ALL-MALE PANELS IN STARTUP WORLD: WE SAY NO!
The digital department of the European Commission, decided that trying our hardest to ensure proper female representation is no longer enough, and we agree!
Why do we see a #TestosteroneOverload on panels talking about startup or technology? …It could be a numbers game. In fact fewer women run big companies than men named John in theUSA. A considerable amount of women in the Netherlands choose to work part time. It can then be difficult to run a business in a shortened work week. Startups are like babies. #startupbabies require a lot of attention, a lot of resources, and are prone to throw a temper tantrum or two. Thus they also take a lot of time, #morethanfulltime.
…It could also be the environment. The business ecosystem can be isolating and uncomfortable at times to women. They don’t call it a “old boys club” for nothing.
…Several sources have outcomes that we can blame women themselves that they are not in panels. It could be because female entrepreneurs are modest. It’s been noted in several studies, and it was an outcome of my research. However we can’t link this directly. What I personally noticed was that female founders just didn’t think of actively taking action to be in such a panel, we are just not visible enough.
We can even blame more…
There are other aspects we could delve into, but — as I learned from Neelie Kroes — it’s more important to talk about what we can do to make #femalefounders or #womenintech more visible. Through the research on my thesis and my profession I’ve had the chance to meet many amazing female founders that I believe are great #rolemodels.
This is not to say that we see no women entrepreneurs out there. At many events there are a few women that regularly have a seat like Heleen Dura-van Oord, Corinne Vigreux, Simone Brummelhuis, and Claire Boonstra. We also see Janneke Niessen and her co-founder Joelle Frijters from Improve Digital more often in public. Janneke just published a book where she made an excellent role model for girls interested in tech entrepreneurship. Don’t get me wrong, I’m so thankful that they are there for this! But with just those women we are not able to cover all seats in all discussions or forums. We need more women to #stepup and share their voice. There are so many interesting female co-founders that could fill these roles. For example,Hanneke Stegweg from iLost — the ambitious woman who just won the Loey starters award this year. Oh, and don’t forget Marelle van Beerschoten co-founder of Applified, who has a lot of insight as to why and how corporates need to go more digital — she explained all this at the TV show Jinek.
And then there’s the female co-founders that are a little bit newer in the market. Their voices shouldn’t be underestimated though. Diane Janknegt is co-founder of WizeNoze, a kid-friendly place for children to search for content that interests them. Also consider Irina Marks the co-founder of Fuel Up or Suzan Claesen as co-founder of Crowdyhouse. All those women are female entrepreneurs in tech startups, but this is only a sampling. There’s so many more, and I’ll talk about them more in future blog posts.
For this post my message to women entrepreneurs is to #speakup. I’ll be honest, it wasn’t easy for me to write this blog either. I found I also have insecurities about how my research and my conclusions will be perceived. Or, as Sheryl Sandberg called it:impostor syndrome. But I am trying to find the confidence in myself to #standup and embrace the fact that #iamanexpert. And I believe other female founders should do the same and share their expertise, because you are experts in your field and you are #entrepreneurs!
As I mentioned earlier, often it’s a numbers game, and there’s one more number I want to leave you with today. Statistically, including women in business is positive for the economy and women run companies tend to do better on average than companies run by men. #thinkaboutit
