Correcting the invisibility
In 1915, Aimee Semple McPherson, an American Pentecostal evangelist, drew crowds larger than Teddy Roosevelt, Houdini, and P.T. Barnum. A young widow and entrepreneur, McPherson supported both her mother and her child, created the first Christian radio station in the United States and sowed the seeds of the enormously powerful evangelical movement. Though it is common for todayâs ministers to refer to their âevangelical forefathers,â it was McPhersonâs innovative delivery of sermons that laid the foundation for popular U.S. televangelists. During her lifetime, McPhersonâs message affected millions, and she set social and political standards that continue to inform the evangelical movement. After almost a century, Roosevelt, Houdini, and Barnum remain well known, but despite the political clout of evangelical Christianity, few have heard of McPherson.
In 1884, over a decade before Plessy v. Ferguson, Ida B. Wells sued the Chesapeake and Ohio railroad company for forcing her to give up her seat to a White man. When the conductor tried to remove her, she refused to be ladylike and deferential. Instead, Wells sank her teeth into his hand and braced her legs against the back of the seat (Baker 1996; Franklin 1995). It took three strong men to drag her from the train. As a founding member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), a newspaper owner, publisher, author, and political activist, Wells watched the lynching of several friends and fellow African Americans (Baker 1996; Franklin 1995). Risking her own life, Wells wrote a scathing indictment of southern law in her book Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases (1997). But how many people know her name?
In 1903, prior to Henry Fordâs Model A, Mary Anderson invented and patented the windshield wiper; women subsequently invented the carburetor, a clutch mechanism and an electric engine starter. Grace Hopper, a computer scientist and mathematician, invented COBOL, the first computer language. She joins the ranks of forgotten women entrepreneurs: scientists, inventors, mathematicians, athletes, peace activists, Nobel Laureates, authors, political leaders, and business owners. Given this trend, we can expect that contemporary influential women such as Oprah Winfrey, Condoleezza Rice, Shirin Ebadi, Hillary Clinton, Shirley Chishom, Aung San Suu Kyi, Katharine Graham, Margaret Chase Smith, Barbara Jordan, Corazon Aquino, Ann Richards, Rigoberta MenchĂş, and Benazir Bhutto â and all of their accomplishments â will disappear from our social consciousness as well.
Therefore, our initial goal in writing this book was to right a wrong. Despite the fact that their numbers are growing at an astounding rate, four times that of non-minority men and women (MBDA 2008), minority women are virtually invisible in entrepreneurship literature and woefully under-represented in business case studies. In fact, with few exceptions, representations in the media and in typical business school case studies portray entrepreneurs as White, male business owners (Brush 1997). Complaints about the dearth of scholarly research, media coverage, teaching tools, and business cases that feature women and entrepreneurs of color are not a recent phenomenon (Baker, Aldrich et al. 1997; Langowitz and Morgan 2003; Davies, Spencer, and Steele 2005; Greene and Brush 2004; Ogbor 2000). John Ogbor writes that the âconcept of entrepreneurship is discriminatory, gender-biased, ethnocentrically determined and ideologically controlled, sustaining not only prevailing societal biases, but serving as a tapestry for unexamined and contradictory assumptions and knowledge about the reality of entrepreneursâ (Ogbor 2000: 605).
In addition, for the sake of simplicity, research definitions of marginalized groups often include only one status characteristic that differs from the norm: see the aptly titled compilation of essays All the Women are White and All the Blacks are Men, But Some of Us are Brave, edited by Gloria T. Hull, Patricia Bell Scott, and Barbara Smith (1982). Despite the growing numbers of minority women entrepreneurs, the separation of race and ethnicity on the one hand and gender on the other contributes to their invisibility. If, as Helen Hacker argues (1951), women have the status of a minority, then women of color have a double minority status that puts them even further outside of what African American feminist Audre Lorde calls âthe mythical normâ:
Somewhere, on the edge of consciousness, there is what I call a mythical norm, which each one of us within our hearts knows âthat is not me.â In America, this norm is usually defined as White, thin, male, young, heterosexual, Christian and financially secure. It is within this mythical norm that the trappings of power reside in this society. (Lorde 1984: 116)
Furthermore, there is evidence that under-representation of women and minorities in entrepreneurial narratives and workplace images anchors low social and psychological expectations for these groups. Regardless of the increase of women in the paid labor force, feminine characteristics are not as likely to be associated with workplace leadership as are masculine qualities (Valian 1998), and the pay gap between women and men persists. Women are therefore more likely to turn to entrepreneurship as a way to circumvent discrimination (Minniti, Arenius et al. 2005: 12). However, business ownership does not neutralize gender and racial prejudice. Research over the last 30 years has established that women are less likely to be identified as business leaders even though women-owned businesses in the U.S. succeed at a rate equal to male-owned enterprises (Eagly and Johannesen-Schmidt 2001; Heilman, Block et al. 1989). Gender and racial stereotypes negatively affect self-esteem (Clark and Clark 1939) and measurably diminish performance (Steele 1997: 620). According to Minniti, Arenius et al.:
a womanâs perceptions of environmental opportunities as well as her confidence in her own capabilities, are powerful predictors of entrepreneurial activity ⌠and a strong negative and significant correlation exists between fear of failure and a womanâs likelihood of starting a new business. (Minniti, Arenius et al. 2005: 12)
Simply put, this is a human-rights issue: under-representation in scholarly research, teaching tools, and media coverage effectively impedes minority womenâs access to the economy through entrepreneurship. Since entrepreneurship has been a lifeline for populations facing employment discrimination, impediments to business ownership threaten the life chances, and the very survival, of minority women and their families.
