Some Of The Challenges That Female Entrepreneurs Face. Running a business is a difficult task that requires hard work, discipline and determination and if anyone has these skills and applies them to their business, the business will see growth and success over a certain period of time; this applies whether a person is male or female. The gender of a person does not influence their ability to perform in the business world as we have seen with many business women who have surpassed many expectations with their business becoming successful throughout the whole world.
Even though this is the case women still face many challenges in the business world that hinder them from reaching their full potential, some of these challenges are:
Defying Social Expectations – There are many expectations that have been put on women about who they should be, how they should carry themselves, their sexual orientation as well as what careers they should pursue. When women want to break out of these societal expectations they are met with a lot of criticism and discrimination. Women have had to constantly prove that they can offer more than what the society labels them but the patriarchal system is entrenched in societal institutions that these social expectation still persist till this day.
Accessing Funding – Funding is fundamental in order for a business to get started. Accessing funding is not the same for males and females as females are more limited when it comes to getting capital to start a business because most women do not have property or assets to their names, that is why they encounter problems when applying for a loan due to lack of collateral damage. Most that offer funding to business are owned or run by men and when a woman seeks funding from them they start to question the women’s expertise in the particular field as well as hold a bias against the women because of certain gender roles.
Balancing Business and Family Life – With some of the outdated gender roles still in place women find it hard to start their own businesses or to focus more on their businesses as they are expected to take care of the household. Female face this challenge because running a successful business requires one’s full attention and women who have families find it difficult to give the business their undivided attention because of the household expectations such as taking care of the kids and cooking.
