In the spring of 2016, 18 kick ass women entrepreneurs and thought leaders got together to discuss the state of women’s entrepreneurship in Ontario, and how to improve it. They formed a volunteer task force and for the next several months, read, researched and spoke to women entrepreneurs across Ontario.
With an Ontario election year coming in 2018, and the findings of the McKinsey June 2017 report, there is now a lot of activity in the women’s entrepreneurship space; Several consultations are planned for this fall by the Ontario’s Status of Women ministry and other organizations. There have been several task forces over the past five years.
We have the answers. Now it’s a matter of implementation –and the will and funding to do so.
If you are planning to attend a consultation, don’t leave home without this report.
Canada needs a policy framework to support women entrepreneurs.
On June 9, 2017, the Canadian federal government launched Canada’s first Feminist International Assistance Policy. In May, Chancellor Angela Merkel revealed that she is working with Ivanka Trump and the World Bank to establish a fund for women entrepreneurs in developing countries, which the Government of Canada is now a $20M investee. While it may be politically expedient to jump on board with this new investment fund, Canada must first put its domestic policy agenda about supporting women entrepreneurs in order.
Supporting women’s economic potential fits Canada’s emerging identity. A feminist prime minister, a gender-balanced cabinet, and a “Gender Statement” in Budget 2017 have catapulted Canada onto the world stage of inclusive politics. Canada has historically led the world in equality policy and legislation for employees. This is not the case with respect to supporting women entrepreneurs, however. Despite numerous studies and industry reports calling for policy reform, there remain no federal policies to guide domestic decisions or inform spending.
Unlike the United States, Canada has no legislated mechanism to support an advisory council focused on issues of importance to women business owners. There remains no oversight or accountability to report on the engagement of women in federally funded small business, innovation, or technology accelerators. Within government, conflicting agency mandates and perspectives about the importance of women entrepreneurs have stifled investment. Gender-based audits mandated by legislation are ignored. New policies are replicating historical investment patterns in industries in which women entrepreneurs are under-represented. For example, new federal investment in artificial intelligence and other advanced technologies, including efforts to attract women into STEM, miss the target for the vast majority of Canadian women. A Gender Statement in the federal budget is simply that, a statement.
The World Bank and OECD have cited the economic costs of the gender gap in entrepreneurship policy. In June 2017, McKinsey Global Institute & Company Canada released “The Power of Parity: Advancing Women’s Equality in Canada,” citing women’s entrepreneurship as a leading gender gap. The report calls for the Canadian government to “reenergize progress toward gender parity,” noting that at the current rate of progress, it will take approximately 180 years to reach gender equity. Recommendations include a national association that focuses on skill-building, mentoring, and networking opportunities for female entrepreneurs and the need for incubators and accelerators to adopt a targeted approach to attract female entrepreneur applicants. These same recommendations have been cited by numerous task forces and industry organizations.
There has never been a better time to invest resources to bolster the contributions of women, at home and abroad. The recently announced “Canada-United States Council for Advancement of Women Entrepreneurs and Business Leaders” can learn from existing regional pockets of excellence, such as the Women’s Enterprise Initiative in Western Canada. However, no amount of consultation, research, or feminist flag-waving will address the cultural bias that is deeply ingrained within Canada’s male-centric entrepreneurship ecosystem. Science Minister Kirsty Duncan has threatened universities with less funding for research chairs if they don’t meet equity targets. It is time for Innovation, Science and Economic Development Minister Navdeep Bains, Small Business and Tourism Minister Bardish Chagger, and Status of Women Minister Maryam Monsef to assemble a policy framework to support women entrepreneurs. Federally funded small business, innovation, and technology accelerators must also be required to demonstrate equity or face similar funding cuts. An economic growth agenda is not complete when it leaves women’s innovative and economic contributions on the sidelines.
We call upon Canadian women entrepreneurs and those who support women entrepreneurs with their capital, networks, and expertise to make your voices heard to our politicians and policymakers. A Canadian women’s enterprise policy framework is long overdue.
