Female entrepreneurs ‘do it’ – run their own businesses, that is – in a surprising variety of ways, many with the aim of
managing their work and home life as effectively as possible.
Some
seek out full-time childcare. Others work only three or four days a
week. Still more deliberately choose to grow their businesses slowly in
order to retain some semblance of work-life balance, not just for
themselves, but also for their staff. I wanted to illustrate that women
can do things their way without feeling they have to behave like a man
to make it.
Indeed,
the majority of women I interviewed believe it is their gender that
enables them to be so successful in harnessing the interest of their
consumers.
They
are able to use their emotion and intuition to promote a business
concept that is part commerce, part social philanthropy in a way most
men probably can’t. In short, it seems the very characteristics
perceived as weak in the past are the ones that enable today’s
businesswomen to be so attuned to the public zeitgeist. Some may argue
that these women shouldn’t be defined by their gender. That they are
simply business executives or entrepreneurs and their sex has nothing
to do with it.
I
beg to differ. I believe that gender has everything to do with it. I
wanted to show that you don’t have to be a ruthless ball-breaker,
chained to your desk to make it.
In fact, I believe these women are making it on their own terms. It’s the attractiveness of these terms and the success these women have made of them that make them so inspiring. What’s more, they make no apologies for being feminine.
Article then profiles: Leila Wilcox; Penny Newman and Dame Mary Perkins. Click here to read in full.
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