Peruse this site for a history of profiles and insightful analysis on feminist entrepreneurship.
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Author:PK Mutch
News media entrepreneur, freelance journalist, Canadian Association of Journalists member, former book publishing executive, zine-maker and startup professional. Marigold Capital advisory board. Recipent of Inspiring Top 50 Women in STEM in 2018. Profiled in Canada 150 Women: Conversations with Leaders, Champions and Luminaries. Founder and former President of award-winning Fifth Town Artisan Cheese, Canada's 8th B-Corp, which under her leadership received the Premier's Award for Agri-Food Innovation (2009). Petra currently works to advance inclusive entrepreneurship and innovation in public policy and startup ecosystems with a particular emphasis on gender equity. Petra is the founding publisher of Liisbeth. Follow Petra on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.
Image Source: Rabble.ca; Photo by Duncan Cameron,, Sept 2019
Image Source: Rabble.ca; Photo by Duncan Cameron, Sept. 2019
With a minority government outcome, Canada’s post-election news vibe is now all about how and if Justin Trudeau (Liberals), Elizabeth May (Green Party), and Jagmeet Singh (New Democratic Party) will be able to successfully collaborate to deliver on issues most of us (63 percent according to the popular vote) care deeply about: Drastically reducing greenhouse gas emissions, creating affordable child care, fostering a culture of diversity and inclusion, attending to reconciliation with Canada’s Indigenous people, and reducing income inequality via a myriad of new initiatives and tax cuts.
Based on experience (we have had three minority governments in the past 15 years), most politicos are pretty gloomy about the prospects of a minority government performing well. But, perhaps this time, in a context where the power of tech-enabled social movements (#metoo, #gretathunberg, #womensmarch) can no longer be ignored by politicians, a minority government might just be the crucible we need to generate real, lasting, innovative systems change.
For that to happen, we need to encourage all three progressive leaders to move beyond identifying as feminists—to leading like feminists.
What is Feminist Leadership?
Over a century of research has gone into defining feminist leadership and how to practice it; there is by no means broad consensus on the subject. Yet we instinctively know what feminist leadership is not: defaulting to patriarchal, neoliberal norms at the first sign of trouble.
First and foremost give due attention to building authentic relationships and trust between people and stakeholders.
Create safe space to foster honest, and yes, often personally and organizationally difficult dialogue.
Prioritize inclusivity, agency, and cultivate a sense of belonging in organizational culture.
Unpack norms (why do we do it this way?) and take risks by challenging unproductive, traditional ways of thinking. Experiment!
Place significant value on collective and multi-layered leadership and get comfortable with the discomfort of sharing power.
Understand the role of power, and Mary Parker Follett’s five expressions of power (power over, power with, power to, power within, and dangerous nature of power under), which one to work with, when and how to best manage. (See explainer infographic below)
“Challenge visible, hidden, and invisible power where it operates…” and bring it out into the light. Operating with transparency is a necessary pre-condition for building trust.
Finally, think of conflicts as precious opportunities to innovate, heal and, more importantly, practice liberation.
Consider the SNC Lavalin situation. It might have unfolded differently if Justin Trudeau saw his role in that situation as the “initiator and sustainer of a collective decision-making process” rather than relying on conventional, top-down patriarchal leadership ways of dealing with complex power dynamics, human emotions, and conflict .
In a recent interview with Jess Tomlin, the Co-founder and CEO of the new $300 million Equality Fund (a deeply feminist Canadian organization), I asked, “What does it take to be a feminist leader?”
Tomlin said this: “The first step as a feminist leader is to recognize I am deeply, deeply flawed. After that, it’s about learning as you go, and always working to shift power in both our personal lives and organizational contexts.”
This new minority government offers an incredible opportunity. It gives progressive leaders the context, rationale, and license to shift power, transform the country, and truly make meaningful history. To realize that outcome, we will need each of our leaders to consider both feminist leadership as an approach, and Tomlin’s wisdom as a start.
Mary Parker Follet’s Five Essential Types of Power
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Sarah Kaplan, Author, The 360° Corporation: From Stakeholder Trade-offs to Transformation
Sarah Kaplan, Author, The 360° Corporation: From Stakeholder Trade-offs to Transformation
Businesses operating within the framework of 21st century capitalism can and must be a force for good, says Sarah Kaplan, director of the Institute for Gender and the Economy (GATE) and professor of strategic management at the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto.
“Big companies are the ones who have either created or perpetuated many of the pressing social and environmental issues we face today,” she says. “If we are to see significant change, we need them on board.”
Yet, despite more than a decade of amped up efforts on corporate social responsibility (CSR), the impact has been negligible. And evidence shows Canadian public and large corporations, in particular, are lagging behind those in other countries in the CSR area.
In her new book,The 360° Corporation, Kaplan says it’s because they have been going about it the wrong way. We spoke to Kaplan, to find out what they missed.
LiisBeth: You’re best known for your work on innovation and how gender impacts the economy. Why a book on corporate social responsibility?
Sarah Kaplan: This is a project I’ve been working on since before I founded the Institute for Gender and the Economy. The timing happens to be pretty good. A few weeks ago, the Business Roundtable (an association of CEOs from leading US companies) announced that they were going to prioritize creating value for all stakeholders versus just focusing on shareholder returns. Women, gender minorities, LGBTQ+ are increasingly viewed as important stakeholder categories that many corporations are paying attention to.
What is the book about?
(Getting) business leaders to think about social and environmental challenges as central to their business as opposed to it being seen as an add on, something they do off to one side of their desk. It’s time to get past the “CSR candy sprinkled on top.”
And how do we do that?