Vicki Saunders is a serial entrepreneur and the founder of SheEO, a global initiative to radically transform how we finance, support, and celebrate female entrepreneurs.
Publisher’s note: Canadian females fully or partially own 391,455 small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). In addition, in 2017 there are over one million (1,013,000) female self-employed workers. Source: (2016) Labour Force Survey and (2014) Survey of Financing and Growth of SMEs. There is currently no advocacy voice dedicated to the advancement of women entrepreneurs politically, socially and economically in Canada.
Canada needs a policy framework to support women entrepreneurs.
On June 9, 2017, the Canadian federal government launched Canada’s first Feminist International Assistance Policy. In May, Chancellor Angela Merkel revealed that she is working with Ivanka Trump and the World Bank to establish a fund for women entrepreneurs in developing countries, which the Government of Canada is now a $20M investee. While it may be politically expedient to jump on board with this new investment fund, Canada must first put its domestic policy agenda about supporting women entrepreneurs in order.
Supporting women’s economic potential fits Canada’s emerging identity. A feminist prime minister, a gender-balanced cabinet, and a “Gender Statement” in Budget 2017 have catapulted Canada onto the world stage of inclusive politics. Canada has historically led the world in equality policy and legislation for employees. This is not the case with respect to supporting women entrepreneurs, however. Despite numerous studies and industry reports calling for policy reform, there remain no federal policies to guide domestic decisions or inform spending.
Unlike the United States, Canada has no legislated mechanism to support an advisory council focused on issues of importance to women business owners. There remains no oversight or accountability to report on the engagement of women in federally funded small business, innovation, or technology accelerators. Within government, conflicting agency mandates and perspectives about the importance of women entrepreneurs have stifled investment. Gender-based audits mandated by legislation are ignored. New policies are replicating historical investment patterns in industries in which women entrepreneurs are under-represented. For example, new federal investment in artificial intelligence and other advanced technologies, including efforts to attract women into STEM, miss the target for the vast majority of Canadian women. A Gender Statement in the federal budget is simply that, a statement.
The World Bank and OECD have cited the economic costs of the gender gap in entrepreneurship policy. In June 2017, McKinsey Global Institute & Company Canada released “The Power of Parity: Advancing Women’s Equality in Canada,” citing women’s entrepreneurship as a leading gender gap. The report calls for the Canadian government to “reenergize progress toward gender parity,” noting that at the current rate of progress, it will take approximately 180 years to reach gender equity. Recommendations include a national association that focuses on skill-building, mentoring, and networking opportunities for female entrepreneurs and the need for incubators and accelerators to adopt a targeted approach to attract female entrepreneur applicants. These same recommendations have been cited by numerous task forces and industry organizations.
There has never been a better time to invest resources to bolster the contributions of women, at home and abroad. The recently announced “Canada-United States Council for Advancement of Women Entrepreneurs and Business Leaders” can learn from existing regional pockets of excellence, such as the Women’s Enterprise Initiative in Western Canada. However, no amount of consultation, research, or feminist flag-waving will address the cultural bias that is deeply ingrained within Canada’s male-centric entrepreneurship ecosystem. Science Minister Kirsty Duncan has threatened universities with less funding for research chairs if they don’t meet equity targets. It is time for Innovation, Science and Economic Development Minister Navdeep Bains, Small Business and Tourism Minister Bardish Chagger, and Status of Women Minister Maryam Monsef to assemble a policy framework to support women entrepreneurs. Federally funded small business, innovation, and technology accelerators must also be required to demonstrate equity or face similar funding cuts. An economic growth agenda is not complete when it leaves women’s innovative and economic contributions on the sidelines.
We call upon Canadian women entrepreneurs and those who support women entrepreneurs with their capital, networks, and expertise to make your voices heard to our politicians and policymakers. A Canadian women’s enterprise policy framework is long overdue.
