(Relevant for Sociology Syllabus: Paper 1- Social Change in Modern Society & Paper 2- Visions of Social Change in India)
(Relevant for GS Syllabus: Paper1- Social empowerment)
Entrepreneurship is the process that creates a difference in the life of other people by making a difference in your own life. Entrepreneurship has always been associated with wealth generation and we cannot deny the fact that indeed this is one integral part of the process. Simultaneously entrepreneurship as well drives change and innovation.
It will be more appropriate to address that entrepreneurship is the capitalized way to bring change in the society and your own life. You inspire people around you with following your own aspirations. And when we talk about change, an entrepreneur, the agent of change in society, creating interventions & betterment of society, women play a key role in this whole process.
Around 14% of the total entrepreneurship in India is constituted by women entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurship has influenced in great ways in the empowerment of the women in society & has bridged the gap to some extent in gender-biased ways of treatment on different platforms with women.
Amid the ongoing economic uncertainty and a turbulent job – market, the pandemic has presented a unique opportunity for women to pursue their side hustle along with taking care of their family, home chores and even office jobs.
An entrepreneur is the one who knows the problem that should be solved and women have been taken mostly the problem-solvers specifically at the home front. Hence, it’s gratifying to see that women today are on a spree of extending their god gifted trait of being a problem solver and converting it to a wider range of opportunity to become self-dependent and self-sustainablefinancially as well as emotionally.
The change of perception that only big ideas can make you an entrepreneur is underrated, with women renovating the small ideas into big businesses. Perhaps the size of the idea is no more of any relevance but how big is your conviction to roll it big and represent it on a global platform, which matters. Ideas are ideas, you make them big or keep them small.
The ability to make entrepreneurship “fit” with the other pieces of your life is possibly the most difficult part. It does require multitasking and here again, bang on, the women have been blessed with this attribute of multitasking.
It is this age in which we are watching the yin population, not choosing her individualities to be confined in home chores and family but they are moving out of the comfort and protected zones and hustling, taking risks to make the most out of it by creating opportunities for themselves.
It’s a simple calculation – more women entrepreneurs will lead to more jobs for women workforce and simultaneously more women empowerment. One of my female ex-colleague from a fashion garment company in Delhi faced a prejudiced situation post the delivery of her first child.
After returning back from her maternity, she was excluded from the chance of being promoted and a decent hike in her salary on the grounds that she went on maternity break which has affected her productivity clearly and now since she has a child who is going to demand her time and attention more, further adding in the decrease of her productivity level. Her productivity, contribution to the rise of the sales and successful completion of client onboarding project, before she went on her maternity break was all nullified in one go.
It pictured like more of a crime to plan a family and have a child at her workplace. And to this day she is quite thankful to her company that compelled her with its gender-biased practices & policies to quite her job and embark on a new career by starting her own consulting firm, where she is accountable for her growth and promotions and her slogging comes justified with the increasing turnover of her firm every year.
Meanwhile, her firm as well creates job opportunities for many other deserving women, men & even transgenders who are projected underserved by big companies on any illogical grounds, otherwise.
In this her firm as well further adds to the GDP of the country and yes WOMEN ENTREPRENEUR create a big impact on society. It was all not so easy though.
She had a choice to stay in the job with same salary and designation till the next appraisal cycle and keep on proving to the management that any change in her personal life has not affected her productivity at all. But entrepreneurship is a story that in this time the Millennials and Gen Z women force look up to and strive for.
Getting no space or less space than what the women deserve in Corporates and other professional platforms women are building up their own ship to explore the opportunities in the ocean; monetarily & emotionally.