Think differently about what to do when investor and stakeholder interests don’t easily align. Often when faced with this situation, decision makers default to constructing a business case to figure out a win-win solution to break trade-offs. You get this. I get that. We all get something. Not what we wanted. But it’s as good as it gets.
This can work, but what happens when investors and stakeholders find themselves not just miles, but worlds apart?
In those cases, win-win just isn’t possible. At least not right away. Even attempts to innovate with known variables may not lead to the breakthrough required.
In this case, I encourage companies to hold and value this seemingly intractable tension as a one-of-a-kind transformation opportunity. The idea is to get decision makers to start thinking about the challenge as they would a research and development opportunity. They need to ask what kind of productive experiments could be designed, in concert with stakeholders, over time, to develop something that could not have even been previously imagined. I am asking companies to think of social responsibility and social innovation like any other disruptive R&D project—one that requires long-term uncertain investments with unsure but potentially magnificent payoffs.
That sounds great for companies with deep pockets. What about startups? Smaller enterprises?
A great example of a small company that has successfully integrated social change is McCarthy Uniforms. They figured out how to leverage a social issue—gender equality—as a business transformation opportunity, in fact, as their turnaround strategy.
McCarthy sells uniforms and, like other companies in that space, only sold uniforms that fit a man’s body. By paying attention to a growing conversation around gender equity, they noticed that lots of women wear uniforms. Due to lack of options, women were being forced to wear men’s uniforms that did not fit well. Not only was it uncomfortable, this also often created safety issues. So, they added “female fit” lines of products. And they started creating a social responsibility report, which included gender equity information. They applied this knowledge when they were bidding with school districts and other people needing uniforms. They’re winning their bids because they are including that kind of information.
Embracing stakeholders and seeing them as essential to your day-to-day business and engaging with stakeholders can actually help you find sources of differentiation and benefits that you hadn’t even anticipated.
What role do activists play in motivating companies to take social and environmental issues seriously?
Well, there’s a couple of ways that activists are really, really important to this equation. The first is they can increase the pain for corporations. When Greenpeace started blocking the ships that were carrying drilling equipment up to the Arctic, the visibility really increased public relations and logistics costs. When Shell abandoned their Arctic drilling activities, they said, “Well, it didn’t have anything to do with the activism. It had to do with the cost benefit. But, of course the activism was shaping the cost benefit.
I have talked to sustainability people in various companies who say, “Don’t tell my boss this, but I actually appreciate the activists because they help me make my case inside the company.” Activism can play that role.
The second role that activists can play is to work to get on the inside, and take a seat at the table in those decision-making meetings. Take ACT UP, which I talk about in my book. Their protests got them a seat at the table where researchers were deciding on drug testing protocols for AIDS drug testing. The activists come with a different point of view, different experience, different knowledge. In this case, activists were able to help the researchers understand the most effective ways to do the trials and get the trials to be fair, more just, more accessible.
That said, there is a big tension between being in the conversation and being seen as selling out. It’s a very difficult tension to manage. I think it mirrors the same tension that the corporates have when they’re actually paying attention to the stakeholders (“But you’re hurting the bottom line.”) I think the activists should more often see themselves as potential players at the table in this conversation. And in turn, corporations need to be open to, and invite in challenging, uncomfortable and diverse points of view.
What was your biggest “aha”?
I came across some really interesting research that suggests that people who rely on the business case are precisely the people least likely to act when a business case is made to them, because in order to act on these things, there has to be a certain level of moral outrage.
The business case actually mitigates against moral outrage.
What the business case does is justify the existing status quo. It leads to complacency as opposed to outrage. We need business leaders to think about how we can change the status quo versus perpetuate it. The point is not to make the business case. The point is to find new ways to do this work. If you start with the business case, you’re only going to get incremental solutions. That was the biggest aha for me. The business case is getting in the way of action—not to mention innovation and transformation.
What’s happening with the Institute for Gender and the Economy this year?
When it comes to working to achieve positive social change for gender equality, the biggest barrier is that people don’t know what to do and how to do it. So, to help people figure out the “how,” we are launching a series of case studies that are specific examples of what companies have done, which offer new models and templates. The second thing we’re doing is developing a Gender Analytics training program. We will be running prototypes early in the new year and hope to have the program available in the fall of 2020.
Sarah, thank you for all your amazing work to advance gender equity not only in Canada but globally.
We are familiar with term green washing but how about gender washing? What does it look like? And what can we learn from the environmental movement about the pace and nature of change?
While we can likely agree that slavery is wrong, women around the world are still arguing their case for gender equality. Valerie Hussey asks: What gives?
“I have seen feminism become much deeper, much more intersectional, much more enmeshed in people’s everyday lives and that’s the kind of feminism we need going forward.”
Clearly, we need social entrepreneurs more than ever.
Earlier today, in London, Ont., the Honourable Mary Ng, Minister of Small Business and Export Promotion, announced a new $3.6 million investment in diverse women social entrepreneurs in Ontario as part of the Women Entrepreneurship Strategy (WES) initiative that seeks to double the number of women-owned businesses by 2025.
The funds will go towards the creation of the Women of Ontario Social Enterprise Network (WOSEN) and the development of a fresh, sophisticated social enterprise entrepreneurship program based on inclusive design and Indigenous approaches to venture creation. The WOSEN project aims to support 150 new women-led social enterprises, as well as expand 75 existing ones. It will also offer 10 women-centred innovation training sessions to 250 people, training for 35 business coaches, and connect $3.5 million of capital through the Women Impact Investor Network.
That’s a lot of impact for just $7 million. But the social enterprise space is used to making a dollar stretch.
