“Side hustlers” sidelined: Women entrepreneurs denied funding, opportunities

Recently, as my brother and I stood chatting together at my grandfather’s wake, a friend of my auntie’s wandered over.

We’d both known him since we were kids. His name was Tom, a business consultant in Sydney’s eastern suburbs who loved to talk about his corporate travel and numerous divorces.

Bailing on in, Tom’s arm was quickly slung across my brother’s shoulders as he proceeded to ask him about his work.

My brother, who runs a successful public affairs business, filled in the gaps. They spoke jovially together until Tom, about 20 minutes later, turned to me and asked: “So, what are you doing?”

I answered: “I co-run a small, independent media company. Our main site is called ‘Women’s Agenda’.

“Women’s A-gender?”, Tom instantly responded. Sarcasm dripping from his voice as he chuckled at his own supposed brilliance. I could tell instantly that he had no interest in actually hearing about my business; the news we cover daily nor the near 1 million women that engage with us each month.

And my initial response was to laugh it off. To pretend that Tom had cracked an absolute winner that deserved validation.

But instead, I furrowed my brow and snorted. “Yep, you got me,” I said, before walking away.

The incident didn’t leave me rattled but it did leave me seething.

I knew that my brother could have told Tom he was licking paint for a living and he would have been impressed. But there I was, a 32-year-old entrepreneur with two small kids, a media company bootstrapped and thriving, made to feel as small as a thumbtack.

This is a common experience for female entrepreneurs. Despite women accounting for around one-third of Australia’s small business owners, and the number of female small business owners increasing by 24 per cent between 2006 and 2021, more than three times the growth of men, the social perception of women in business has a long way to go.

So many friends of mine running businesses cite similar frustrations about being dismissed, and there are complex, systemic barriers at play.

No matter the earning potential or scaleability of a woman’s business, there’s still a long-held social and cultural expectation that women “do it all”. Yes, you can run your business, but make sure you do it in between school drop-offs, preparing dinner and maintaining all the household life-admin and mental load. Make sure you do it in between supporting your husband’s more important aspirations, and never drop the ball because no one will be there to pick it up.

Yes, the tide is slowly turning, and there are families running in more egalitarian ways, but GEEZ, the road is long.

My friend runs a successful make-up business on the northern rivers. She manages everything from weddings to festivals to celebrity photoshoots. She also has three boys under the age of 10. Her husband, a builder, works away. Lisa works on weekends — still making excellent money in small windows.

Last week, we had lunch together. Lisa, my successful, exceptional friend, said quietly: “Whenever anyone asks me about my business, they refer to it as little — ‘How’s your little makeup business going?’”

Her little make-up business, for the record, is booming. Her talent supports her family, and enables her to be there for her sons. She’s making a full-time salary on weekend hours.

Women-owned ventures are too often relegated to the space of ‘side hustle’. There’s a persistent thought that women run businesses only to attain flexibility — so they can juggle busy home lives and high-flying husbands.

It’s a sad trope that explains a lot about the obscene gap in VC funding handed to women founders — currently sitting at about 2 per cent annually. Women are missing out on critical opportunities for investment and to scale. And Australia is missing out as a result.

Want to see that trend shift? I’d suggest we start taking women-owned ventures seriously.

This article was first published by Women’s Agenda.