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Old September 30, 2000, 10:41 PM
Michael Ross
 
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Default Stoneage Entrepreneurialism

The following is my take on the survey...

"In spite of equal educational opportunities and the perception that the playing field is becoming equal for men and women, the proverbial "glass ceiling" still exists."

My Thoughts: This is the sort of thing a journalist or feminist would write.

"Typicaly women entrepreneurs are still finding it very difficult to procure venture capital support for new ventures."

My Thoughts: Venture Captialists couldn't care less about whether you're a man or a woman. They're in it for the investment and the return on their money. This is clearly written by a journalist or feminist to illicit a response.

"Moving upward through senior executive ranks in corporate America is also still a challenge for women."

My Thoughts: Not if the skills and talents are there. Obviously you need to bring something worthwhile to the table to go up. But what this has to do with being an antrepreneur is beyond me.

"Women started business at twice the rate of men in 1997, yet they received only 2% of institutional venture capital money."

My Thoughts: Either because they didn't ask for funding like men do, or because they're proposals weren't as good.

"The 1999 Catalyst Census of Women Board Directors of the Fortune 1000 found that women hold only 11.2 percent of board seats at the 500 largest publicly traded U.S. companies and that this year women hold only 5.1 percent of "clout" titles (Chairman, Chief Executive Officer, Vice Chairman, President, etc.)."

My Thoughts: So! Is that supposed to mean something? Obviously the talent isn't there to warrant more women in these positions. Again, this has to be written by a journalist or a feminist.

"Men and Women differ significantly in their networking skills. Men spend more time networking in order to further their business goals than do women. This doesn’t necessarily indicate that women are less social. In fact women value their ability to develop relationships. It may be that men integrate business into their social lives more than women do."

My Thoughts: In the stoneage, men needed to "network" to help fascilitate the hunt. Women didn't need to. Also, from the stoneage, women's instincts were to secure a mate which could provide for them and support them. Thus all other women were deemed competition. Any friendships were superficial.

"Men tend to consider themselves team players more than do women."

My Thoughts: What is meant by "team player"? If it's "networking" then this comes back to the stoneage when men hunted in groups and needed to assit each other to complete a successful hunt. Women don't go for this for my previously stated reasons.

"An online questionnaire was emailed to female and male business school graduates and entrepreneurs."

My Thoughts: Business school graduates? Just becase someone goes to a business school and then graduates doesn't mean they know what it takes to be an entrepreneur. In fact, the opposite could be case - they'd have no idea what it takes - as they're getting deeper and deeper into the "system".

"Venture Capitalists don't care whether you’re a woman or a man. They care whether your business idea will make money."

My Thoughts: Ah, as we get deeper into the survey we find the intially slanted writings echomy initial thoughts - VCs don't care whether you're a man or woman they care whether the idea will make money.

"Women don't network as effectively as men. They haven't developed "old girl networks" that function as safety nets."

My Thoughts: Think "stoneage" and your answers are there, as I previously mentioned.

"The criteria for classification as an entrepreneur included a combination of things, such as: owning a business with more than 2 employees, intent to seek venture capital funding within the next two years, and the desire to grow a business."

My Thoughts: None of this is good criteria for establishing whether someone is an entrepreneur. Someone who owns a business is not necessarily an entrepreneur. Intent to seek venture capital doesn't mean you're an entrepreneur and nor does "desire" to grow a business. Half the nation would love to own a business (specially one in which they don't have to work - an autopilot business). Half the nation would love to have their business totally funded. And all business owners would love their business to grow - whatever grow means in this instance.

"Given a choice, women tend to feel that it’s more important to do things perfectly than to do them quickly. Men, however, tend to feel it’s more important to do things quickly."

My Thoughts: This could explain why men get things done sooner and why more men, it would seem, are successful and at the top - as the previsouly mentioned "stats" showed. And obviously this would be a much needed ability back in the stoneage when a hunt was on. After all, your life could be at stake.

We then get onto the "table" of results.

One thing about it showed... "Qualities rated higher by men than women... Team player, Managerial Expertise"

My Thoughts: Team Player and Managerial Expertise are terms I associate with corporations, not entrepreneurs. It thus begs the question... what is meant by these terms, WHO was really surveyed and what did the participants take the meanings of these terms to be.

"Women tend to be motivated slightly more than men by "self-development;" and Men are significantly more motivated than women by "intellectual challenge.""

My Thoughts: What did each 'gender' take as the meaning behind these terms?

"Men spend significantly more time with subordinates developing relationships to further their business goals than do women; Men spend slightly more time with peers developing relationships to further their business goals than do women; Men are significantly more likely to be well networked with key people in their field of business; Men are significantly more likely to be well networked with key affiliate and professional groups in their field of business; Men are significantly more likely to have extensive experience in the operational aspects of their field of business."

My Thoughts: All of this would have been vitally important to stoneage men and has carried through.

"Men tended slightly to have more children than women."

My Thoughts: Huh? Men can't have babies.

"Women feel that they have to perform better than men in order to achieve equal results and this sometimes leads them to emphasize perfection over expediency."

My Thoughts: This goes back to the stoneage and survival. Men needed to act quick during the hunt otherwise there'd be no meat. If women gathered berries and the like they'd have to do it right otherwise poison berries could be collected.

"Most respondents noted that men had a much greater ability to do things and move on."

My Thoughts: See above note about the stoneage.

"women and men may use different language to describe the same thing when it comes to the personal challenge that drives the pursuit of entrepreneurship. Women say they seek "self-development," while men say they seek "intellectual challenge." There is strong agreement that both motivations are the same."

My Thoughts: Ah ha! As I thought, it all depends on what each "means" by what they say. I'm thinking Mars/Venus here.

"Several points of view emerge concerning why men report significantly more time spent networking."

My Thoughts: Unless they mentioned the inbred instincts passed down from the stoneage they're wrong.

"It may be that networking is more natural among members of one’s own gender."

My Thoughts: Nope. It's because of what was needed to survive in the stoneage. After all, we, as humans, are still the same humans as those from the stoneage - 150,000 to 200,000 years ago. We merely live in different conditions - homes and cities not caves or grass huts etc. As a result, our natural instincts have remained but now have to deal with different conditions.

It's why men and women relate differently and act differently. It's part of our make up, our DNA.

When you think about it in these terms there's nothing mystical about it at all. Cross-reference today with then and all your answers become plainly visible - why humans cannot avoid religious sins, why men show off and women flirt, why men and women think and act differently, why all humans react the same way to certain conditions and so on and so forth.

It's not personal. It's in our DNA handed down from hundreds of thousands of years a ago.

Michael Ross.