The need for a women-centred program and investment has long been clear to the social entrepreneurship community in Ontario. Women have dominated the for-profit and non-profit social enterprise space. Tonya Surman, founder and CEO of the Centre for Social Innovation, has worked to support over 5,000 social-purpose companies since 2008. The CSI is home to nearly 1,000 organizations, 2,700 social innovators, and according to Surman, 58 percent of their members are women. “CSI has been female-led for 15 years and we know first-hand the challenges of getting the support to be able to grow our businesses,” says Surman.
One of the most significant barriers to sustainable growth for women social entrepreneurs, apart from access to aligned capital, is finding relevant programming, mentors with the right experience, and a supportive network.
Research shows that many women social entrepreneurs eagerly line up to participate in mainstream startup support programs, only to find that the programming is one-size-fits-all or tech and venture capital pipeline–oriented. Only 44 percent of 117 startup support organizations in Ontario consider gender and diversity when recruiting or selecting clients. Fewer still have diverse, women-centred or purpose-led enterprise programming.
Additionally, access to relevant programming of any kind has been uneven across the province. Rural areas are often left out. Diverse and Indigenous women have expressed concerns that existing programming privileges colonial approaches to venture design, leadership, and operations, which results in their reduced participation. As a result, both material economic growth—and social impact—have been left on the table.
What’s Unique?
The program aims to be the first of its kind to incorporate Indigenous values, practices, and wisdom into the design right from the start. The programming is also aiming for 70 percent participation by underrepresented women entrepreneurs, including those with disabilities, Indigenous women, women-identified, two-spirited women, women in rural or remote regions, and those who identify as visible minorities and newcomers.
Photo: Gayle Broad, Research Associate, NORDIK Institute (WOSEN Partner), affiliated with Algoma University, specializes in collaborating with Northern, rural and Indigenous community partners to build capacity and cogenerate innovative solutions and culturally appropriate resources to meet diverse needs.
The Indigenous component of the program’s development will be led by Okwaho Equal Source, an Indigenous-owned boutique consulting enterprise created by Shyra and Rye Barberstock. Shyra Barberstock, who is the president and CEO, has long been part of efforts to support and improve access to relevant programming for Indigenous entrepreneurs. “As an Anishinaabe woman, and social entrepreneur myself, I am happy to see us finally have the opportunity to develop a program that embeds, versus tacks on, Indigenous values and concepts when it comes to venture creation,” says Barberstock. “After all, Indigenous peoples have been entrepreneurs for a long time. We know a thing or two about creating economic opportunities that help communities flourish while also sustaining the environment on Turtle Island.”
Innovating Entrepreneurship Programming
Indigenous entrepreneurship programming designed expressly for Indigenous entrepreneurs and funding for such initiatives has been on the rise across Ontario over the past five years. Initiatives like Sunshine Tenasco’s Pow Wow Pitch, Algonquin College’s Institute for Indigenous Entrepreneurship, and Toronto Councillor Kristyn Wong-Tam’s proposal for the Indigenous Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship all serve as prime examples.
However, no province-wide program has, as of yet, attempted to create an entirely new program from scratch that blends and builds on both Indigenous and feminine wisdom.
Andre Vashist, Director of Social Innovation at Pillar Nonprofit Network, says the approach to economic development has been missing an inclusive and Indigenous lens. “In the era of truth and reconciliation, we should be open to the knowledge, wisdom, and help by the longest living community on this land. As we are tied to land, whether we call it Canada or Turtle Island, there are many practices and teachings that can benefit our society’s economic strategy. This includes a more holistic approach that combines financial, social, and environmental considerations,” says Vashist.
Ondine Hogeboom and Ellen Martin, Co-Directors of Lean4Flourishing, points out that the exciting thing about this project is that the funding is not about delivering standard programming fare to an underrepresented group. Hogeboom adds, “We have the opportunity to work with the social enterprise community to co-create an entirely new innovative system of supports and curriculum that is grounded in current social, political, and environmental realities. This is IP [intellectual product] that, if proven effective, could be exported across Canada and beyond.”
Joanna Reynolds, Director of Social Enterprise at CSI, notes that WOSEN will enable CSI to work directly with women social entrepreneurs with a focus on helping racialized, newcomer, and Indigenous women gain equitable access to business acceleration supports. “The fact that WOSEN’s partners are all committed to learning from traditional Indigenous knowledge in order to embody the next economy, one that is regenerative, equitable, and prosperous for all, is also inspiring,” says Reynolds.
Overall, this initiative, according to Lore Wainwright, Interim Executive Director of Pillar Nonprofit Network, will help us build even stronger partnerships across the province, from rural to urban communities. “We can support a diverse population of women who want to contribute positive economic and social impact,” says Wainwright.
Creating a financially sustainable enterprise creates measurable social benefit, especially in a society that still thinks investing in social enterprises is just a new form of philanthropy versus real business. Being a woman, especially a woman experiencing intersecting oppressions, generates additional barriers.
Sure, $7 million in combined new investment over three years is not a game-changer in dollar terms when you consider investments made in other sectors. But perhaps the little innovative program that comes out of it will be.
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Also, the following women-owned-or-led businesses received up to $100,000 through the Women Entrepreneurship Fund to help them grow their business and reach new export markets:
Shaw’s Ice Cream, located in St. Thomas, Ont., will launch new products, set up an innovation lab for product development, and create six new jobs
Borm Capital, located in Aylmer, Que., in collaboration with ETBO Tool & Die, also located in Aylmer, will acquire a power generator, improve production processes, expand exports to the European Union, and create 10 new jobs
Stiris Research, located in London, Ont., will commercialize an artificial intelligence–based Grammar Error Corrector, expand their clinical trial management software, accelerate sales to the United States, and create six new jobs
A Couple of Squares, located in London, Ont., will purchase equipment to automate the production process and expand to e-commerce platforms
Scribendi, located in Chatham, Ont., will incorporate artificial intelligence into its platform, expand exports to the European Union, United States, and United Kingdom, and create two new jobs
DOZR, located in Kitchener, Ont., will use artificial intelligence to build an equipment management portal, and create five new jobs
Reko International Group, located in Windsor, Ont., will create a new robotic automation system that will help the company increase its market globally
Leaders of entrepreneurship support organizations talk an encouraging game about diversity, inclusion, and gender equality. Accelerators, incubators, investor groups, and even policymakers seem passionate about “equity over everything,” saying that it’s “good for the economy” and “simply the right thing to do.”
