Entrepreneurs have great responsibilities of not only creating a success story for them but also have the ones to open new vistas for people who join their bandwagon. However, this is even more challenging for a woman entrepreneur. When a woman takes up the responsibility of running a business, she has to not only showcase her professional worthiness of being successful, but also prove her expertise in creating a work-life balance.
Women have historically been viewed as the “weaker sex” – people in need of protection, as opposed to men who have traditionally been characterized as protectors and defenders.
While it cannot be denied that men and women are physiologically different, and even if an average man is physically stronger than an average woman, it does not justify assuming every woman is physically fragile.
Despite all odds, Archana feel women have been able to prove themselves in all fields as entrepreneurs. In her journey of 14 years as an entrepreneur, She tried to work with as many women as possible, and the result has, if not always, mostly been the closest to perfection. She presents a recent example of a group of women from Labhatta village in Samastipur District. She says “ I saw one Raj Kumari Devi making beautiful baskets out of dried hay and wool threads. With a little encouragement and guidance the ladies in her village started working with Rajkumari devi and created an informal startup, supplying baskets which had buyers not only in India but also abroad. This is the strength of women, we do not need to empower them, they just need to be guided to realise their in built power!
Being a woman entrepreneur, she has faced a lot of ups and downs, but she never ever did let them become a hurdle to her passion of achieving the best. She would like to let her fellow women counterparts know, that she need to make a move, for life to move ahead for us. It is not unheard of for women entrepreneurs to be denied basic enablers such as easy access to funds and sponsorships. A lot of people have reservations about women’s capabilities in the field of finance as it is traditionally a male-dominated area, given its ‘logical’ basis. ven after centuries of struggle marked by gains made in terms of empowerment, women continue to face undeniably taxing struggles in all fields of life and work and the patriarchy is far from over.
For India to become a $5 trillion economy, entrepreneurship by women must play a bigger role in its economic development. India’s gender balance is among the lowest in the world and improving it is important not just for gender equality, but the entire economy.
The Right time never comes, it’s on us to make the time right and act on it.
