Women Entrepreneurs: Heroes of the past and pillars of today.

In our modern and civilized world, women are building careers and contribute to the whole of mankind's development but it wasn’t always like that. Not so many years ago women fought for things that should be taken for granted, not so many years ago women were considered an inferior species and some of them died fighting for their rights, not so many years ago women managed to achieve unbelievable things despite every authority of power being against them. Some years ago we started to understand the dynamics of women and we as a society still strive to acknowledge their capabilities entirely. Thankfully, from the dawn of time, women are there to contradict every sexist opinion with actions, proving that they are more than capable of doing great things.

From ancient times, there are plenty of examples of great women in history and as time went on, many women ascended the pantheon of the entrepreneurial world as well. For example, Coco Chanel. Gabriel Chanel was raised by nuns in a catholic orphanage, where she first learned how to sew. After working as a modiste and a singer, she opened her first millinery in Paris in 1910, then her first boutique followed in 1913. As her business was established in the fashion industry, she kept working on innovative designs that changed female clothing forever. By the late 1910s, Chanel’s brand was of worldwide recognition and today, a century after, Coco Chanel is still one of the most successful fashion brands in the world. On the other side of the Atlantic and some decades after, Annie Easley, a mathematician, was hired by NACA (former NASA) and devoted her life to the aerospace industry. Firstly, Annie worked as a “human computer”, making calculations for researchers. As computers took over, she evolved too, as she became a computer programmer for NASA’s Centaur rocket project. Her work paved the way for the Space Shuttle and the development of modern hybrid cars. At the same time, she participated in school tutoring programs to invite more female and minority students to pursue careers in science. It is worth mentioning that, later in her career, she became an equal employment opportunity counselor to fight against workplace inequalities.

Now, in our modern era, women continue to make breakthroughs in the business world while 40% of businesses in the US are owned by women, generating about $1.8 trillion a year, these numbers are expected to increase in the coming years. Of course, when referring to the modern business environment, one cannot leave Oprah Winfrey out of the discussion. Oprah is an American talk show host, owner and director of media, producer, writer, actress, philanthropist and the list goes on. Orpah Gail Winfrey was born into poverty from a single teenage mother. She endured many hardships in her early life, including an absent mother, an oppressing grandmother who raised her, racism from her schoolmates for the color of her skin and her ragged clothes, the loss of her newly born infant at the age of 14, and many many poverty connected problems. When she was in high school she managed to land a radio job and by the time she was 19 she was already a co-anchor for the local evening news. Oprah’s authenticity and energy as a personality led her to the daytime talk shows, where she nailed her first show in Chicago and after that, she launched her own production company. After some time, she changed her show’s focus and promoted topics on spirituality and self-improvement. Oprah is not only considered the richest African American of the 20th century, but her power also expands far beyond money. Her media empire exercise so much influence that her endorsement of Barrack Obama in the 2008 Democratic primaries secured him about one million votes. Finally, in 2013 she received the Presidential Medal of Freedom and honorary doctorate degrees from Duke and Harvard universities. Likewise, she has won a total of 18 Daytime Emmy Awards including a Lifetime Achievement Award, a Bob Hope Humanitarian Award and many more.

To summarize, Coco, Annie and Oprah are all successful people, achieving greatness and fulfilling their entrepreneurial dream. Beyond them, there are many women who function as role models in many positions of our society, from successful businesswomen to single mothers, women are showing the world their potential. Taking everything into consideration is reasonable to understand that the world is changing, we cannot let social conservative remnants blur the entrepreneurial landscape, which vitally needs the female touch. But is that enough? Is that progress enough? Remembering female empowerment for 2 days every year is not gonna take us somewhere, celebrating female presence in the business world is not enough and writing inspirational articles is not going to change anything. The one thing that we all need to do is to fight the gender gap with our daily behavior, our values, what we are willing to stand for and the education we offer to our children. How we function in our everyday life and what we consider normal are main factors, how we are willing to answer to a case of inequality and our duty to argue are others also of great importance.

In Mindspace, we believe in the power of unity and at the same time, we value the dynamics of each individual. We encourage every woman to give everything for her dream, the business world needs female professionals and the whole world needs strong women.