For women (and I use the word “women” with intersectionality and gender-queer/trans inclusivity in mind), it seems that the sea change we have been advocating for has finally arrived.
But, while formal talk on the outside suggests enlightenment, the hard truth is that the informal talk—and ergo experience—on the inside still remains largely Neolithic. It is not uncommon for women entrepreneurs in mainstream co-ed programs to hear:
“No one here sees gender—just the merit of the opportunity!”
“Men can’t help it—we’re wired to think of women that way.”
“If we accommodated your request, we’d have to accommodate everyone’s.”
“We tried to find qualified women founders.…”
“Are you sure that actually happened?”
“Oh, sorry, did we forget to invite you to that meeting”
“You don’t want venture funding or an exit? We don’t do ‘lifestyle’ businesses here.”
And my personal fave: “It was just a joke.”
The double speak is confusing—and deeply concerning. We are sold an inclusive nirvana at the door, but experience the thousands-year-old patriarchy on the inside.
On the one hand, it is widely acknowledged that women entrepreneurs matter to the tune of $150 billion in untapped economic potential. If we could only find time to address systemic barriers.
On the other hand, women entrepreneurs continue to be told we still don’t really belong. We are too difficult. Bitchy. Soft. Or our venture ideas are not innovative enough.
If we dare complain about unfair practices, give personal examples of discrimination, or try to explain how the program doesn’t work for us, we are told that our opinions are simply that—unsupported by the evidence (“Look at our mission statement again!”). They imply we are being too sensitive and downright destructive (“Hey, we’re a team here!”).
If we think this is new, think again. Simone de Beauvoir wrote 100 years ago when she presented her ideas to male colleagues, notably her collaborator and lover Jean-Paul Sartre. “I struggled with him (Sartre) for three hours. I had to admit I was beaten: I had realized, in the course of our discussion, that many of my opinions were based only on prejudice, bad faith or thoughtlessness, that my reasoning was shaky and my ideas confused.” She concluded by saying she was no longer sure what she thought “or even if I think at all.” She noted that she was “completely thrown.”
Simone de Beauvoir was one of the leading intellects of her generation—and no shrinking flower. There is a word for what she was experiencing. It’s called gaslighting. Women entrepreneurs are experiencing the same phenomenon—and it’s seriously sabotaging economic growth and human potential.
Gaslighting 101
The term “gaslighting” stems from a 1938 stage play (and a 1940 movie of that name) about a husband who tries to convince his wife that she is crazy by repeatedly flickering the gas lights and, when she notices, denies the light is flickering at all. Psychologists use the term to describe tactics that are used repeatedly, in commonplace ways, to undermine a person or entire group’s perception of reality by denying facts, their experience, the true nature of the environment around them, and their feelings, until the target begins to question their own sense of reality and wonders, “Am I the problem?” The manipulative technique is effective in personal, group, and even whole society levels (think Trump).
How Gaslighting Kills Potential
From my work in the Ontario startup and innovation space, I meet hundreds of fully formed, self-aware, talented, growth-minded women entrepreneurs of all ages. Before deciding to pursue entrepreneurship—often to escape sexism in the workplace or low paying jobs—these women were successful students, had fruitful careers (while often caretaking for the family), and they did their homework. They have strong opinions, identified market gaps, defined goals. They know who they are and what they are capable of. They can stretch a dollar as far as the moon.
That’s how they arrive: eager and looking to benefit from the heavily advertised supports for entrepreneurs.
Then, after engaging with acclaimed mainstream innovation centres and founder programs, they begin second-guessing their business idea, even questioning what they want and who they are. The curriculum and culture alienates rather than motivates. Minified, they feel fruitful rage one day and trustingly surrender the next. Some eventually rein in their ambition, scale back their dreams, or get a job. Others are so discontented by overarching masculine cultures and support structures geared to prioritize STEM innovation and promote venture capital deal flow at the expense of all else that they decide they are better off finding their own way and aligned kinsfolk out in the grassroots level economic wilds where sadly access to capital, talent, and power networks can be even more difficult to tap. Fueled by Orphan Black style hopepunk and female empowerment books, most fearlessly persist but remain energetically plagued by self doubt. “I didn’t fit. I’m the problem. Not the system.”
That’s how a target of gaslighting thinks and talks. Was the diminishment intentional? Given the economic imperative, does that even matter?
Gaslighting experts say that what’s important is to first, recognize the problem. And second, to go after the facts.
Gender Talk, Without the Walk
Studies comparing women to men in the innovation and entrepreneurship space are abundant and continue to show that women remain systemically under-capitalized, under-represented, and under-supported in startup ecosystems across North America.
Curiously, researchers rarely look at the flip side of that coin: how the ecosystem (not just individuals) is performing (or failing) when it comes to supporting diversity, inclusion, and gender equity.
When ecosystem level study does emerge, it’s worth noting.
Only 44% of the 117 small business support organizations surveyed even consider gender and diversity in recruiting or selecting clients.
Of those that consider gender and diversity in their programming, only a handful provided evidence of substantive programs.
The definition or criteria for what qualifies as a supportable entrepreneurial idea continues to skew towards STEM and ideas that have the potential to renew or remake male-led sectors. A good example: an analysis of the Ontario Research Fund, which is mandated to promote research excellence in areas of strategic value to Ontario, showed that 88% of the money 2006-2015 went to men largely because what is considered most valuable is research in STEM-based areas.