This general lack of confidence has been documented in numerous studies, and ours was no exception. Barbara Manzi recounts her former boss telling her she would not succeed as an entrepreneur. âHe said I wasnât business-savvy enough to pay attention to the accounting. He said, âYouâre still a salespersonâ.â But after working for ten years and bringing in millions for the company, Manzi was denied a raise. She resigned, bought a desk for US$89 and started Manzi Metals. She is often asked why she waited so long to start her own business. Manzi explains:
Well, I had no business background and no experience. I didnât think I had the right stuff. When you come from a family where you donât see much thatâs good ⌠when you turn over at night and roll over your sisters, you donât think, Iâm going to grow up and be an entrepreneur. As a Black women, you start to think you canât do some things, but over time I learned that others were no smarter than me.
Judy Henderson-Townsend concurs:
Many times, women undervalue our skills. We are more desperate to get the money. I had to watch my language and stop describing my business as âwacky.â At first I thought, âWho am I to think I am a business owner?â But then I got the award from the Renaissance Center. And then I got the EPA [Environmental Protection Agency] award, and I thought: âI am the Queen of mannequins!â
There is a growing body of evidence confirming that frames of reference can be changed and performance can be positively affected. The inclusion of women and minorities in normative representations can work to lift debilitating stereotypes (Steele 1997; Davies, Spencer, and Steele 2005; Godwyn 2009c). Claude Steele found that the standardized test scores of African American students were higher if tests were introduced as âacademically insignificant,â thereby removing the expectation that Black students would perform less well than their White counterparts (Steele 1997: 619-20). Further, when women acquire entrepreneurial training and role models in a female-oriented culture, such as Womenâs Business Centers, they develop a frame of reference, different than that of the larger society, which positions women as normative business leaders. Unlike those in control groups, these women are much more likely to perceive women, rather than men, as business leaders (Godwyn 2009c). And women trained at Womenâs Business Centers start businesses at a rate of almost four times the national average for women (Langowitz, Sharpe et al. 2006). Pauline Lewis, who took entrepreneurship classes at a Womenâs Business Center, puts it this way:
This is a fantastic time for women to start the enterprise theyâve always dreamed of, and I think the reason for that is we have examples out there now. And that is making all the difference in the world to have other women that you can look at and say, âIf she can do it, I can do it,â and I know it goes as far as being able to pick up the phone and saying âI want to call her because sheâs been in business now for seven years. Iâm going to call her and ask her for her help.â
By disseminating their accomplishments, their stories and their faces, the first purpose of this book is to right the wrong done each time womenâs entrepreneurial contributions are diminished, marginalized, and forgotten.
Why minority women are uniquely positioned to provide better business
The importance of minority views for entrepreneurial innovation
Inherent to entrepreneurial enterprise is the valuation of change, novelty, and difference; therefore, entrepreneurial vision is by definition a minority perspective residing outside of the norm. Charlan Nemeth argues that majority and minority views contribute differently to processes. The views of majorities âfoster convergence of attention, thought and the number of alternatives consideredâ (Nemeth 1986: 23). While minority views
are important ⌠because they stimulate divergent attention and thought. As a result, even when [minority views] are wrong, they contribute to the detection of novel solutions and decisions that, on balance, are qualitatively better ⌠for creativity, problem-solving and decision-making, both at the individual and group levels. (Nemeth 1986: 23)
Entrepreneurs, therefore, must be willing to entertain the notion that ignorance might be disguised as expert knowledge and conventional wisdom. In other words, a minority viewpoint influences entrepreneurial decision-making.
