Introduction -

‘Entrepreneur’ , this word is basically derived from the verb ‘entreprendre’ , a french verb which means - to do something or to undertake. Simply, we can say Entrepreneurs as ‘adventurers’ or ‘undertakers’ .Entrepreneurship belongs to the STEM field which requires an innovative and learning attitude. Women started to play their role in entrepreneurship from the 17th century.

History of Women Entrepreneurship -

Before the 17th century if someone listened to the word 'ENTREPRENEUR' they would think of a man, as the human mind is conditioned in such a way.The word like 'chairman' tells us that our society is habitual of seeing a man in supreme position. But the process of changing this mindset was started in the United States by a 16 year old girl ‘Eliza Lucas Pinckney’ who started ‘Dying’ to make a difference.

  This difference was going to make the Entrepreneur word free from boundaries of gender and ages . But it was just a start , there stands a lot of problems in front of women entrepreneurship in a world biased towards men.

  In 1766 the world saw its first women publisher from America  Mary Katherine Goddard . Thus the cycle of growth of women entrepreneurship gained momentum and added many innovative , courageous and adventurous ladies to the list.

In India the position women was very high in vedic times but it get deteriorated due to regular invasions.In middle times Jijabahu was famous agricultural entrpreneBut the point here to note is that women did not stop to beauty and books only , they also expanded their business in the defense field . Olive Ann Beech ( aircraft), Ma Perkins (mother of airwaves) are the names among them.

  The wheels just started getting pace but unfortunately comes the ‘Great Depression of 1930’ put a bad impact on society but it has also positive effects on women entrepreneurship.The roles started reversing , the women were previously playing domestic roles and man were the breadwinners but in 1930 due to crashing of stock market ,manufacturing industry get affected much more than any other .

At this time the women came in huge numbers to work and they opened businesses to support their families and thereafter the number of women entrepreneurs started increasing .World war II also contributed to increase in number.

PRESENT AND WOMEN ENTREPRENEURS -

 Women entrepreneurship has seen two major changes in times of the present which are authority and field of business. Earlier women used to inherit the business of their fathers or husbands but slowly evolving through many decades changed it and now modern women are going for a startup . They are now self made , having started business from zero and taking it to heights is the new normal.

  Secondly, the field of doing business has also changed . Earlier the most of women were limited to business of handicraft , fashion , cosmetics but nowadays women are going for ventures in tech , defense ,education etc

  According to an estimation, in the last 20 years the number of women in business has grown by 114% . Africa is one which has more women entrepreneurs than its counterparts.

  Famous names infield of women entrepreneurship are Indra nooyi (former CEO of pepsi ), Susan wojcicki ( CEO of youtube) , Arianna Huffington (Founder of The Huffington Post ) , Falguni nyar (Nykaa) and the list continues.

• Barriers in present for women entrepreneurs -

1.Socio - Cultural Barrier

Conditions have changed from the past , and the name of women entrepreneurship has become familiar to us. But still the gender bias , stereotypes, prejudice continues.Our society expects women to take care of home and child. They take the entrepreneurs as granted just because of their gender.

  2.Economic barriers -

It is observed that women in tech ventures have been taken lightly by our society and the stats reveal more  study revealed that only 25% of women entrepreneurs get investors and partial funding is obtained by less than 10 % women entrepreneurs.

  SOME INITIATIVES TO BETTER WOMEN ENTREPRENEURSHIP

•  ILO -WED (Women’s Entrepreneurship Development programme of the International Labor Organization ) is a programme run by ILO to promote and help women entrepreneurs.
•  International Finance Corporation Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative (IFC We-Fi) program, a part of the World Bank Group We-Fi program
• Women’s Global Empowerment Fund
• KIVA
•   FUTURE OF INNOVATIVE BUSINESS WOMEN - The multitasking management has been inoculated in women mind naturally due to the historical factor. The women entrepreneurs have shown their potential in very less time but still the number and part is really low.India has only 3% self employed women and the worst condition is small industry where women are only 10% . The Condition can be improved in future by - Promotion of women entrepreneurship
• Government support
• Tax rebates , Less documentation formalities , administrative support
• Incentives
• Policy making

  Entrepreneurs in the future will acquire more technology , science ventures . The unlocked potential will help a lot in development of the world.

When men and women both will come together in entrpreneurship world leaving all the biasness, prejudice and discrimination then world will see new innovation ,techenology and we will be the evidence of the development which held due to bringing only a single principle in life - ‘EQUALITY’.