More than 68% of startup incubators do not provide gender equity, diversity, and inclusion training for staff or their founder clients.
Almost none of those surveyed had meaningful wrap-around supports for women, particularly those facing barriers, such as child care.
Women only account for 29% of Ontario’s startup incubator board positions.
Only 3.4% of incubators make accommodations for specific demographic groups.
Only 117 (20%) of the 686 incubators and support organizations in Ontario took the time and initiative to participate in the study, an indication of the lack of importance they really place on this issue or their reluctance to report.
And, perhaps the most telling of all, most Ontario business support organizations, whether public or private, do not collect gender or other intersectional data to inform program design or evaluation.
A prime example of an organization that does not take gender issues in innovation seriously is the Ontario Centre of Excellence (OCE) network, the 30-year-old crown jewel in Ontario’s innovation ecosystem with 19 innovation centres across the province and, until its budget was recently cut, had a $277 million dollar annual operating budget. That publicly funded organization neglected to systematically collect gender and diversity data and failed to publicly report how many women-owned firms benefited from its $514 million in startup investments, let alone $1.7 billion in follow-on investments. A 60-page independent Deloitte study in September 2018, which aimed to prove the organization’s performance as a valuable economic engine, included no single statistic, mention or metric that relates to how well the organization served women or diverse entrepreneurs.
Insiders at OCE say that while its organization has worked successfully to improve workplace diversity within its own operations over the past several years, there has been no emphasis on a gender lens–based program assessment. Those who have tried to champion it say it was a lonely ride, and that interest only perked up once the federal Women Entrepreneurship Strategy (WES) funding ($2B) announcements came out.
OCE’s manager of media relations, Andrew Robertson, says gender-specific data was collected for two of its 30+ programs and streams over the years. Under the SmartStart Seed Fund, 45% of fund recipients had at least one woman on the executive team. And over two-thirds of the Ontario Social Impact Vouchers (OSIV) were women-led. However, these statistics were not considered important enough to be included in their annual report.
At present, the SmartStart program is still technically active but closed for applications. The OSIV fund is no longer active.
When OCE’s budget was unfortunately slashed, no wonder Ontario’s approximately 450,000+ women entrepreneurs, on hearing the news, understandably heaved a big “meh.”
When looking at the broader context, it is useful to note that major incubator and accelerator ratings systems like UBI Global, a Stockholm-based research and advisory firm (with only two female board members out of 10) that rates and ranks over 700 university incubators, has 2020 KPIs that do not include diversity or gender metrics.
Is That Light Flickering? Yes, It Is—but Why?
Dr. Barbara Orser, Telfer professor and project leader of “Strengthening Ecosystem Supports for Women Entrepreneurs” (dubbed the i2 report), says that a few organizations are doing terrific, leading edge work. However, on the whole, creating inclusive support services for women entrepreneurs within mainstream innovation and entrepreneurship organizations has a long way to go. Institutional barriers to women’s enterprise growth are still not taken seriously—and it’s an important explanation for the lack of progress. Many leaders also assume that all are welcomed or that all feel welcomed, but this is not enough.
Orser adds that research shows that startup leaders tend to self-appoint themselves experts, over relying on instinct, personal experience, and DIY approaches. They significantly undervalue the expertise required to develop programs to address systemic gender issues required to make real change. You can spot that DIY guy out on the field and on stages, citing his qualifications, commitment, and experience as, “I have two daughters and a wife.”
Ironically, the Women Entrepreneurship Strategy fund may have, as an unintended consequence, actually amplified the gaslighting problem. Suddenly, with that grant money available, entrepreneur support organizations of all kinds self-declared themselves as experts on gender and on designing programs supporting women and diverse groups, even though they had no prior track record, evidence of expertise, or success in helping women’s businesses succeed.
Giving money to such organizations will simply perpetuate the massive gender gaps in entrepreneurship.
We need to find real ways to grow women-led businesses in ways that truly work for women, according to Heather Gamble, founder and CEO of Women on the Move, a women entrepreneur growth accelerator. “We [Canada] have a f*cked up definition of innovation,” says Gamble. “There’s such a heavy reliance on technology, such a narrow view across the board.”
For the kind of change we need, Gamble points to the New Zealand prime minister’s recent pledge to elevate the importance of well-being in that country. “Considering how entrepreneurial people are in New Zealand and given that many women entrepreneurs are in the well-being and caregiving space, that will likely translate into more support for women entrepreneurs in those sectors,” says Gamble. “So how do we expand the definition of innovation and elevate innovation spend in areas such as well-being in this country?”
Dr. Wendy Cukier, project co-leader for the i2 report, believes manifesting real and meaningful change requires a multi-level ecological, coordinated approach and a lot more accountability. “We need deep, systems-level change and a multi-layer strategy because the barriers women [and people with intersecting barriers] face are, themselves, multi-level. We have stereotypes, values, and beliefs that shape expectations, eligibility criteria that skews which ideas get funded, and who gets counted as an entrepreneur and who doesn’t. All these challenges have to be addressed because they, in turn, inform what intermediary organizations do.”
How Do We Turn Up All the Lights?
The report recommends that we need to build equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) assessment criteria into all future funding requests, establish funding to help small organizations access EDI training, and mandate innovation centres to support all types of innovation (process, organizational, marketing, and across all sectors) and not just product innovation in tech sectors. The researchers would also like to see more collaboration between mainstream and women-focused support organizations and increased expert support for women-led scale-ups.