Jane Margolis agrees. She describes why it is important for a wide range of people and perspectives to be involved in computer science and product development:
In terms of design teams and designing products, thereâs evidence from other industries that if you have just a male team, you could have a flawed product. Letâs look at air bags, for example. Only 8% of mechanical engineers are female, and most of the teams working on air bags were predominantly male ⌠Air bags were invented based on the male body as the norm, [and] they ended up being potentially deadly to women and children. Thatâs also happened with heart valves and voice-recognition systems; they were geared toward the male. Add more design experts of different viewpoints, different genders and different races, and youâre going to get products that are much better in terms of meeting the needs of a broader number of people. The other thing is, itâs almost a question of democracy and equity. If technology jobs can really lead to economic opportunities and educational opportunities, they shouldnât just fall into the laps of a very narrow band of males. (Gilbert 2002)
The significance of providing narratives and images of minority women business owners is to gather data on this group of heretofore neglected entrepreneurs, to begin to redefine the established framework about who will succeed in entrepreneurial activities, and to challenge the narrow model of business goals and assumptions informed by classical economic theory. Our intention is to disseminate the views, experiences, and images of minority women entrepreneurs, to give them voice and visibility, and to integrate their perspectives into the discourse of entrepreneurship literature. As Nemeth notes, minority views sharpen and deepen the analytical edge of critique and problem-solving by providing divergent, nonconforming perspectives. Hannah Arendt puts it this way:
The more peopleâs standpoints I have present in my mind while I am pondering a given issue, and the better I can imagine how I would feel or think in their place, the more valid my final conclusion, my opinion. (Bottomly 2007: 29)
As our interviews progressed, we had a dawning realization. We were not merely providing the minority women in our study with the visibility and recognition they had been denied â they were demonstrating new and better ways of doing business. It became clear that these entrepreneurs were using strategies and goals not typically associated with business ownership and not typically taught, or even mentioned, at business schools. Though our research began as a simple demographic study on an under-represented population, identity is not only about being, about who people are; identity is inseparable from behavior, what people do and how they do it. In this case, identity is constructed through entrepreneurial activity that includes what products or services are delivered, who delivers and receives them, how workers are treated, and how profits are distributed.
We had two primary criteria for the entrepreneurs included in the study: they had to be female, and they had to identify themselves as minorities. In addition to gender, the entrepreneurs could have minority status in race, class, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, age, disability, or any other aspect of their identity that positions them outside of the majority of business owners. Second, we chose to interview entrepreneurs who represent a range of industries and geographic locations across the United States. Since our focus is on how minority status affects variation in the quantity and quality of opportunities that are available to and perceived by individuals, we use a modified version of Scott Shane and Sankaran Venkataramanâs broad definition of the scholarly examination of the field of entrepreneurship to organize our research:
The scholarly examination of how, by whom and with what effects opportunities to create [values and understandings as well as] goods and services are discovered, evaluated and exploited. (Shane and Venkataraman 2000: 218 [our addition in italics])
The addition of âvalues and understandingsâ to Shane and Venkataramanâs definition was necessary to accommodate the political, social, and personal impact that was so central to these womenâs descriptions of their businesses and their experiences as entrepreneurs. In the following narratives, each entrepreneur offers a sensitive and highly self-reflexive understanding of how her business is integrated into her personal and social identities, how her values are manifest in her venture and how she envisions giving back to the community â as Pauline Lewis puts it, sharing with âpeople like me.â
True to Shane and Venkataramanâs definition of entrepreneurship, these women focus on economic opportunities produced by the creation of goods and services, but they also conduct their businesses within the context of their social and personal values. Most significantly, they uniformly reject the narrow model of business owner as self-interested actor making decisions that prioritize individual wealth and shareholder power at the cost of public good, environmental health, family, and emotional attachments. That is yesterdayâs model that has proven unsustainable, even disastrous, today.
In the tradition of entrepreneurial innovation, these women reconfigure the world to reflect their vision. This vision represents a new paradigm of equal commitment both to social and environmental, and to personal and economic good. They simply do not recognize divisions among these priorities, nor do they assume one must be traded for the other. Pauline Lewis describes how helping women in South-East Asia is central to her business: âWhen you build something like that into your core mission, your core value, you live and breathe it every day.â Margaret Henningsen explains the reason she started Legacy Bank: âWhen you look at our mission statement, it is about serving the underserved. They have the right to walk into a bank and be treated with respect.â The social mission and entrepreneurâs values are not applied after profit is made or instead of profit, but together with profit.
Because they have never been in the majority, the entrepreneurs in this study have developed techniques and strategies for challenging and changing the regular, accepted ways of doing things â ways that have often felt like Procrustean beds to them. Because they are minority women business owners â a population devalued on multiple levels â their entrepreneurial devices are idiosyncratic, biographical, and individual, but also generational, familial, and historical. Margaret Henningsen explains:
If I walk into a room and no one knows I am Margaret Henning-sen, I get treated just like someone on welfare. There are some historical carry-overs and some recent experiences that keep showing me we are not quite on the same level as that White male.
These women consistently mention their marginalized, outsider status; their identification with disadvantaged populations directs their social mission and informs their personal values.
