Women Business Owners

Women are starting businesses at three times the rate of men. This discussion paper is based on interviews with over 200 women who own small businesses. It includes a profile of the women entrepreneurs, explores barriers for these women, and suggests directions for public policy that would support the efforts of women entrepreneurs to escape the isolation they find themselves experiencing that prevents them from reaching out to seize the opportunities that surround them.

Designed to help women business owners become more successful by providing them with information about marketing their goods and services to the federal government. Covers: how the government buys, selling to the government, and standard forms. Extensive listing of federal resources. Bibliography.

Throughout history, Western women have inhabited a conceptual space divorced from the world of business. But women have always engaged in business. Who were these women, and how were they able to justify their work outside the home? The Business of Women explores the world of those women who embraced British Columbia’s frontier ethos in the early twentieth-century. In this detailed examination of case studies and quantitative sources, Buddle reveals that, contrary to expectation, the typical businesswoman was not unmarried or particularly rebellious, but a woman reconciling her entrepreneurship with her identity as a wife, mother, or widow. This groundbreaking study not only incorporates women into the history of business, it challenges commonly held beliefs about women, business, and the marriage between the two.