We live in a world that sees itself as superbly progressive. Especially among millennials who make up the vast majority of the startup crowd. Unfortunately, the situation is nowhere near as rosy as it seems.
The majority of serious writing that deals with the culture and interpersonal relationships in the startup world unearths a situation where women are just as underappreciated and discriminated against as in some old, traditionally misogynistic industries.
The best word to describe such a state would be sad. It is sad that women entrepreneurs get only a fraction of venture capital investments. Also, they have to work twice as hard to make it in the startup world.
Especially considering the many advantages the female gender possesses that can aid them in their entrepreneurial ventures.
Emotional Intelligence
Emotional intelligence denotes the kind of intelligence which has to do with people’s emotions.
For example, someone with high emotional intelligence is more likely to predict and read another person’s emotions and react in a way that will benefit either one or both parties, depending on what is to be achieved.
Scientists agree that this is a subject that needs to be treated extremely lightly, but, for the most part, studies and research agree that women have somewhat higher emotional intelligence than men, at least on average.
What this means is that women entrepreneurs form better relationships with their partners, employees, investors, and customers.
In the modern world of business, human relationships are valued more and more, this is an obvious advantage.
Better Multitasking Skills
Simply put, multitasking is a way of life in the startup ecosystem. Startup founders need to be spectacularly good at it if they want to achieve any modicum of success.
Money and deadlines are tight and a lot of work has to be done. Multitasking becomes a reality in such a world.
The belief that women are better at multitasking than men is not an invention of sitcoms or TV commercials that wanted to be funny, it is an evolutionary and sociological fact.
Evolutionary, women have had to deal with far more problems than men when raising a family and surviving. Whereas men went out to hunt and try to survive. Women were at home, juggling children, foraging for food, and keeping the shelter dry and warm.
Over thousands of years, women have developed multitasking skills because they had to. Considering that human civilization is only a few thousand years old, these evolutionary differences hadn’t had the time to subside.
In the entrepreneurship world, these evolutionary advantages women have can be of massive help.
A very modern and obvious example of this is male entrepreneurs who think that the use of aids and tools that help them stay organized is an admission of weakness.
Women know how to get the job done. If it means covering their entire office in personalized post-it notes of all colors, then be it.
A Tougher Road
Ironically, the situation that was supposed to dissuade women from pursuing entrepreneurship in the first place is yet another thing that makes them better at it, once they overcome the initial obstacles.
These obstacles start appearing at a very early age, with the vast majority of toys and games “intended for girls” having nothing to do with entrepreneurship or any kind of independent and forward thinking.
As for schooling starts, everything entrepreneurship or STEM-related is so obviously boy-dominated that the environment often gets uncomfortable or even toxic for young women.
The worst thing perhaps is that this continues well into higher education, where we still see a certain level of discrimination against women.
Overcoming all of this makes women entrepreneurs tougher, more hardworking than their male counterparts, and more likely to succeed.
Combine this with certain “innate” advantages, and you get a perfect entrepreneur.
Closing Word
The flow of this article brought its author to a very simple solution as to why the world of entrepreneurship is still such a boys’ club.
It is because they are afraid of these perfect entrepreneurs who happen to be women.
It is a sad and depressing notion, but it might just be plain old fear.
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