Why Women-Owned Businesses are the need of the hour
Feminism, gender equality, women empowerment are not new words for us. They have been around for quite some time and ever since the advent of the Internet and the rise of the digital age, they are being used more and more. We keep hearing and consuming content that tells us that empowering women is important, and whenever a single woman succeeds, we definitely celebrate her success and congratulate her, but what we also do is keep telling everyone that women are empowered ‘enough’. Well, who gets to decide if women empowerment is ‘done and dusted’?
In a country like India, if you get to interact with people from different socio-cultural backgrounds, you will see that a lot of them will dismiss the idea of women empowerment by saying that women have enough freedom already. If you try to point out that they don’t, these people will quickly name a few women who have been extremely successful. This is called tokenism. Tokenism is when a single woman’s success is used to create the false idea that women don’t need uplifting or support or empowerment. Having a single woman in a board of directors, in a company’s panel or in decision-making roles are common examples of tokenism.
The problem with tokenism is that it prevents us from working towards real empowerment on the ground. It also discards intersectionality in the feminism movement, which means that it fails to take into account the fact that some women may also be more privileged than other women in terms of caste, class, race and many other factors. In order to truly evolve and to reach a point where we can statistically say that men and women are ‘equal’, we need to still work and encourage women to take up space and get the representation they need. One of the ways to do so is to encourage women-owned businesses.
Today, while the number of women in the workforce has increased, it is still much less than the number of men. Women also get paid much less than their male counterparts and have to fight for maternity leave on a number of occasions. If we have more women-owned businesses, we will not only have more representation, but when women lead organizations, there will be more equality and more opportunities for women to earn the same.
Moreover, women-owned businesses will also change the business scenario by creating something that men-led enterprises cannot. When a woman-led business creates something for women, it will be more insight-driven, more relatable and more real, thereby making the product and the market lucrative. Female consumers want businesses and brands that they relate to, and women-owned businesses will do just that. Women-owned businesses will also help us fight the perils of tokenism and break the glass ceiling. Women-owned businesses are about representation at the top level of management, about women taking up the space they deserve in the public sphere, about them being paid as much as their male peers and getting recognition.
Women-owned businesses are a step towards inclusivity and equality, which will lead to a better world, not just for women but for everyone. Women-owned businesses are the way forward, for social and economic growth.
