It struck me as odd the other day as I perused my Google Reader that only six of the forty eight social development related blogs that I read are written by women. Later in the day, I moved on to Twitter, again, overwhelmingly male in the social development Twittersphere. What struck me as even stranger: why is this not being talked about? Why is there not yet much chatter about women in social enterprise? We hear about the predominance of Anglo-Saxon voices and the need to incorporate more voices from the developing world, but not the lack of female voices. Even further, why don’t we see more women as social entrepreneurs themselves?
Women are at the absolute center of the greater development dialogue. The World Bank calls investing in women “smart economics” because of research that shows the enormous multiplier effect of advancing women’s economic participation. The case for women’s economic empowerment has advanced so far as to become widespread and uncontroversial.
Yet, today, women only own 1 percent of the world’s wealth; have only a 10 percent share in global income; and, occupy just 14 percent of leadership positions in the private and public sector.*
“Investing in Women” was the year’s theme for World Population Day that took place on July 11. The event drew attention to the importance of improving the health and opportunity of women worldwide in order to create a more just and balanced world.
The emphasis was on the critical task of uplifting women around the world by providing girls with the opportunity to gain an education, by delaying marriage and childbearing until adulthood, by improving reproductive health, and by developing a culture that gives women the ability to make decisions about their future and their families’ future.
“The Girl Effect,” a video initiative spearheaded by the Nike Foundation, has been perhaps the most powerful and popular social media tool used to disseminate the simple message that by creating opportunities for girls, we create opportunities for the world.
There are 600 million adolescent girls living in poverty in the developing world. By giving one of these girls a chance, you start the girl effect. When girls are provided with education, legal protection, health care, access to training and job skills, and a safe place to congregate, they can thrive. And if they thrive, everyone around them thrives, too. The short video, which is 2 minutes and 23 seconds long, as of July 31 has almost 350,000 views on YouTube (this isn’t counting views on its own site).
Shashi Tharoor, the new Indian Minister of State for External Affairs, a member of the Indian Parliament from the Trivandrum constituency in Kerala, and the former UN Under-Secretary General tweeted about the importance of engaging and involving women this week. He wrote, “The single best thing you can do for development is to educate girls. Educating a boy is good, but you educate one person; educate a girl and you change a family and a community.” (n.b. liberty taken with the quote since it was abbreviated due to Twitter’s 140 character cap) This datapoint has in fact been echoing around the women’s community for decades.
The list could go on and on. Yet there is much more talk of male social entrepreneurs than females. A few strong women have found their voice and started an enterprise, and they get a lot of press coverage. Look at Jacqueline Novogratz of Acumen Fund or Leila Chirayath Janah of Samasource for stunning examples of this. But a critical mass has yet to be reached.
So, I would urge all you women with dreams, with ideas, with vision, to get out there. Start talking. Start doing. We are all waiting for you!
If you are a woman social entrepreneur with a great idea, please take a second to make a comment or reach out to us directly at ideas@beyondprofitmag.com.
* According to CEDPA
Jeff Berlin Said,
August 3, 2009 @ 11:44 pm
I agree in the sense that I am not seeing the support for girls and obviously the CEDPA statistic is staggering, what sorts of efforts might be put forward which allows openings to be made for people, especially girls, who are not currently allowing or allowed the option of becoming a social or commerce entrepreneur?
Karthik Raman Said,
August 4, 2009 @ 9:01 am
Great post! We do need more women to play critical roles as social entrepreneurs, but we also need men and women to work together to create the “education, legal protection, health care, access to training and job skills, and a safe place to congregate” to thrive. Women social entrepreneurs would be great at leading this, but we men also need to do our part so that this does not remain a “women’s only” issue.
Microfinance has for the most part done a great job of leveraging women within their own communities to strive for the above stated goals. What other industries have? It just seems to make sense to employ women to take on all sorts of tasks and it would be great to find out who else is working on this?
Elizabeth Nichols Said,
August 4, 2009 @ 6:56 pm
Thanks for your post! I am on the board of a student-run non-profit organization called Circle of Women, which is based out of Harvard University. We are dedicated to promoting women’s education in the developing world. Our first project, “Project Wonkhai,” was the construction of a secondary school for girls in Wardak, Afghanistan. As of April, the school has been completed and hundreds of girls are now going to school! We truly believe that providing a girl with an education helps to enhance her own life, while providing her with the tools to contribute productively to her changing society. I encourage you to check out our website as we are not only interested in fundraising to ensure the sustainability of our school and to embark on new projects, but we are also dedicated to raising awareness about the importance of women’s education.
Shaherose Charania Said,
August 5, 2009 @ 2:17 am
As the Co-Founder and CEO of Women 2.0 (www.women2.org) my twitter-sphere, blogosphere and beyond is nicely balanced. Where are the women? Well, some of them are here!
