Women and Entrepreneurship ◾ 43
3.3 Personal Challenges Faced by Female Entrepreneurs
“Start small and dream big.” —Rich Dad, Poor Dad
By its very nature, entrepreneurship poses signicant personal challenges,
including money, time, and family pressure. Those challengers can be par-
ticularly acute for women, especially those with young children. Moreover,
with women starting their own businesses at an increasing rate, understand-
ing the challenges is an important component of success.
Currently female entrepreneurs own almost half of all small businesses in the
U.S. The steady rise in female entrepreneurs can be attributed to several factors,
most of which share the same rationale as their male counterparts, such as:
◾ passion for their ideas
◾ desire for economic independence
◾ dissatisfaction with current job
◾ need to engage in philanthropic causes
◾ social imperatives
3.4 Women and Success
“I nd that when you have a real interest in life and a curious life,
that sleep is not the most important thing.” —Martha Stewart
In her seminal 1974 book Women & Success: The Anatomy of Achievement,
Ruth B. Kundsin
7
asks:
If a female Einstein existed in the United States today, would
she be recognized? Would she be at the Princeton Institute for
Advanced Studies? Would she get a National Science Foundation
grant? Would she be listed in Who’s Who? Or would she be found
in a neat suburban house washing her husband’s socks, practic-
ing Craig Claiborne’s recipes and imbibing dry martinis in the
afternoon with anger mounting in her heart toward her family, her
friends and the faculty at the college where she majored in physics?
Another challenge is that women’s success hinges on the fact that they are
asked to demonstrate competence in a variety of roles, both as women as well