Barbara Orser is a Full Professor at the Telfer School of Management at the University of Ottawa and co-author of Feminine Capital: Unlocking the Power of Women Entrepreneurs (Stanford University Press, 2015). Vicki Saunders is a serial entrepreneur and the founder of SheEO, a global initiative to radically transform how we finance, support, and celebrate female entrepreneurs. Publisher’s note: Canadian females fully or partially own 391,455 small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). In addition, in 2017 there are over one million (1,013,000) female self-employed workers. Source: (2016) Labour Force Survey and (2014) Survey of Financing and Growth of SMEs. There is currently no advocacy voice dedicated to the advancement of women entrepreneurs politically, socially and economically in Canada.
T.L. Cowan, Assistant Professor, Media Studies, at the University of Toronto
T.L. Cowan, an assistant professor of media studies at the University of Toronto
What happens when companies appropriate the ideas of feminism to increase “diversity” and “inclusion” without giving due credit to feminism? According to T.L. Cowan, a professor of media studies at the University of Toronto and deep thinker on feminism, that theft pushes feminism to the radical edges, which stops the rich flow of ideas from feminist activists, scholars, and practitioners, and stalls actual progress on diversity and inclusion.
LiisBeth caught up with T.L. Cowan and her research colleague Prateeksha Singh at Verity, a women’s business club in downtown Toronto, to talk about Cowan’s new research project that focuses on how feminist entrepreneurs, scholars, and activists are influencing education and industry. For instance, she wants to know how feminist research actually reaches practitioners who can put those ideas to work.
Cowan, who was a former Yale University Visiting Presidential Professor, Canadian Bicentennial Visiting Professor, and Digital Humanities Fellow before joining the University of Toronto, was keen to get to know the feminist entrepreneur community in Toronto—and LiisBeth was all too happy to help out!
In turn, LiisBeth wanted to pick her brain about how feminism can shape today’s corporate agenda. Here’s our conversation.
LiisBeth: In political, social, and economic change circles, we talk about feminism. In corporate circles, we talk about diversity and inclusion. What’s the difference? How do these two realms intersect?
T.L. Cowan: I think the diversity and inclusion conversation would not be possible without feminism, anti-racist, disability, LGBTQ2S, Indigenous, civil rights, and other activist social movements. Quite simply, while of course it’s great to aim for diversity and inclusion in the workplace, the “diversity and inclusion” framework is an example of corporate culture taking credit for these initiatives without citing the generations of social movement work that have shifted values and norms. So it’s like these new business models plagiarize activist ideas and practices without citing the movements or incorporating the analyses of power that inform this societal shift.
Diversity and inclusion policies and practices are not always uninformed or misguided but they are often more oriented to corporate metrics than to broader political or cultural change. In the worst-case scenario, it’s like taking the easiest possible route to a progressive-looking company photo for the website without accounting for the real work of being within and working across difference. However, in the best-case scenario, a diverse and inclusive workplace and work culture that is flexible enough to transform itself rather than expecting all the new “diversity and inclusion” hires to reproduce the existing company culture can be a very positive experience for everyone involved.
LiisBeth: Can diversity and inclusion professionals learn anything from feminism?
Cowan: I’d like to see diversity and inclusion professionals educate themselves on the long histories of feminism and other activist struggles within and beyond the corporate world and the labour movement. We have been fighting for a more just and equitable society, including employment justice and equity for a long time. These are not new ideas produced within a boardroom. These are ideas that have been generated from kitchen tables, community centres, and the streets!
One of the things that happens when diversity and inclusion mandates are annexed from feminist and other activist movements without citation and taken out of context is that those movements then become caricatures of an unpopular kind of radicalism. My friend, professor Jacqueline Wernimont, writes brilliantly about this in the context of academic culture, but her analysis is applicable here. She notes that the mainstreaming of some feminist principles without naming them as such is a “dangerous kind of appropriation … of many of the insights and practices of various feminisms but strips out their identification as such, thereby eliding the many ways in which feminists and feminist paradigms have effected change.”
