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Here’s What’s Needed to Help Working Moms Become Entrepreneurs
Women entrepreneurs face the same obstacles as men, in addition to disproportionately more responsibility at home
“Women’s issues” are currently getting a degree of long-overdue attention from political candidates, policy researchers, media pundits, and cultural figures. Among the issues being raised are the accessibility of childcare, workplace accommodations for new mothers, and paid family leave.
Many policy proposals on these topics hold positive promise as women continue to contend with a variety of issues within workplace structures. However, these discussions simply nibble around the edges of a much larger cookie — namely, the fact that our current system is just not working for working mothers of young children.
In my belief and experience, new models of work — namely women’s entrepreneurship and the accompanying ownership of their own labor — are potentially system-shaking pathways to a more just employment system. Any comprehensive set of policies aiming to increase women’s equality in the workplace must include efforts to overcome barriers to entrepreneurship for working mothers.
The dual responsibility of working mothers
The marriage of traditional employment structures with the economic necessity of dual-income households has introduced significant strain on families. This strain is shouldered disproportionately by working mothers. We’ve been thrust into a work-life model that evolved from a time when women did not work outside the home. While the involvement of women in the professional workforce has changed, the true constraints presented by concurrently being employed and having children have not.
The burdens of caregiving roles that are largely borne by women unmistakably remain, at best, obstacles, and at worst, impermeable barriers to enter the world of entrepreneurship. The division of labor in dual-parent households has been examined for years, despite significant research and calls for more equitable divisions of paid employment and household labor. According to the Center for American Progress, “When total time use is compared between mothers and fathers of young…