Cukier agrees with Orser that, ultimately, the Ontario government needs to put more pressure on small business support organizations to take diversity and inclusion issues seriously. Translation: no strategy, no gathering of data, no holding leadership accountable, no public funding.
How Do We Stop the Gaslighting?
While most agree the i2 report contained no real surprises regarding the true state of support for women and diverse entrepreneurs in Ontario, industry leaders and other participants at its reveal were enthusiastic about its potential to inspire a new round of activism, perhaps leading to real change.
Orser urged woman entrepreneurs in an incubator or accelerator program to share the report with program managers and incubator leaders—and ask them to formally respond. “You can organize an in-house discussion group to create space for reflection of your organization’s performance. Use the links to resources provided and help educate the management team. From there, look at the gender nature of the initiatives and think how every service or program can advance D&I and gender equity in the program—and beyond.”
Cukier added that we are “in a special moment, a window of time that has opened” in terms of support for the advancement of women entrepreneurs in this country. But it can always flicker again. So, we cannot afford to squander the moment.
The Women’s Enterprise Organizations of Canada (WEOC) is an association of women’s enterprise centres working to advance women-led ventures for over 20 years—and they have the research statistics to prove it.
Sandra Altner, chair of the WEOC board for the past eight years, says that with $2.6 million in new funding from WES, the organization can now offer greater support, knowledge sharing, development of partnerships/collaborations, as well as help co-develop more effective mechanisms to support diverse entrepreneurs in Ontario and across Canada.
Based on the i2 research findings, this news could not come at a better time. If well-fuelled support organizations like MaRS, OCE, and Communitech can’t move the dial, perhaps a WES fund–strengthened coalition of Ontario’s previously ghettoized women’s support networks will do the job—and do it right this time.
It comes down to this: If we want to realize the economic growth that women entrepreneurs are capable of generating, we need to stop gaslighting women entrepreneurs and cultivate an enterprise support system that delivers on the inside what it talks about on the outside.
How to Help Stop Gaslighting in Entrepreneurship Ecosystems?
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adrienne maree brown talks about activism as a source of pleasure at Lula Lounge in Toronto, ON
adrienne maree brown author of both Emergent Strategy and Pleasure Activism addresses social change makers at Lula Lounge in Toronto, ON on May 6th, 2019.
Detroit-based feminist philosopher, doula and social-change strategist Adrienne Maree Brown has written works described as “luminous” in its “imagining the future of climate change, making different worlds through direct action and social movement-building, and creating transformative change through visionary speculative fiction.”
Brown is just as luminous -and visionary-in real life.
Judging by the engagement and enthusiasm from the more than 2000 who attended her recent talk about her new book, Pleasure Activism, at Toronto’s Lula Lounge earlier in May, her work is more compelling than ever.
Pleasure Activism aims to “explode the dour myth that changing the world is just another form of work” when, according to Brown, that work can be a source of great personal healing and pleasure. Brown believes it’s important for those choosing to make a living via alternative world-making to take the time to heal from day to day grappling with darkness and systems of oppression that comes with the job.
Going against the grain is heavy lifting and recovery from that intense emotional labour is difficult. Pleasure Activism is a form of slow-release medicine for those battered by the work.
After the program, LiisBeth had an opportunity to talk to Brown about how and why we need to move beyond reform to radical systems change; the role of social change organizations, leaders, and individuals in that fight; and her views on implementing feminist ideas as an organizational leader.
You can read the interview below. But you can feel the interview by listening to the audio recording below.
Listening to the audio will take only 12 minutes out of your day and and we guarantee you will be blown away by Adrienne Maree Brown’s powerful and inspiring personality.
Alternatively, the transcript of the interview, edited for clarity and length, is below.
LiisBeth: You mentioned tonight that you believe our institutions and systems are beyond repair. What else can we do if what we want is a fair and inclusive world?
adrienne maree: Your asking me how, right? (Laughing). Revolution [versus reform] is something I’m really committed to, and I try to talk about it a lot. I try to get a lot of people to be thinking about it. I encourage them to be in relationship with the idea of revolution. To me, it’s fine to be involved in activities or reform as long as you understand that they are not the outcome.
A slightly improved system is not actually a liberation for most of us because the current systems are set up to [foster] such an extreme level of inequality that small changes won’t make a difference. I always talk to them [reformers] like, it’s great to be taking steps to have more equal rights. It’s great to be moving towards more equity, but if you have an entire society that is based in white supremacy, an entire society that is based in competition rather than cooperation, then it’s always going to be a marginal [part of the program] to be bringing all identities of all people in when making decisions about the world.
So, a lot of the work that I do is about revolution but, I also really believe in building the new in the shell of the old.
LiisBeth: If revolution is what we need, how can we invite more people in to the be a part of it?
adrienne maree: I tell people, everyone can be a revolutionary. Wherever you’re sitting right now is a potential revolutionary space. Where you are right now is the revolutionary front line. If you’re a banker [or entrepreneur] what can you do to change the system? What can you do to make it more fair? What can you do to create more access no matter where you sit?
Actually, the greatest changes in the world have happened because people who thought of themselves as ordinary people were willing to develop and [put into motion] subversive strategies within whatever systems they were in.
I also think it’s important to invite people to think about why they exist because all of us are in a lineage of survivors. Everyone can trace their personal lineage back to people who were revolutionary and come to realize that they exist today because of their work. Even if you think you’re too scared to be a revolutionary in this lifetime, your ancestors somewhere along the line were revolutionaries. Somewhere along that life your job is to pick that up and bring it to present.
LiisBeth: Let’s talk more about fear and the role that fear plays in preventing people from doing what’s needed or right for the world we live in right now.
adrienne maree: Audrey Lorde is a writer I recommend to everyone [who is thinking about this]. She talks about the fact that we’re going to be afraid no matter what. Why not be scared and try to intervene? We need to actually learn, that being scared is a social control mechanism. As long as you’re scared of creating a change, as long as you’re scared of disrupting the status quo, nothing will change.