Extending Wernimont’s argument to the corporate sphere, the “diversity and inclusion” framework is part of a general trend that “systematically subsumes” feminist work. She explains that “not only does this make the work of scholarly feminism invisible, once again writing women out of history, it also creates a vision of 21st-century feminism as what is left over, what has not been claimed by other now mainstream methodologies, merely the hysterical rantings of angry women (again).”
Another reality that happens when you formulate a diversity and inclusion policy or strategy without paying attention to the long histories of feminist activism is that you cannot benefit from the lessons learned within feminist movements. For example, the framework of “women and other underrepresented groups” in B Lab’s Inclusive Economy Metric Set does not attend to the ways that white women have benefited disproportionately from corporate feminism. There is a long history in feminist politics that allows us to understand how racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, and discrimination against recent immigrants and Indigenous people do not function separately, but rather intersect and accumulate (see readings below). What this means is that decontextualized diversity and inclusion frameworks are least likely to benefit folks who are multiply minoritized by overt or implicit long-standing, traditional, systemic, and structural biases.
By the standards set in this document, a company could have a 100% white employee pool and still meet the challenge, as long as some of those white people were women, queer, disabled, or transgender. Or 100% male, as long as some of the men met some other diversity requirements. Head-counting can only get us so far in our goals for a just and equitable corporate culture and broader society. We actually have to account for how long histories of discrimination and the maldistribution of life chances (see Spade reading below) continue to shape even our ideas of diversity and inclusion.
Lorde, Audre. Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches. Berkeley, Calif.: Crossing Press, 2007. (Especially “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House.)
Dharaa Patel, a Hindu, entrepreneurial millennial from Gujarat, India, who wrote to LiisBeth out of the blue.
“I need help making something important happen.” That’s the first line of a letter written by a 20-something woman from Gujarat, India, who wrote to LiisBeth out of the blue. Dharaa Patel, a Hindu, entrepreneurial millennial, hoped we would publish her letter about her mission: to advance South Asian women’s financial independence as a necessary first step in any efforts to advance gender equality in India. She considers herself a feminist but is fearful of calling herself one.
Patel does not speak much English. She does not have a laptop, only a smartphone and was nevertheless persistent. She has been following LiisBeth on Facebook and on World Pulse, an international social network for women who want to create change.
The act of writing a feminist business publication in Canada with her story is both deft and audacious—qualities we admire! Publishing her letter is our way of saying, “You go girl!”
If you thought that South Asian women were making consistent progress, this letter will help you think otherwise (#weshouldallbefeminists).
Dear LiisBeth,
Indian tradition is beautiful sometimes, but not always. In our tradition, household work is the responsibility of women and financial matters are the responsibility of men. No one officially imposes this division of duties, but all agree that it was the prevailing system when life in India was ruled by “satyug” (India’s traditional culture). Growing up, we hear that according to history and tradition, married partners are always loyal to each other and work on equal terms as family to survive and thrive.
But it turns out that this is not the reality now. Indian culture and traditions are referred to when convenient, to keep mostly women in line with the promise of love, safety, and happiness. But the reality is that even today, the majority of women face dowry demands, domestic violence, rape, the questionable honour of being the second sex, and discrimination since childhood. The vast majority of women in India are housewives. They are not allowed to do work after marriage for one reason or another. Crime against women in their own homes is high because it’s very easy to exploit a dependent person as she has no choice but to bear it.
Yes, we have laws against such abuse and behaviour but you have to ask any woman what she has to endure to get justice or to exercise her rights. It’s a nightmare.
Now my point is that we forget that many of our teachers believed in women’s rights, but we continue to be stuck on the idea that women need to be kept and controlled. From early childhood, we raise both genders with discrimination. The birth of boys is celebrated. I haven’t ever seen any parents celebrate their daughter’s birth. Girls have always been unwanted children especially when one daughter is already there. After a government campaign, the girl birth ratio has increased. But this is because there is a ban on fetal sex determination and abortion, not because girls are suddenly more wanted and respected.
