By Adrienne Villani
Re-posted with permission from http://beyondprofitmag.com/
It struck me as odd the other day as I perused my Google Reader that only six of the forty eight social development related blogs that I read are written by women. Later in the day, I moved on to Twitter; again, overwhelmingly male in the social development Twittersphere. What struck me as even stranger: why is this not being talked about? Why is there not yet much chatter about women in social enterprise? We hear about the predominance of Anglo-Saxon voices and the need to incorporate more voices from the developing world, but not the lack of female voices. Even further, why don’t we see more women as social entrepreneurs themselves?
Women are at the absolute center of the greater development dialogue. The World Bank calls investing in women “smart economics” because of research that shows the enormous multiplier effect of advancing women’s economic participation. The case for women’s economic empowerment has advanced so far as to become widespread and uncontroversial.
Yet today, women only own 1 percent of the world’s wealth; have only a 10 percent share in global income; and occupy just 14 percent of leadership positions in the private and public sectors (according to CEDPA).
“Investing in Women” was the year’s theme for World Population Day that took place on July 11. The event drew attention to the importance of improving the health and opportunity of women worldwide in order to create a more just and balanced world.
The emphasis was on the critical task of uplifting women around the world by providing girls with the opportunity to gain an education, by delaying marriage and childbearing until adulthood, by improving reproductive health, and by developing a culture that gives women the ability to make decisions about their future and their families’ future.
“The Girl Effect,” a video initiative spearheaded by the Nike Foundation, has been perhaps the most powerful and popular social media tool used to disseminate the simple message that by creating opportunities for girls, we create opportunities for the world.
There are 600 million adolescent girls living in poverty in the developing world. By giving one of these girls a chance, you start the girl effect. When girls are provided with education, legal protection, health care, access to training and job skills, and a safe place to congregate, they can thrive. And if they thrive, everyone around them thrives, too. The short video, which is 2 minutes and 23 seconds long, as of July 31 had almost 350,000 views on YouTube (this isn’t counting views on its own site).
Shashi Tharoor, the new Indian Minister of State for External Affairs, a member of the Indian Parliament from the Trivandrum constituency in Kerala, and the former UN Under-Secretary General tweeted about the importance of engaging and involving women this summer. He wrote, “The single best thing you can do for development is to educate girls. Educating a boy is good, but you educate one person; educate a girl and you change a family and a community.” (n.b. liberty taken with the quote since it was abbreviated due to Twitter’s 140 character cap) This datapoint has in fact been echoing around the women’s community for decades.
The list could go on and on. Yet there is much more talk of male social entrepreneurs than females. A few strong women have found their voice and started an enterprise, and they get a lot of press coverage. Look at Jacqueline Novogratz of Acumen Fund or Leila Chirayath Janah of Samasource for stunning examples of this. But a critical mass has yet to be reached.
So, I would urge all you women with dreams, with ideas, with vision, to get out there. Start talking. Start doing. We are all waiting for you!
If you are a woman social entrepreneur with a great idea, please take a second to make a comment or reach out to BeyondProfit directly at ideas@beyondprofitmag.com.
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