Over Thanksgiving I read Sramana Mitra’s latest book Feminine Feminism. In the book Mitra confirms a theory I’ve always had: the path to freedom, flexibility, and feminism lies in pursuing an entrepreneurial path.
In the book Mitra interviews a number of women entrepreneurs who have built multi-million dollar tech businesses. Some, but not all had engineering backgrounds. Many actually partnered with their spouses. And when it came to investment, some took venture capital, while other initially bootstrapped their way to profitability, taking investment at a much later stage of their company’s growth.
I’ve personally always struggled with the decision to have a family vs. being a lone wolf. At times I even wished I had been born a man, because it would be more socially acceptable to have a wife who took care of the kids giving me the freedom to pursue my ambitions and interest with little to no expectation when it came to child-rearing. Plus being Indian didn’t help any. I came from a culture that had certain expectations of women’s roles in society. Yet from the age of 12 I bucked them. While it was frustrating, I only knew how to be myself.
It’s not that I didn’t want to be a mother. It just felt there were too many social constructs that had been setup, which interfered with women rising to the top while enjoying motherhood. I often felt like I could only give birth to and nurture ideas or children.
Hence, what I found incredibly fascinating about the book was that a number of the women are mothers. They didn’t forsake their dreams or their drive for motherhood. Or feel like they had to give up the desire to be a mother for their careers as a business leader. Instead they used business principles to manage their families.
Many learned to delegate and setup support systems such as having parents or nannies take care of children. Or prioritized by reducing their work hours to be with their children during infancy.
Being an entrepreneur taught them these principles, and being an entrepreneur also gave them the freedom and flexibility to put them into practice! While entrepreneurship is tough, the biggest perk is that you don’t have to ASK for permission or negotiate for things you want when you’re the boss. You just have the responsibility of setting things up to run and provide you with the freedom and flexibility you want.
Overall, the women showcased in this book represent a new breed of business leaders and feminists, ones who are consciously making the choice of pursuing motherhood or opting out. Either choice is still a personal one, not a socially enforced one. Based on their choice they are systematically creating a lifestyle that supports and nurtures them and their goals. They also aren’t trying to fit a masculine mold that has been pervasive in business, and has almost seemed like requirement. Instead, entrepreneurship has let them retain their individuality and femininity as leaders.
Now I know that not everyone is going to want to build a multi-million dollar tech business, or may have the dream but want to start small. Hence, I think the book can still be inspiring to women who may want to be freelancers, consultants, or small-business owners. Ultimately, the scale of the business you want to create is up to you, but it helps to understand, learn, and know that there are successful women out there who are currently living out their ambitions and on their terms!
