Woman Entrepreneurship

Female enterprise is an uphill struggle to begin with and for them, it is really a case of unequal entrepreneurship. For billions of the world’s women, their lives are already intertwined with a web of constraints, limitations, obligations and sacrifices and for many they live in a certain pre-determined pattern of lives and are subject to a certain order of things.
There is a significant and systematic gap existing in the entrepreneurial involvement and business ownership of men compared to women – reasons are obvious as they clearly lack the opportunities in many societal contexts. These cases are more prominent in Asian than Western societies. Women generally lag behind men in terms of pay, promotion, benefits and access to opportunities. They are underrepresented in politics and management and are obviously less seen in most board rooms.
While the struggle of women's groups in every country is unique, increasingly, they are participating in market economy and even in politics where societies tend to be more matriarchal – like in Philippines and Indonesia. A Gloria or Megawati represents liberation of women’ power in those countries and within a strategic realm, it allows for empowerment of women and it elevates them to equal status as men. What are really needed for empowerment of women are role models to show the world those women folks are equal to the task and can rise to any occasion. What is needed is an enabling and encouraging environment that foster women folks to become entrepreneurs by showing them they can do it through role models like Ho Ching of Temasek, Olivia Lum of Hyflux or even Lim Hwee Hua who joins the ranks of Singapore's top political leadership as a full minister.
Women constitute an overwhelmingly untapped pool of entrepreneurial talents, and if we can encourage more women to start their own businesses or to head enterprises, we can add to our economic prosperity and vibrancy. It can add diversity from boardrooms to parliaments.