Left to Right: Co-presenter Chanelle Gallant (activist, writer and educator with a focus on sex and justice), adrienne maree brown and on-stage interviewer, Yami Msosa, a grassroots feminist organizer, frontline worker, consultant, and educator.
LiisBeth: You served for a while as the Executive Director of The Ruckus Society a small but long-established non-profit focused on supporting activism. What was that like for you? Was it an easy job?
adrienne maree: I went into it with a lot of ego. I looked at how everyone else is doing the executive director role, and decided I was going to totally do it differently. I was going to make sure we were super fair, flat structures, all the things. And then I got into the job and I was like, oh, actually, the system of philanthropy actually constructs how things work—not the person leading it. The current system of [funding] makes it almost impossible to have integrity and be a boss. You’re constantly being asked to jump through hoops for what big philanthropy says are the goals of what the work you’re doing should be, rather than trying to make sure the work is actually serving your community.
So as an ED, you get hired because you have all these visions, values and ideas, but then quickly realize, especially in a small non-profit, that you are continually in a desperate financial situation, and, rightly, also need to prioritize the welfare of the six people whose healthcare and income relies on the organization’s financial sustainability, which translates into me getting the resources in.
So, I think being a non-profit ED is an impossible job. When I am coaching others doing that job, I remind them that they have been asked to do an impossible thing. The board expects them to be great at budgets, managing people and fundraising, plus have and be able to implement a great, new vision.
Most people are good at one or two of those things, maximum. So, I think it’s an impossible job. I think we should stop having it as a singular job. In most institutions the strength would come from having two to three people sharing the role.
Lisbeth: When it comes to feminist leadership, what have you found works? And doesn’t work?
adrienne maree: I think it really, really works to have spaces informed by feminism. However, if those ideas are not embraced at the board level, it doesn’t work.
Your board should also reflect the community that you’re trying to serve. If the board is only the rich people and then the community seen as down there, there’s going to be an impossible tension that the organization is trying to hold and manage between what far away funders and the community want. So, a board should be in a space where there’s a balance.
I also think that a lot of times people assume that if a woman is in charge, it signals that it is a feminist institution. I think we have to really challenge that.
It’s not enough to just have literally a woman there. I think that we have to think about what are the aspects of feminism that person is trying to bring in. To me, that means thinking about how the person approaches the Collaborative [ecosystem around you] and the Care. Think about not just being collaborative, but how are we being collaborative with each other. We need to ask how is this person or organization working with others to share limited resources versus how men get trained to be alpha males competing over those same resources.
adrienne maree: We also must ask how does this leader care for the entire structure? How is this person developing the deep connections needed to withstand the pressures of oppression? How do you deal with all the “no’s” in the system? Everyone in a feminist organization should be cared for. They need to feel like a valuable member versus working in a type of ‘Top is cared for, but the bottom can be fired anytime’ type of hierarchy.
I think another practice that’s really important is to look at how maternity, paternity and parental leave happens. To me, a feminist institution is a place that says to both parents “if you have a baby, you got a lot of time to go take care of that kid, you don’t have to worry about it, and you get to come back [to work].” In my view, whoever made this baby has to go take care of this baby.
Lisbeth: Tell us about your new institute?
adrienne maree: I recently founded something called the Emergent Strategy Ideation Institute. A few years ago, I put out this book called Emergent Strategy, which is about how do we learn from natural operating systems to do our organizing [and planning] in right relationship with the planet. The institute is basically offering intensive training, facilitation, coaching and mediation to help people who are interested in taking that path, do it as well as they can.
Last year, we held several “immersion” workshops where people would come and play with adaptation, play with fractals, and play with how to create more possibilities. So, this year we’re doing seven that are spread out across the U.S. We are also conducting facilitation training in Detroit. I brought on a team of about 20 people who are all incredible facilitators, coaches and other things who I know are all practicing it, so that I know it doesn’t get bottle-necked with me.
LiisBeth: Amazing. Well, hopefully you’ll be doing services in Canada.
adrienne maree: Oh yes, oh yes. I’ve got Canadians on my team. I’m ready to come to Canada.
LiisBeth: So, thank you so much
adrienne maree: Thank you. I appreciate you (Hugs)
Mary Ng and her campaign volunteers i the riding of Markham-Richmond Hill
Mary Ng and team knocking on doors in the Markham-Thornhill riding of Ontario.
With a Canadian federal election in the winds, women passionate about reshaping the playing field for marginalized innovators and entrepreneurs at a policy level are considering making a difference by running for office for the first time. Research shows that currently “Women represent less than a third of seats (26%) in Parliament and in provincial and territorial legislatures, and only 18% of mayors and 28% of city councillors.” In the U.S., the number of women in congress today represents 23.4% of the total of U.S. Representatives. Women’s representation in parliament in countries like South Africa, Sweden, Finland, Mexico and Cuba all exceed 40%.
To help close the gender gap in politics in Canada, the Ministry for Women and Gender Equality (WAGE) announced a $547.3K in funding in 2018 for programming run by the Federation of Canadian Municipalities to help encourage more women to participate in politics at the minicipal level. Federal politicians often get their start as local councilors. According to Resolution 15 of the 1990 United Nations Economic and Social Council, women’s equal representation will only be achieved when there is a minimum proportion of 30 percent women in leadership positions.
So, you want to run. But how do you get started? And what is it like?
To find out more, we spoke with Minister of Small Business and Export Promotion, Mary Ng.
LiisBeth: Minister Ng, you’ve been in politics for 20 years. How did you get your start?
