Have you ever wondered what it means to be a woman in business? Well, to put it simply, it is tough.
There are barriers faced by women in business on a daily basis; barriers that are proven to be due to their gender.
Statistics show, “only 1 in 3 UK entrepreneurs is female: a gender gap equivalent to 1.1 million missing businesses”.
Shocking right?
Now let’s add being of an ethnic minority to that list, I’ll let you do the maths.
As a woman of an ethnic minority myself, I have seen differences in progression and development in comparison with my white co workers and start ups. Although it was disheartening, it gave me the motivation to work harder and prove that Black and Brown women can do it too.
Working for Girl Grind UK has given me an up-close and in-depth insight into the lack of support and encouragement for ethnic minority women who want to start their own business. “Although business performance by gender does not differ, women-owned enterprises typically start with lower levels of resources.”
Why is that?
What is it about society that ranks ethnicity and gender so high on the checklist, and puts skill sets in third place?
Let’s talk about business development and resources. Statistics show that “a perception of ethnic discrimination discourages some ethnic minority businesses from applying for bank loans”.
If you work in business, you know how important it is to have the option to be able to apply. If that option is taken away and people are too disheartened to apply for something which could enhance the growth of their business, how can we expect the gap of inequality to decrease?
Continuous discouragement is just as bad as bluntly telling them no without context. If not worse, because it can strip away one's confidence to achieve all they can be. It is detrimental to our success that we tackle the inequality gap.
We must do something to make a change.
It’s not okay that women of ethnic minorities have to work even harder to ‘prove’ themselves to the corporate and creative world, but unfortunately that is the card that we have been dealt.
But we can and will make a change to that.
We will show them how talented and successful we are and our hard work and determination will pay off. So go and get on that business development programme, go and do that thing that you have been second guessing and go and show them who's boss.
Become a Triple Threat girl.
If we won’t stand up for ourselves, who will?
Authored by A Person On Their Grind!
References:
https://www.prowess.org.uk/facts/