A Call for Both Women and Men to Support Women’s Leadership

Originally published at BostInnovation.com

I grew up believing the women’s movement was essentially over.

I was born in 1984, and as far as I could tell, apart from being occasionally harassed on the street, being a woman never held me back. When it came time for college, I wouldn’t consider women’s colleges. I believed in equality, so why should I exclude men?

What’s funny is that I ended up transferring to a women’s school. By the time I graduated, I realized I had been dead wrong about the women’s equality thing.

Today at 26, I find that the older I get, the more I see how much work still needs to be done, especially in the startup community. For those of us in need of a reality check, here are the numbers (and some further reading):

• Just 3% of Fortune 500 companies were headed by women in 2009 and just 6 % of the 100 top tech companies are headed by women currently (Harvard Business Review).
• Only 10% of venture capitalists are female (Forbes).
• Women-owned startups receive just 4 to 9% of overall venture capital funding (The Diana Project).
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Numbers like these are helpful because they tell a different story than the one we want to believe. Women may not be blatantly discriminated against much anymore (although this happens plenty), but we aren’t respected and rewarded for our contributions to society to the same degree or as consistently as men either. Do we consciously undervalue women’s leadership as a society? I don’t think so. But it still happens all the time.

The good news is that people are doing something about it.

More and more business leaders and writers are acknowledging women’s unique capacity for high-level leadership, especially their ability to forge partnerships and drive culture change. In short, people seem to be realizing that if we fail to invest in women’s leadership now, we miss a giant opportunity on about 17 different fronts.

Here are a few women-run organizations leading the way:

• 85 Broads, an organization founded by former Goldman Sachs female executives in 1997, has built a 25,000+ global network of women leaders supporting other women leaders.

• Springboard Enterprises, founded in 2000, coaches, showcases, and supports high growth women-led companies seeking equity capital for expansion.

• A multi-media project called No Country For Young Women connects women across generations and nationalities on the topic of their careers.
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Last month, I had the privilege of attending Color Magazine’s Inaugural Women of Color Leadership and Empowerment Forum here in Boston. The event was a celebration, learning opportunity, and networking event all in one featuring a panel of six local women CEOs, entrepreneurs, and executive directors. Equally as powerful was just having a chance to hear the story of Color Magazine’s startup path from founder Josefina Bonilla-Ruiz.

 

The one thing my 16-year-old self—who never wanted to “exclude” anyone—and I agree on is this: In order to find solutions to problems and take advantages of opportunities affecting all of us, all of us (men included) need to step up.

Take the time to learn about the professional challenges women face, talk to women entrepreneurs in your extended networks, support women’s leadership where you can. Simple things like this open up tremendous possibilities.