Mary Ng: Oh that’s a fun question. My passion for public service has been there since I was a kid. What made me ultimately do it? You’ve heard me say this before, which is that I learned over the course of my life and career that political representation really matters if what a community wants is to be heard and have the opportunity to weigh in and shape things. I could see that we needed more women, and better yet, more racialized, minority women visibly represented in Parliament. In fact, that’s what drove my decision to finally run for office. Along with the fact that I had a lot of strong women and allied men encouraging me to go for it. One of those men was the Prime Minister. He encouraged me to take the leadership and to run because he also believed that diverse representation does matter, and when people see other people like them, they believe that they are genuinely a part of the inclusive society and the diverse society.
Many feminist entrepreneurs want to get into politics someday. What first two or three steps would you recommend? What experience do you need to gather?
First off, I would say that you don’t need to have experience in politics to run. But you do need an authentic desire to serve the public. And this starts with wanting to serve the people in a riding where you live.
Once you have made that leap, the next step is to decide which party most aligned with my views. Or which party most represents what I can embrace and take on and be a champion for. In my case, I felt what I cared about was most aligned with the Liberal Party of Canada. So, I chose the Liberal Party.
The next step is to sign up. It’s free to do so for any party. Then, you set out to have conversations with people in the community. Work to learn about which issues are most important to them. You also share the issues that are important to you.
You put yourself out in front and say, “I would like to represent you and here’s what I stand for.” You start the conversation by convening friends and neighbours. You start with going to neighbourhoods and door-knocking. You begin to encourage people to sign up to vote for you so that you can be the nominated candidate for that party in that riding.
Mary Ng on the campaign trail in her riding of Markham-Thornhill.
How do you get the money to start? How much money do you need to start?
You fundraise according to political fundraising rules. So, you start by calling your friends. You call your family. You ask the supporter that you just met at the door who said, “Oh my goodness, I really believe in you” to make a donation or volunteer to help you knock on doors.
In the Liberal Party, we have this thing called the Victory Fund, which is a little pot of money created by a lot of people donating a little bit of money. You can only donate $1,500 per person. That helps us build a campaign fund, or if not a campaign fund, a riding fund so that we have funds to be able to run our elections.
In this country, corporations can’t give to you, unions can’t give to you. So you really have to get out there, grassroots, and fundraise. And if they believe in you, you’ll raise the money. If they don’t believe in you, you won’t.
As Minister of Small Business and Export Promotion, what are you most proud of having achieved in your time there so far?
The strategy to double the number of female entrepreneurs and, for me personally, that I get to work with businesses across this country to accomplish exactly that. For me, that’s enormous.
Only 16% of all of our small and medium-sized businesses in Canada are women owned or women led.
But we know we can do better. For example, here is something that I learned yesterday that was absolutely fantastic. In the Yukon yesterday, 40% of their businesses are women owned and women led, which is wonderful. The women-led part of the SME economy there is also incredibly diverse. There are Indigenous businesses that are succeeding. I met people like Antoinette Oliphant, the owner of Antoinette’s in Whitehorse. A great black, gay female entrepreneur who is kicking ass and doing great work.
There is more work to be done, but I am very hopeful about the strategies that we’ve got in place, the investments that we have made, and the other social policies that we have also advanced, including the Canada Child Benefit, parental leave, and affordable child care. These social policies, along with our recent investments in women entrepreneurs, I think, are going to go a long way. We’re going see change.
Antoinette Oliphant, owner of Antoinette’s restaurant in Whitehorse, Yukon (Photo: Uphere Magazine)
Being in Ontario, we know first-hand how fast programs that advance women, diversity, inclusion, and gender equity can be derailed or cancelled with a change in government. With a federal election coming up, which programs do you most want to see continue regardless of who is in power?
Our program for women entrepreneurs. And I would say that there’s no better government than the one that is leading right now for women, women entrepreneurs, and all Canadians looking to build a truly inclusive society.
How important is it that we have a feminist government?
Very important, because if I make the argument that we need to make investments today in order to grow Canada’s GDP in the future, and that gender parity in our economy is key to all of this, you then have to have a government that is willing to allocate the money to fund the required investments in research, institutional change, and community programs to support this shift. Having a progressive, feminist government creates the environment for that to happen. So it’s very important.
Thank you so very much, Minister Ng.
Thanks, LiisBeth.
Want to Run for Office? Here are some additional resources to help you get started.
Operation Black Vote Canada: Operation Black Vote Canada (OBVC) was established in 2004 as a nonprofit and multi-partisan organization that supports the election of Black people to public office. We do this by educating, motivating and advocating for Black Canadians to participate in Canada’s government, agencies, boards, commissions, civil service and in Canada’s political process at all levels.
Elections Canada: Official Canadian website for federal elections. It cover’s it all–including what you can and cannot expense.
Institue for Change Leaders: Founded by Olivia Chow, this institute will help you craft your message, platform and help you get organized. For over thirty years, Olivia Chow has been an effective and well-known public figure, serving in Toronto’s municipal politics and on the national stage as a Canadian Member of Parliament. She was voted Best City Councillor seven times by readers of NOW magazine and Best MP in 2010. Readers of the Toronto Sun voted her Top Torontonian in 2012 and Canadian Immigrant magazine named her as one of Canada’s Top 25 Immigrants.
Young Women’s leadership Network:A national not-for-profit organization dedicated to fostering young women’s civic and political leadership at all levels. Theytake an anti-oppressive, trans-inclusive feminist approach toward identifying the issues and bridging the gaps in support networks and services for young women leaders. Their work takes a multifaceted approach to promoting inclusive & equitable leadership. The organization focuses on building young women’s civic leadership capacity while we work with civic institutions to remove systemic barriers contributing to gender inequity. Their sessions are excellent. Many of them free.
