Barriers & Panacea to Women Entrepreneurship

Women today play multiple economic roles in our society. They are consumers, farmers, labourers, teachers, bankers, innovators, scientists, pilots and astronauts. Many are self-employed while some are turning entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurship provides the most powerful economically empowering avenue for the women, for the community and the nation. But according to a report, it is estimated that globally there are only roughly 9.34 Million women owned formal small and medium enterprise in over 140 assessed countries.

The above data is very small. So why there are so few women Entrepreneurs? In my opinion, the four main barriers to women becoming entrepreneurs are these. The first set of limiting factors is intrinsic i.e. within the self and family. Most educated women are turned to take up jobs; it is easy and lends the stability of a fixed salary. But with more women leaders coming to the forefront on corporate boards and as entrepreneurs, like Indira Nooyi, Chanda Kochar, and Kiran Majumdar Shaw hopefully all intrinsic pressures will slowly fade away.

The second set of problems is the most critical. These include lack of access to resources like credit, technology and markets. Lack of access to formal, easy, collateral free, and transparent financing for women start-ups is a major problem area. Women also lack access to latest technologies that could enable them to climb up the value chain. The third factor that is a hindrance is that women are not always equipped with adequate knowledge and skills to tap opportunities. They lack exposure to practical aspects of running a business.

The fourth issue is that of networking. Creating wide and sustainable network of women producers and consumers is essential to build and nurture women entrepreneurship. There are many corrective measures to increase women entrepreneurship in India. Increase the volume of women support systems like child care and family support. Enlarge upon development and capacity building processes for soft skills, technology and management skills.

Amplify mentoring and market linkage to support for women owned enterprises through networks like women entrepreneur associations. Simplify the external entrepreneurial ecosystem by enabling ease of doing business. Make simpler government schemes eligibility criteria, documentation and clearance mechanisms. Bring in smarter technology and better inter-departmental coordination to enable simpler, faster, transparent and effective service delivery for women start-ups.

A Documentary of Thoughts

For all I can say, the BBC4 Documentary by Leslee Udwin was completely over the top, completely left me cold and flat. But the choice to watch or not was mine. The comments or problems occurred such as, “tourism is affected”, “a situation of tension and fear among women in society is created”, and then documentary was banned by the government. Banning the documentary was not the solution. It was like covering mindsets and crime again.

Despite tougher laws, there is a 69% increase over the past decade in crimes against women including molestation, rape, and domestic violence. We need to ask how and why 44% college students in modern India responded to a recent survey by agreeing that women have ‘no choice’ but to accept a certain degree of violence. We need to understand why our sex ratio in the 0-6 year old age group is the lowest in six decades. These are facts that shame any civilized society. But how do we even begin to start dismantling these horrific statistics unless we first try and understand the culture that allows them to thrive?

Protests on streets, signature campaigns, and changing the law, that was the easy part. But as anyone who grapples with patriarchy knows, changing the mindsets is far, far harder. To change the mindset it is important to know the mindset. That is why one needs to watch Udwin’s film. The one-hour long film reportedly includes a nine-minute interview with one of the rapists and interviews with two defence lawyers. This is a documentary of thoughts of a criminal, two government officials who were fighting the case and some people.

There were equally reprehensible statements made by lawyers and criminals. In the days following the December protests we’ve heard some astounding comments from a variety of politicians, university heads, religious cult figures, police chiefs, and other people. Each statement brings with it a torrent of protest on social media and elsewhere. And the statements made in the documentary fit part of that pattern.

There are interesting and valid questions being raised in the debate on Udwin’s film. But none of these should detract from the main crux of the debate, which is tackling misogyny and ending a culture of rape. The main crux is that there is a certain mindset that allows violence against women to flourish with impunity. Those whose national pride is wounded by the fact of a foreigner claiming to make a documentary that exposes an ugly truth might want to consider that the fight against patriarchy is a global fight that knows no borders.

Violence against women is the conversation across the world from North Kivu to Washington DC. In June last year, 1,700 delegates from 123 countries met to discuss how to end sexual violence in conflict in the US; the government is cracking down on an apparent epidemic of campus sexual assault. Everywhere, women and men like us are saying ‘Enough’. We lit a fire in December 2012. We started a conversation. Every bit that adds to that conversation, every scrap that leads us to think, every effort to end violence should be welcomed, not banned.