2/24/2014

ASSIGNMENT

Summary of the Article

Womens empowerment will be the center topic in the upcoming years as more companies, communities and countries are investing in womens entrepreneurship. Though women has the unique ability to see things differently and there are 126 million women operating new businesses and another 98 million are at the helm of establishing one, they face a huge equality gap in the business sector. Tory Burch created the Tory Burch Foundation (TBF) in 2009 to support the economic empowerment of women entrepreneurs and also to help them in facing certain obstacles like balancing work and family to securing financing. TBF also prioritizes certain issues like access to capital, support to flourishing businesses and women entrepreneurial education. In TBF monitoring events, number of women entrepreneurs often develop networks with other entrepreneurs to discuss about the common challenges that they face and also to learn from each other. Narrowing the gender gap is important as more successful women entrepreneurs will emerge to inspire others as well as the global income person will increase 20% by 2030.

Identification of the Problem

Though empowering women is really important in a context of a country, there are some drawbacks which is preventing it. Reasons are given below: 1. Equality Gap: Even though women have good or better qualifications than men, still often their skills are not valued as same as men's and their career progression is slower which creates equality gap. 2. Cannot Reach to Their Potentials: The active business women may face the physical and emotional damage or intimate partner violence which is a significant barrier to women reaching their full potential despite of being active. 3. Balancing Work and Family: Family responsibilities are not equally shared. As a result, women have more frequent career breaks and often do not go back to a full time job. 4. Securing Financing: It is often said that average women earn less than men and since women today are now the primary care-givers, they often are the only breadwinner, thus have a tension of secure finance. 5. Lack of Collateral: Many women are getting divorced, becoming widowed or does not have any specific assets, which creates an impact while taking loans through collaterals. 6. Fewer Opportunities: Women do not always get all the support she deserves, thats the reason why around the world few opportunities are watched for women entrepreneur than men. 7. Lack of Confidence: Lack of entrepreneurial education is the reason behind their capabilities and fear failure. Confidence is earned if they get proper trainings.

Reasons behind These Problems

1. According to our thinking, gender differences in entrepreneurial activity in promising and new business as compared to established business in countries with different levels of income is seen a lot in both absolute and relative terms. There is also a significant difference can be found that in the rates of equality gap in entrepreneurial activity between the groups of low and middle income countries like Latin American countries and Euro or Asia countries. In this case the rates of entrepreneurship, for both men and women, were higher in the Latin America, than in the other countries. It happens due to the lack of opportunity and support from the society, even sometimes the women seem to be able to reach the stages of qualifying or obtaining the relevant skills and of obtaining entry or setting up a business but fail in persisting and finally advancing. 2. Though nowadays women are taking initiative to start up new businesses and also run them very effectively, sometimes they face difficult situations to cope up with the environment and these environmental issues could be the internal like lack of family support, pressure of family management, emotional damage even the domestic violence etc. or could be social one like lack of appreciation, negative criticism and so on. All this have a very bad impact on women which can even break them mentally or physically and fails to survive on the business world. 3. Every working woman faces a similar barrier in their career which is balancing between the family and the work. It is really a very tough job to maintain both equally at a time as a result most often women take breaks from their career or job to maintain the family, even do not engage them in any full time job. The discouragement from the home, coupled with opposition from society at large creates emotional and physical barriers. This has a grave impact on entrepreneurial behavior of a woman, it takes enough courage and self-

confidence to overcome the situation but most of the women get unsuccessful to balance between this two. 4. Women entrepreneurs generally have a problem related to the access to the capital. The faces different types of problems while managing the capital for the business or collateral, they also face gender biasness in this case. As a result it become tough to establish a successful business, though nowadays Grameen, Accion, Womens World Banking etc. several micro finance organizations are helping women to progress with help of sufficient capital. 5. Lack of collateral is a very real issue that enterprising women have to grapple with. While legally women have a right to ownership, legal right does not translate into actual practice at the family level. Lack of inheritance rights also leaves women with little hope for providing collateral. Thus women in general, have less access to finance and financial support than men. 6. In some developing countries the women do not have the sense towards decision making and about their life or career. They have lack of confidence and motivational factors. In many situations they are not enough knowledgeable and they have small knowledge about managerial tasks as a result they have to depend on the staffs or management. They also have lack of mobility and confidence to deal with the external world.