Feel free to follow us @women2 for fresh tweets.
Our organization is a startup itself – it grew out of a single serendipitous gathering of female co-founders of early stage startups in Silicon Valley in 2006. We have organically grown to a community of over 10K, monthly events, entrepreneur workshops, and an annual startup competition that has seen now over 300 early-stage startups with at least one female co-founder across web, mobile, cleantech, biotech, and retail; we noticed about 30% of these ventures have a social bend. While we are heavily concentrated in Silicon Valley we have received submissions globally from India, Pakistan, Singapore and more.
Women want to innovate, create and change the world – we see it everyday and hope to provide the resources to enable more women launch more ventures.
Adrienne Villani Said,
August 11, 2009 @ 4:23 am
Hi Jeff,
Great question. We hope to be uncovering some of these efforts in our ongoing research about the space, as we wonder exactly the same thing. When we come across some new, cool initiatives, we will definitely let you know. And we hope that you will do the same.
Thanks!
Adrienne
Adrienne Villani Said,
August 11, 2009 @ 4:30 am
Hi Karthik,
I totally agree — the best situation will be when issues are no longer ‘men’s only’ or ‘women’s only.’ An environment of cooperation and collaboration needs to be created.
You, at Source for Change, are doing a great job on this already.
In terms of leveraging women within their own communities, the non-profit world in the States, at least up until 5 or 10 years ago, was predominantly run by women. But this is really changing as more men are entering the sector. In terms of other examples, I’m not so sure, especially within the Indian context.
Adrienne
Adrienne Villani Said,
August 11, 2009 @ 4:41 am
Hi Elizabeth,
Thanks so much for all of this information. The state of education for women in Afghanistan (especially since it’s been brought to the forefront by Greg Mortenson and Three Cups of Tea) is getting a lot of attention these days as it is such a good indicator of both war/peace and development. I would be very excited to learn your thoughts on this and to learn more about what you are doing in Afghanistan.
Adrienne
Adrienne Villani Said,
August 11, 2009 @ 4:43 am
Hi Shaherose,
It is so good to hear about your balances twitter and blogosphere. We would love to learn more about Women 2.0 — please send us some information at ideas@beyondprofitmag.com and let’s set up a time to chat.
Thanks!
Adrienne
Sarayu Natarajan Said,
August 12, 2009 @ 8:28 am
Adrienne,
Nice post! On the issue of there being so few ‘visible’ women in the Social enterprise space – I’m surprised – having been around for nearly two years, I have noticed that there are quite a few women around me. Even where I now work, there are more women than men. I sense the challenge for some women may be a lack of awareness about how beneficial communication and networking, etc. are. What do you think?
On the fundamental issue of bringing women into public spaces – I think even more fundamental for a vast majority of women is having the choice to do what they want, and I agree, a ton of discussion and effort towards a co-operative collaborative environment is needed.
Adrienne Villani Said,
August 12, 2009 @ 8:42 am
Hi Sarayu,
Thanks so much for your comment! Very insightful and we are completely on the same page that we need to create more dialogue, more opportunities, more networking, more communication, etc.
As for the number of women in the field, I agree with you to a certain extent. There are women in the space, you are very correct, but my feeling is that there are few true social entrepreneurs, meaning women who run their own social businesses. At organizations where you work or where I work, there are lots of women, at Beyond Profit and Microfinance Insights, we are six females and two males on our team. But these organizations are more of intermediate/assistance/advisory organizations in the field of social enterprise, I think. Would love to hear if you feel differently.
Adrienne
Sarayu Natarajan Said,
August 12, 2009 @ 11:35 am
I agree! In fact, my bad for not having clarified. In the ‘ecosystem’ there are women, but entrepreneurs – very few. But are we looking at things with a very narrow lens – isn’t every single woman who takes a microfinance loan an entrepreneur of sorts?
As for women who start up businesses – like MFIs – I agree entirely with you. I think that is reflective of the reality elsewhere too, and the approach is no different from any other space – get girls to school, give women flexibility and get the entire family to do housework! What do you think? I guess though it is easy to say and seems obvious, making that happen and changing mindsets is a BIG task.
Christina Castellani Said,
August 13, 2009 @ 10:23 am
Such perfect timing that I came across this article. I’m in the beginning stages of research for my own social venture: helping women help themselves through Fair Trade and e-commerce. It’s been said before and proven through MFIs; empowering women and providing the tools they need to succeed helps not only the individual, but also their families and their communities. And as a woman looking to start my own social enterprise, I agree that there needs to be much more communication and opportunities.
Adrienne Villani Said,
August 20, 2009 @ 3:12 am
Hi Christina,
Thanks so much for the response, and good luck in starting your venture!
Adrienne