My wife is the Global Head of Venture Capital in the UK Government. She used to work at Deutsche Bank and the Cabinet Office and is often at Number 10.
But ask her about women entrepreneurs and she will tell you there are more hurdles for them than men. And that without more women in the workplace, our GDP and hence tax take and hence the NHS and all the things we care about suffer.
So I was fascinated to read the comments in the Times this week to the article “Female Entrepreneurs ‘sidelined by boys club’.”
First the data from the column, then the comments to it.
“Four fifths of those polled by the Female Founders Forum (FFF), a project backed by Barclays and which aims to encourage female entrepreneurship, believe that men have access to better networks, while 72 per cent said it would have been easier to raise equity finance if they were a male entrepreneur.”
Just over half, or 59 per cent, of the women surveyed felt that they had been discriminated against because of their gender.
“The number of women not returning to work after they have kids is on the increase because childcare costs are making it impossible,”
Now the comments – you can see the problem women face from these comments alone!
Wrote Paul L: “If female entrepreneurs can’t get financed, there is an opportunity. Presumably other female entrepreneurs will know this and know money is being left on the table and can fill the gap in the finance market.”
Paul is a believer in the magic power of the markets that everything fixes itself by itself.
James writes “What about boys not promoted because of the fear of companies not promoting girls, to simply tick boxes/be seen to do the right thing. This nonsense needs to stop. Promote the right person, irrespective of male / female.”
James thinks the right person is always able to get to the interview stage. Again, he’s in the ‘no problem, it’s all imagined’. Why you would ignore the voice of the women? Maybe you just don’t like them.
Chris writes, “This narrative is becoming very tedious. Why would lenders or investors, who are seeking to achieve a return on their investment while managing risk, systematically misallocate their capital in order to ‘favour’ men?”
Chris too assumes only the good are in front of them, and the women don’t get the funding not due to prejudice, but because they’re not good enough. Again, he thinks people are rational, non-prejudiced, profit-maximising. Faith in the markets. It is the Times Newspaper after all.
Writes Alan Pechey, “"Making excuses" doesn't tend to be high in attributes most would give to successful entrepreneurs.”
Alan possibly feels, like the others, women are whinging. In fact anyone claiming any problems is whinging. Wonder where the term ‘privilege’ came in?
Anyway there are more. But there is a benefit to social media anonymity which allows people to feel emboldened – you also see the true thinking of so many people.