Alternative Courses of Action

1. Taking Their Strong Point into Business: Women are usually interactive; they can use their outsider status and interactive quality to develop socially conscious business practices that support their communities in innovative and exciting ways. They balance profits with social good and environmental sustainability. The inequality can be decreases if the strong point of women is utilized well enough. As women are good at socially responsible businesses, they should focus on this sector of business and expand it later on when they will get success and appreciation of people. 2. Having Seminars and Workshops to Educate the Women and Their Families: Family support is the most important matter to be an entrepreneur. If women get the family support above all else, they will be much more confident about being an entrepreneur. But many families do not encourage women to get out of their house and do work like. This mentality can be changed. There can be sessions of seminars and workshops for women and their families where they will be educated on women entrepreneurship, importance of women entrepreneurship for the societies, the contribution of women entrepreneurship in the overall economy, etc. Through this process, the mentality of the families can be enhanced towards women entrepreneurship and they can be learned to encourage and support the women in every sector of life. 3. Government Involvement: Government should organize training programs for women to develop professional competencies in managerial, leadership, marketing, financial, production process, profit planning, maintaining books of accounts and other skills. Vocational training should be there to help them understand the production process and production management.

4. Promotion of Women Entrepreneurship: Promotion of women entrepreneurship ensures economic independence. Social freedom of women gains social status. It makes women conscious of their rights of equal status. It can create more respect in the family and can give self-prestige, avoid gender biasness, etc. It promotes leadership qualities among women and enlarges the family income. Women have travelled with the times for centuries and have proved to the world that the hand that rocks the cradle can rule the world.

Women Empowerment Situation in Bangladesh

Growth of Women Empowerment in Bangladesh:

To show the growth of women entrepreneurs, a statistics has been made by the Bangladesh Women Chamber of Commerce and Industry (BWCCI) which is given below: Year 2007 2008 2009 Percentage 15% 13% 13.5% Cumulative Percentage 15% 28% 26.5%

2010
2011 2012

13.5%
14% 15%

27%
27.7% 29%

2013

17%
Table: Growth of Women Entrepreneurs in Bangladesh

32%

Here, in this table the percentage and cumulative percentage from the year 2007 to 2013 has been shown which represent the gradual increase in women entrepreneurship. We have seen that there were many fluctuations in some of the years, however the number of women entrepreneurs are rising which means with the course of time, the women plays a significant role in socio-economic development of Bangladesh.

Problems Faced by Women Entrepreneurs in Bangladesh:

Women of Bangladesh face several kinds of problems which act as the barriers in their empowerment. Some major obstacles are described below: 1. Lack of Education: Majority of the people of our country live under poverty line and the prime portion of them are not educated. Among this uneducated people, women are more suffered. As they have lack of proper knowledge there are many things that goes beyond their imagination which plays a big role as a burden. 2. Lack of Business Knowledge: Majority of the women in our country are confined to their households because of which they do not get proper exposure to external environment. As a result, they suffer from lack of information about self-employment and business practices.

3. Family Confinement, Religious Customs and Social Norms: In our society, the extent to
which a family supports a female entrepreneur is lesser then supporting a male because the traditional thoughts. In rural areas, women are very much abided by cultural barriers, norms and customs. Female entrepreneurs operating in rural areas are bound to follow the cultural codes, religious customs and social norms. All these barriers are not helpful in the development of female entrepreneurs. Moreover, restricted societal norms do not always allow women to go outside their homes and to be involved in different entrepreneurial activities.

Conclusion

Women entrepreneurship has become an essential part for the development of an economy. Despite its immense importance, there are significant problems that women face while establishing their own enterprise. Especially in countries like Bangladesh where half of the population is women, it is really important to promote women empowerment for the growth of the society as well as the national economy. So, government must intervene immensely to ensure smoother path for the women entrepreneurs to start their own ventures.

References

Global Management Review. (2011, May). 5(3). Assignment Point. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.assignmentpoint.com/business/womenentrepreneurs-of-bangladesh-current-situations-ict.html Industry, B. W. (2008). Building Women in Business: A Situation Analysis of Women Entrepreneurs in Bangladesh. PWEA. Nawaz, F. (2009). Critical Factors of Women Entrepreneurship. S., D. M., Gazi, M. I., & Doula, M. U. (2014). Socio-Economic Impacts of Women Entrepreneurs in Bangladesh:. Retrieved from http://www.bwcci-bd.org/ Vossenberg, S. (2013). Women Entrepreneurship Promotion in Developing Countries: What explains the gender gap in entrepreneurship and how to close it? MSM.

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