Girls have to help the mother in the kitchen, no matter what she has done or if she has attended school all day. Boys do not need to help after school because they may be tired and well, they are boys. We bring up both in different ways. One has to be responsible. The other has all the freedom. Girls are reminded daily that they have no right to ask their mothers to pamper them with time off as they will one day have to go to someone else’s house (husband’s house) to do housework for them and their families.
While the education of girls has increased, with many receiving degrees in engineering or MBAs, girls are mostly educated to help them attract a good husband. Ironically, the more educated you are, the less likely you are to attract a groom because, in the end, they prefer to go for a girl who can just manage housework, take care of his parents, kids, and do not wear modern clothes for fear of attracting other men. Dowry is technically prohibited. But in reality, if parents make it clear that they are not going to spend much rupees on the new family following their daughter’s marriage, the family and daughters believe they are leaving the prospect of marriage to chance.
Tradition demands that parents of girls offer expensive gifts, gold, or cash to the groom’s family if they are going to allow their daughter to stay at their home. I have seen many families who try to get knowledge of how much gold the girl’s father was going to give in advance by working their networks.
Marriage in India still means financial security and a place to live for most women.
After marriage, once the new daughter-in-law joins the new family, all other (women) members retreat or retire from household work, leaving it up to the newcomer to carry the load. This kind of mentality always leads to a life of hell and the lost potential of young women and their dreams. Rich families and their daughters may not suffer more as they have maids. Middle-class women have to suffer a lot. Our male-dominated society and systems compel women to choose only this path.
Recently I visited a marriage bureau and witnessed them talking to a boy from an affluent family who wanted to place an order for a highly educated girl who can take care of his parents. She would not be allowed to work. He made it clear that he wants a girl who is kind, down to earth, and one who will obey the orders of the husband and in-laws.
So it’s clear why society confronts and shames working women. Society feels threatened by working women, and would rather that they stay at home. However, women in our society view work outside the home as prestigious. It is a chance to become financially independent and expand their range of life choices.
How can we help women try to escape from this cultural expectation and situation?
Financial independence through work is the answer. I want to encourage and help other women to bring about change in India. I plan to do this by producing a film that tells our stories. And I hope to get in touch with filmmakers and other organizations who can help me in my project. I hope some of the women in the LiisBeth network anywhere in the world can help put me in touch with those interested.
If my generation will take the first step, then we can help the next generation take it even further. Change will happen. Gradually.
Note from LiisBeth: India currently ranks 87th on gender equality according to the World Economic Forum’s 2016 Global Gender Gap Index (Canada ranks 35th and the U.S. is 45th). Recent studies show that women’s participation in India’s labour force has actually decreased from 42% to 31% as educated urban career women are choosing not to work in order to adhere to traditional values. Patel herself worries that her non-traditional views on gender will diminish her chances at marriage. Women earn 56% of what their male colleagues earn for performing the same work.
A list of select readings recommended by Dharaa Patel:
Photo by Stocksy-Gender Inequality– as Old as Rock.
Sometimes you can say a lot in just a few words or lines. You can also capture the essence of the talks at a conference in just a few quotes.
On April 3 and 4, LiisBeth covered the UN Global Compact Network Canada’s (GCNC) first-ever Gender Equality Forum held at the swanky new millennial-friendly offices of Deloitte Canada in downtown Toronto.
There were over 300 well-suited participants (15% men) including 60 speakers (30% men) representing public, private and civil sectors. Close to 25% of those attending came from the US, UK, Germany, Africa, and as far away as China. Not surprisingly, the North American speakers seemed uniformly focused on the business case, or how a more gender-equal economy means more dollars for companies and countries. Interestingly, the European speakers seemed more concerned with how gender equality can help create a more just society and economy.
A look inside the GCNC Gender Equality Forum on April 3 and 4.
