By Entrepreneurship is not for the faint-hearted, but its more challenging for women who must juggle multiple roles of building a business, being a mother, a wife, primary caregivers and providing a nurturing environment in the home.
On 11 May, Proudly South African, South Africa’s premier national buy local campaign, joined the global community to celebrate Mother’s Day by inviting its female entrepreneurs and businesswomen, stakeholders and media to discuss the unique challenges that face women businesspersons and to also share insights on how to strike the delicate balance between being caregivers and running a business.
“It is definitely not an easy undertaking,” was the chorus that was sung in unison by all the women in business who participated in the Mother’s Day event. These entrepreneurs say many female entrepreneurs straddle themselves with entrepreneurship guilt, particularly during the formative stages of the business when the enterprise requires their undivided attention of the owner.
“During this time, the business idea has tentatively mutated to become an actual, fragile business that is like a new-born baby that requires constant nurturing and attention. Being in its formative years, the business experiences a lot of cashflow challenges that requires you to constantly dip into your savings to fund operational costs. You are also trying to carve a niche for the business in a crowded market and win the hearts, minds and wallets of customers who are still sceptical about your product or service. Every step in your business journey during this time is filled with trepidation, constant worry and anxiety. Your emotions are on a rollercoaster ride as you swing like a pendulum from the depths of despair at the sight of an empty till and burst into bouts of euphoria when you secure a major customer.
Throughout this time, you can’t help but feel that your family, husband, children and friends are paying the price of your entrepreneurship ventures because you have little time for them. The feeling is worse when you have young children and you cannot even sneak that opportunity to help them with homework or admire that stick-figure of mommy with a laptop and a phone,” says Happy MaKhumalo Ngidi, Chief Marketing Officer at Proudly South African.
Nigidi’s anxiety about the viability of her business in the early years is not unfounded. According to a study conducted by the University of the Western Cape, South Africa has an alarmingly high start-up failure rate – 70 to 80% of small businesses fail in the first five years than anywhere.
The guests echoed Ngidi’s sentiments and pointed out that cultural and patriarchal norms dissuade female entrepreneurship as they confine women to traditional gender roles such as unpaid household caretaking. “Women are the most vulnerable groups in the labour market, and they are disproportionately represented in precarious occupations and make up the bulk of the unemployment statistics. In light of this, one would have expected that society would be more supportive of women, instead, they are saddled with guilt and burdened with unpaid caregiving roles that stifles their ability to make meaningful inroads into the entrepreneurial space,” says Ngidi.
The resilience of women to pursue entrepreneurial ventures in the face of structural resistance is well documented by the Stellenbosch Business School-sponsored study titled: The current state of women’s entrepreneurship in South Africa, which has found that the percentage of women embarking on entrepreneurship ventures due to necessity went up from 62% to 91.2%, mainly due to job losses during the COVID-19 lockdowns. This increase in women entrepreneurial activity in South Africa during the pandemic bucks the trend of a slowdown in most economies and saw South Africa as one of only 12economies where women’s entrepreneurial activity rates increased, with 11.1% of working-age women engaged in early-stage entrepreneurial activities (up from 10.2% in 2020), compared to 11.7% for men (up from 11.4% in 2020) according to the Mastercard Index of Women Entrepreneurs (MIWE).
One of the guests, cited the cultural norms as one of the biggest barriers that impede female entrepreneurship in South Africa. “Some of these practises are learned or stem from socialisation at home, at school and in the broader community. These gender stereotypes reinforce the notion that women should be caregivers while the men’s primary role is that of providers and breadwinners. These patriarchal gender roles stifle female entrepreneurship and deprive young girls of female role models that they can emulate,” she said.
Ngidi, says it’s imperative that structural impediments that restrict female entrepreneurship should be unbundled in order to unleash female entrepreneurship potential. Citing a United Nations study, Ngidi says that women reinvest around 90% of their income in the health and education of their children and community, compared to just 35% by men, indicating the importance of supporting women’s entrepreneurship to effect socio-economic upliftment.
“As we celebrate days like Mother’s Day, it is also important to redefine the role of mothers in modern day society and work constructively to deconstruct misogynistic practices and the vocabulary that continue to keep women in subjugation. Women require support to increase their entrepreneurial activity, and which holds immense benefits for the country’s economy, including poverty alleviation and job creation. It is important to create ecosystems that support and instil a positive mindset in society regarding women’s entrepreneurship,” says Ngidi.
The Proudly South African Mother’s Day event was not only confined discussions, but it was also a fun-filled activity day filled with festivities, song and dance. The highlight of the event was the awarding of spa vouchers to three guests.