Why Women As Entrepreneurs?
Yatra nāryastu pūjyante ramante tatra devatāḥ
Yatraitāstu na pūjyante sarvāstatrāphalāḥ kriyāḥ
The divine are extremely happy where women are respected;
where they are not, all actions (projects) are fruitless.
The Sanskrit Shloka is ages old but the wisdom, that it imbibes is priceless in the evolving societal structure today which seeks equal participation from both men and women in all spheres of life.
A woman is the most wonderful creation of God! An age-old line, but so true in its real sense. A creation entrusted with the responsibility of bringing another life into this world. A life that is to be cared for, nurtured and prepared to face real-world challenges. In the entire process of bringing a life into its matured form, a lot of mental, emotional and physical loads are being handled with patience, persistence and definitely sometimes with fluster. But despite her juggling with a multitude of chores, a woman successfully attains her objective of shaping up a new life that has come out of her.
A lot of vibrancy is evident in the present entrepreneurial ecosystem, terms like women entrepreneurs, empowered womenfolk and women self-help groups are now in common parlance. Women-focused schemes are gaining traction across domains. Both the policymakers as well as the industry are aligning themselves towards more inclusive participation of women. Is this realisation sudden or is it based on some eternal truth to which we chose to remain nonchalant?
Does one see why this gives enough reason for a woman to be a successful entrepreneur leader? Creating a new business idea, nurturing it, and finally shaping it into a profitable enterprise is analogous to what she does with her baby.
Entrepreneurship is a mindset, often drawn towards opportunities, innovation and new value creation. If the reader looks around, they can find a perfect portrayal of such a mindset in a woman in their family, probably in their mother, sister, spouse and daughter.
She is constantly looking for opportunities for the intellectual, physical and personal development of her child, innovating most of the days in her household responsibilities and also keeping a check on her growing kid and educating them on moral and societal values. Whether she is at her work front or her home front she is always working to achieve the incremental betterment. Kudos to her neurological structure, a woman’s mind is capable of playing multiple roles and handling multiple emotions.
We are in an age where we could find more advocates of gender equality. We have been seeing a decline in the gender gaps around the world. Women are participating more and more in economic growth. They are playing the role of an educator, politician, scientist, doctors, bureaucrats, technocrats and many more.
Despite their increased participation all over the world, women across economies often struggle for some of their basic rights including safety, health, and liberty and to balance out their share of responsibilities. There is a need to promote affordable childcare, parental leave, and workplace flexibility to women so that they can be valuable partners and contributors to the mainstream economic development of the nation.
The recent resignations of women premiers of New Zealand and Scotland were quite unexpected. Both of them touched upon the immense balancing act required to justify their responsibilities towards their countries and on their personal front.
They were unabashed to spell out that this had drained them of the strength required to carry on with their assignments any further. This is no weak signal and needs to be captured as a significant indicator towards creating an environment of support for women, to allow them space on focussed pursuits of their professional commitment, and thus emerge as refined versions of themselves.
This holds true for women entrepreneurs also, both aspiring and in the grind. Though there is no doubt that over the years, the governmental policies across nations are slowly aligning themselves towards women's empowerment but these now need to be made sustainable and withstand the test of time and world realities.
The need is for systems which are friendly and easy to access for women to choose and excel in domains of their liking.