Speakers also talked about familiar issues at events like these including the need to close political representation gaps, the persistence of glass ceilings, the need to increase women’s labour force participation rates, the slow to change pay equity issue (full-time women workers in Canada earned an average of 74 cents for every dollar earned by men in 2014), and how violence against women are still at near epidemic levels worldwide, which creates a significant barrier when it comes to achieving a gender just economy. It is no doubt hard for women to worry about leaning in and climbing that career ladder in a mostly male-led work environment if they have experienced being beaten at home or assaulted on the streets. The Ambassador of the European Union to Canada, Marie-Anne Coninsx, said during her talk that violence against women was a priority concern for Europe given that one in three women in Europe are sexually assaulted after the age of 15. The Canadian Women’s Foundation reports that in Canada, the figure is one out of two women have experienced at least one incident of physical or sexual violence since the age of 16 and that this figure has not declined since 1999.
So apart from hearing about progress and setbacks in the gender equity space, what did we learn by being there? It can be summed up in these five quotes hand-selected from our transcript:
“For gender equity policy initiatives and efforts to be sustainable, to be effective, whether it’s ending violence against women and girls or gender equality as a whole, they have to be one, intergenerational; two, cross-sectoral; three, multicultural; four, they have to include men and boys; and five, they have to rely on the power of stories to shift culture and to build partnerships.” —Maryam Monsef, Minister for the Status of Women
“Absolutely I am a banker, so let’s be clear, I have no special academic credential as it comes to this subject.” —Michael Henry, HeForShe champion, and Executive Vice President, Retail Payments, Deposits and Unsecured Lending for Scotiabank
“We have to understand the relationship men have with feminism. In many ways, the discussion still gets articulated as a zero-sum game. I think we have to be honest about [that] and recognize there is something that men are giving up. It’s called the patriarchy. So yes, there are things that men will need to give up, but at the same time, I think we need to acknowledge that feminism is the greatest gift that men have ever received.” —Michael Kaufman, author, co-founder of the White Ribbon campaign, public speaker and consultant
“The European Union, for us, gender equality is a priority in our external policy. We are applying it in all our policies that we have dealing with peace, security in the general, sustainable development. Human rights is also a basic principle of the European Union. In conclusion, I also want to recall a quote by our president of the European Commission, [Jean-Claude] Juncker, who said on International Women’s Day that ‘gender equality is not an inspirational goal but is a fundamental right.’ I would add it’s a fundamental right, which we’d like to achieve globally.” —Marie-Anne Coninsx, Ambassador of the European Union to Canada
“Change is hard. Change is difficult. Just think about the patterns we all follow when going to work, who we talk to, what we eat and how we think. The skills we need as a society has changed, but the way we look at family patterns and responsibilities have not changed that much. This is a huge opportunity for the smart firms to help us see and respect new role models.” —Helle Bank Jorgensen, President, Global Compact Network Canada
The organizer of the conference, Danish-born CEO of GCNC, Helle Bank Jorgensen, 44, is passionate about the issue of gender equality and equity. Jorgensen was the first female partner at PwC, a global accounting and assurance firm, plus the first partner to have a child. While running her own company, B.Accountability, she took the steps to have the enterprise become certified by WeConnect as a women-owned business, which can open up opportunities for government contracts through diversity procurement policies.
Jorgensen came to Canada four years ago from New York, where she led PwC’s US Sustainability and Climate Change practice. When we asked Jorgensen about her views on why progress has been so slow despite decades of effort, she said, “It is both sad and hard to understand why companies and society are leaving a lot of talent and money on the table. The companies that will succeed in the future will learn how to make use of 100% of the available talent. Or as Richard Branson says: ‘Every company has the potential to change the world, and will not survive if it doesn’t.'”
Yes, every company can change the world, even those with two to 100 employees, which by the way, represents the vast majority of all incorporated enterprises in Canada.
For more information about the UN Global Compact Network Canada, its sponsors, members and programs, click here.
