Sometimes It’s Hard To Be A Woman Billionaire
It’s that woman’s time again, coming round faster and faster the deeper into THAT time in a woman’s life that I get. So I wanted to give my readers a peep through the microscope I have looked through consistently over the years, tracing back (sometimes irregularly) back to teenage years, when hormonal righteous indignation led me to researching the wrongs done to woman kind and building my commitment to redressing the injustices and imbalances I discovered to be more common than I ever could have imagined sitting in my room merely pouting about how unfair it all was!
So, here’s my latest dip into the male-dominated under-belly… Specifically looking at wealthy women and woman business owners… the richest, in particular. First off, the only UK female billionaire, JK Rowling. Well done her from daily eating beans to hiring someone to count them for her. “But why so flippant and dismissive?”, you may ask…
Here’s why… Louisa Kroll of Forbes Woman just posted her latest in their online magazine on the ‘plight’ of women’s wealth compared to men, specifically in terms of rich women entrepreneurs . The facts and figures make powerful reading for even the hardest sceptic of feminism, holding fast to crumbling arguments that ‘women have as much opportunity as men.’ l think it’s always worth staying on top of statistical developments, to keep a truer perspective of the bigger picture…
So how are we women business owners and female entrepreneurs doing? Well, of 1,011 billionaires globally, it seems that as we crawl steadily towards the second decade of the twenty-first century, there are still only 14 women billionaires in the world, (ie rich women who have amassed personal fortunes of $1 billion or more). This accounts for a measly 2% of all self-made billionaires.
Here’s another fact I gleaned form Louisa’s Forbes Woman article: 20% of businesses, over $1 million, are women owned businesses. O.K. that’s something I guess, but the article does not make clear whether this figure is turn-over or profit. My thoughts, are that the proportion of this wealth created invested into further wealth creation strategies to build real wealthto last beyond the grave for loved ones is not likely to be hugely significant as far as I can see. Perhaps I am wrong..? Certainly, I’ll be one happy lady to earn a cool million (in sterling) as and when I get there!
So, back to the bigger question: how does womens’ entrepreneurial performance compare with our male counterpart business owners? 14 self-made women v. 665 self-made men i.e. there are nearly FIFTY men making it to become super rich, for every single woman who gets there.
What is even more interesting to me is that a significant proportion of these entrepreneurs began in partnership with brothers, or hubbies / partners, splitting roles. This confirms to me what many women will privately admit to amongst their single lady friends, i.e. that it is far harder to make it as a single woman when there are so many responsibilities and challenges to juggle, without having a hystericalectomy or cutting off from family involvement, as men apparently find it easier to do.
I remember reading the the biography of Anita Roddick of The Body Shop empire and first woman on the London Stock Exchange – now sadly no longer with us, rest her soul – and her referring to her initial meeting with her bank manager. She turned up, as herself, in homely attire and was given short shrift by him. When she later turned up ‘suitably’ attired with hubby in tow, the meeting went a lot smoother… Funny that, don’t you think?! 
Why so few women billionaires and rich women generally? Well of course, Louisa sticks to facts and avoids speculation or references to available research. (Here‘s one possible source to delve into). God forbid Forbes magazine risk alienating the more conservative readership, with potential accusations of seeming too perjorative, man-hating, radical, subjective, … (fill in the blanks). To be fair to Louisa, she does obtain a somewhat vague quote from a spokeswoman from the Centre for Women’s Business Research in the USA.
However, given hormonally-charged, feminist over-spill on this page today, the words ‘devalued‘ and ‘spread too thin by socio-economic structures built to support the advancement of men over women‘ springs to mind here…. But that’s just my opinion and thank goodness written from my specific narrow focus point in history. Another decade from now may see women entrepreneurs and women business owners proportionally in a better position and less frustration at on-going gender inequality in wealth ownership … perhaps?
My question to my reader today is this: If you could sum up in THREE words, what you think is needed to shift the balance in womens’ favour, what would you suggest? Here’s three of mine: Financial Education, Activism Oh erm, Community too (Sticking to the rules was never a strong point) ; D
“There is no scientific answer for success. You can’t define it. You’ve simply got to live it and do it.” Anita Roddick (mere multi-millionairess, but rich in so many ways!)
Like this post? Subscribe to my RSS feed and get loads more!
Leave a Reply