Female entrepreneurs

[2][3] This growth has led to the rise of wealthy self-made females such as Coco Chanel, Diane Hendricks, Meg Whitman, and Oprah Winfrey.

[4] The first female-owned business in the United States is recorded in 1739 when Eliza Lucas Pinckney took over her family's plantations in South Carolina when she was 16 years old.

For instance, with longstanding and significant barriers to educational and alternative employment opportunities, Black women were historically relegated to low-paying jobs and domestic work—particularly in the Jim Crow South.

[8] Lower levels of wealth, access to capital, racial discrimination and inadequate networks have been and continue to be barriers to entrepreneurship women of colour face.

[13] In the 1900s, due to a more progressive way of thinking, and the rise of feminism, female entrepreneurs began to be a widely accepted term.

With the boom of the textile industry and the development of the railroad and telegraph system, women such as Madame C. J. Walker took advantage of the changing times.

Carrie Crawford Smith was the owner of an employment agency that opened in 1918, and like Madame C. J. Walker, sought to provide help to many women by giving them opportunities to work.

Domesticity was the overall public concern and a theme that was highly stressed during this time, and women had to juggle combined home responsibilities and their careers.

Support groups, organizations for educating the female entrepreneur, and other opportunities like seminars and help with financing came from many different sources, such as the Women's Business Development Center and Count Me In.

Even with the increased popularity of women in business, the availability of technology and the support from different organizations, female entrepreneurs today are still struggling.

However, with the continual attention given to female entrepreneurs and the educational programs afforded to women who seek to start out with their own business ventures, there is much information and help available.

A significant factor that may play a role in this disparity can be attributed to the fact that women from low-income countries often seek additional means of income to support themselves and their families.

[citation needed] "In the grab for power, women use whatever means available to them, whereas a man would take a club to his opponents head, a woman is more likely use other less forceful and more subversive measures.

One of the arguments the study of gender discrimination in venture capital funding is that the demand for skilled women entrepreneurs is greater than the supply.

In 1999, the Diana Project showed that contrary to conventional wisdom, many of the women who were not financed through growth capital had the necessary skills to build a high-growth business.

[25] Another important factor in receiving private equity funding is an entrepreneur's human capital, derived from education, training and experience.

Some studies have shown that women were less likely to have the necessary experience in executive or technical management since they tended to be more present in the retail, finance, service and real estate sectors.

[25] This has led other researchers to study female entrepreneurs with extensive human capital, to identify whether they still face discrimination in their funding search.

In a study that used data from MIT Venture Mentoring Service, it was found that women with strong human capital were still less likely to pursue their high-growth business ideas full-time.

There are hundreds of peer-reviewed research papers written focusing on many different aspects of education, specifically regarding STEM, that explain the implicit bias against women.

[opinion] In addition, this issue is extremely hard to fix because it is so ingrained in society, but it is important that there are options for girls to get involved in STEM related classes and extracurriculars at a young age in order to create less of an inequality of opportunity.

This shows that for evaluators to trust women entrepreneur's abilities they need to see a greater potential in them than in their male counterparts, likely due to gender stereotypes.

Other obstacles include the fact that firms owned by women tend to be smaller than men, are more likely to fail, and have lower levels of sale, profits and employment.

Female entrepreneurs in the four southern states and Maharashtra account for over 50% of all women-led small-scale industrial units in India[citation needed].

Organizations such as Gritty in Pink - a platform associated with Melissa Etheridge to empower women in music - have succeeded through partnerships with programs like the Long Beach Accelerator, which works with Sunstone Management to invest in tech startups, placing an emphasis on diversity.

This guarantee covers up to 80% of a bank loan, limited to €50,000, to finance investments and working capital requirements over a maximum period of seven years.

At the same time, the Initiative France honor loan offers financial support to female entrepreneurs without requiring a personal guarantee or interest.

Réseau Entreprendre's Wom'energy program, focused on female entrepreneurship, offers an honorary loan from €15,000 to €50,000 to support women entrepreneurs at all stages of their development.

Similarly, regional action plans for women's entrepreneurship have been multiplying since the 2012 framework agreement, involving central departments and associations in the assessment and implementation of tools tailored to each geographical area.

There are government-backed programs available to female entrepreneurs and information can be found on their website at SBA Online and their Facebook group SBAgov.