to the traditional mindset that men are masculine and belong in masculine spheres; women are feminine and belong in feminine spheres.

Moreover, the article asks for the inclusion of leaders as feminine and not simply masculine to change perceptions of leaders from just being male, to also include female identity and so forth. "Constructing leadership as feminine may be of some value as a contrast to conventional ideas on leadership and management but may also create a misleading impression of women's orientation to leadership as well as reproducing stereotypes and the traditional gender division of labour" (Due Billing and Alvesson, 2000, p. 144).

The researchers understand the effects of such redefinition can lead to persistence of gender stereotypes. This then leads to further support for gendered entrepreneurship and the subsequent continued inequality of women and men in business by means of persistent negative stereotypes of women. Men label women and women label women as being feminine when everyone has both feminine and masculine traits, with some showing higher degrees of femininity and masculine than others, and some still showing androgynous traits.

By restricting women and putting them into the feminine side of gender expression, this creates a belief that women cannot be leaders because they cannot perform the actions required from a leader, due to their gender. Such beliefs have existed for generations and do not seem to see any change within the next coming decades. Some may argue women have changed gender roles and continue to do so in a way that will inspire long-lasting change.

Even in developing countries like Liberia, there exist female leaders like Executive President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf. Developed nations like Germany has Chancellor Angela Merkel and Norway has Prime Minster Erna Solberg. These women will provide the basis of future women leadership and encourage young girls today to be leaders tomorrow. But is that enough to remove the gendered bias of entrepreneurship today? The answer is no. Women are still facing insurmountable injustices that have recently progressed due to policy changes on abortion and extreme religious movements.

These injustices exist in developed nations as much as developing nations, especially in countries like the United States. A 2012 article detailing a woman's experience in Goldman Sachs, shows the level of discrimination women endured in a male-dominated company. Details of promotions going to men over women regardless of effort and experience was common place.

"But Forbes's Helaine Olen raised another possibility: Perhaps Goldman (and other banks) discriminate against their female employees either overtly, through promotions, or through fomenting an atmosphere that makes it harder for women to do their jobs" (MYUNG-OK LEE, 2012). Sexual harassment, and overt misogyny was normal and men felt they could treat women as inferiors regardless of their position within the company. The writer even mention in an instance when a woman was raped while attending a business meeting with her male business associates in a topless bar.

These are just some of the actions men took against women in an established and well-known company. Other instances of misbehaviour against women were not as overt, but far more frequent and just as demoralising. "In one Goldman office, memos announcing a new crop of incoming female associates, instead of the usual corporate headshot, some joker used different semi-nude pictures of Playboy playmates. It was clearly thought to be clever, instead of puerile and wrong" (MYUNG-OK LEE, 2012).

Because so many women work in the sex industry and still work in subservient roles to men, it may be difficult for men to see women are more than just sex objects and servants. Across the world, especially in Asian countries, women are still expected to be submissive and feminine irrespective of their personalities and aims. While there has been some progress, not enough has been made to change things completely for women in business.

Such experiences detailed by Myung-ok Lee show the progress is not enough to remove the gender-based stereotypes still prevalent in the business world and especially when it comes to entrepreneurship. These stereotypes will take years to remove and even longer to replace with more positive balanced images. The shift should be towards neutral concepts of leaders and neutral gender identity in relation to business and business acumen. One can argue recent developments have led to equality in the workplace and therefore potential dismissal of gendered entrepreneurship.

A study done in India provided insight into factors that go into promoting women's competence in the workplace. "Results elucidate seven job-related factors (infrastructure, HR functions, organisational climate, legal pursuit, empowerment, training and development and ethical concerns) and two individual factors (interpersonal and mindset) that are considered essential for women employees in Indian organisations" (Kaushik, Sharma and Kumar Kaushik, 2014, p. 90).

Companies that adopt a positive organisational climate that allows women to voice their concerns of potential sexual harassment or lack of promotional opportunities lends to a more balanced approach to the workplace and promotes gender equality. Nevertheless, often companies do not employ such practices. The ones that do encourage equality, are far less in number than the ones that do not. Women ultimately are not met with a company that is aware of their needs.

For example, the United States has yet to employ a federal paid maternity leave mandates (Mumby, 2012). Other countries have, but have not addressed workplace environments (Mumby, 2012). The problem is too complex to address within a couple of decades leading to confirmation that there is little in the way of preventing gendered stereotypes and thus gendered entrepreneurship in the business world. One last aspect to consider that was briefly touched upon was financing and the ability of women to gain financing compared to men.

A 2012 study found women experience financial barriers to a higher degree than men. "The findings suggest that a greater proportion of women are solely constrained by financial barriers than their male counterparts. The gender of the respondent was also found to interact with a number of other personal characteristics in a significant manner" (Kwong, Jones-Evans and Thompson, 2012, p. 75). Because women are often paid less than men, it is harder for them to save enough startup capital to start a business.

Furthermore, it is harder for them to gain angel investors to take their idea from concept to creation. There may be numerous reasons why this is the case. The article suggests policies may make it harder for women to secure financing for their startups. "This finding suggests that policymakers should be encouraged to market the availability of start-up finance from various sources to encourage women to attempt to obtain the necessary finance rather than being discouraged at the first hurdle" (Kwong, Jones-Evans and Thompson, 2012, p. 75).

Should businesses have incentive to fund women-led business startups, this could lead to easier access to financing for women entrepreneurs. Organisations and non-profits exist currently to help women entrepreneurs finance their ideas. However, due to underfunding of such nonprofits and organisations, women entrepreneurs are left without enough resources to fund their businesses. Such lack of funding leads to women must earn and save enough capital to start their businesses. This takes a long time and may prove difficult for women to pursue entrepreneurship on the level men do.

Countries like the United States have yet to provide the tools and financing to allow for a higher level of female entrepreneurship. The UK however, has seen some progress with one article detailing the ability of some female entrepreneurs to raise £1m in funding to create their successful businesses.

"From technology to fashion to food and drink, the following budding female entrepreneurs have all launched businesses on or after January 2012 and have gone on to raise more than £1m in funding, achieve annual turnover of more than £500,000, or, in some cases, both" (Dunsby, 2016). This progress while impressive, is not enough to rule out gendered entrepreneurship. Gendered entrepreneurship emerges from a host of various scenarios.

From people expecting men to be more competent and capable, to women not possessing the kind of connections and resources needed for a startup to take off. These things are important aspects to consider when determining if gendered entrepreneurship exists. It is also important to consider the political climate of countries as they become more politically unstable and lend to violation of women's rights due to invasion.