For women, attitudes have circumscribed choice and worked against earning and taking charge of creating and retaining wealth. When women havebroken out of this syndrome, it has been a subject of media interest, to be reported and commented upon. By and large women have been found heading small and medium enterprises, with a few notable exceptions. The public like to read and discuss cases like inheritor Katherine Graham of The Washington Post, starter Anita Roddick of Body Shop or Ann Gloag of Stagecoach Holdings. In India the situation is similar. Media find such cases good copy. Apart from a woman's professional achievements, there is also a curiosity about her home front. What does she do when her children fall sick? Does she cook? Does she "look after" her husband? Is her husband jealous? A man's personal life is rarely of equal interest.

Women are considered less able to handle business. Not just by men; it appears that more women seem to doubt their capability then men do. Given the pattern of girls out-performing boys in schools in the UK, Europe and the US, there is a trend already established of females improving their chances in thejob market. Indian data have also started to reflect this trend among the better-off population to the extent girls get to go to school and remain there. With the success rate of female enterprises higher, if women do start, basic ability cannot really be in question. There is, however, an issue of self-confidence, lack of knowledge and information, inadequate role models with women not seeing other woman in business as a normal activity. Media stars don't generate self-confidence.

On child care and household work, whatever may be the rights and wrongs of it, the major responsibility in practice has been that of the woman, equal sharing being the exception. This has been a central issue for all working women, not just entrepreneurs. Women have coped with this in a variety of ways -- some family support, outside help, very careful time management. Among the younger generation in recent times more egalitarian relationships among spouses have contributed to greater options for women. Mario Puzo's remark aboutmen being able to manage on their own is a pointer. This change is visible in parts of urban India as well. With stronger family bonds, different upbringing with lesser stereotyping of roles, it might well be that in future Indian men and women, at least among the educated, might show the way to the rest of the world on how to cope with double incomes.

Yet perceptions about a woman with children differ dramatically from those about a man similarly placed. This comment made in the course of a seminar run by the Women's Development Agency in England is revealing: "A father of three children is considered to be stable and reliable; a mother with three children to look after is regarded as unstable and unreliable." Often it is enterprise, rather than regular salaried work, that the women have preferred, precisely in order to have the flexibility of handling work at home as well as outside.

In some societies it is not socially desirable to encourage women in enterprise. The social undesirability of womentaking to enterprise seems to arise from lack of spouse and family support. Scottish men seem to have particularly negative attitudes about women seeking entrepreneurial success. Since women play a pivotal role in families, family support is all the more crucial, without which their participation in economic activity is hindered. Sometimes the only support sought is not objecting. Women have had to walk the tightrope between a desire for personal success versus trying not to better their husbands. To quote from a study from Sweden: "A married woman who wants to set up her own business will usually inform her husband in detail about her plans, that she will have to work long hours...If he is willing...there will be no trouble. But there are cases where the wife's entrepreneurship has led to divorce. It is also a difficult thing for a man to accept that his wife earns more money than he does."

Here are the remarks of an Indian protagonist who canvasses for the cause of women in enterprise. K Margabandhuwriting in 1989, about why many women don't take to enterprise, remarks, "The situation is quite understandable as women have to play a dual role as a housewife and also as an income earner...prevents them from taking a prompt decision in entering business...Further, occupational backgrounds of the families and educational attainments of the husbands have a direct bearing on the development of women's entrepreneurship. The development of kindergartens...limiting the size of the family help the woman entrepreneur to some extent...to enter business in such a manner...that their husbands' prestige is not affected in any manner."

A Business of Her Own

Anuradha K Rajivan

Eastwest Books (Madras) Pvt. Ltd.

Price: Rs 295