Ready for action: the first National Women's Economic Summit was electrifying … but will the sparks ignite? - includes comments by attendees

Entrepreneur, August, 1996 by Rieva Lesonsky

In the short span of a three-week period at the end of May/beginning of June, I attended three, for lack of a better term, women's events. And, while I am mostly exhilarated, I am also a little disconcerted.

Let me explain. This is a great time to be an entrepreneur - male or female; as I wrote in this month's "Editor's Note" (see page 6), small business is especially hot right now. For entrepreneurial women, this is certainly a welcome sign. Only a few years ago, when we were also publishing Entrepreneurial Woman magazine, the environment for women business owners was not quite so inviting. But times have changed, and now everyone from banks to car manufacturers, from office supply stores to airlines (and countless other major corporations) wants in on the action.

And no wonder. Just look at the numbers: Depending on whose statistics you use, women own between 6 million and 8 million U.S. businesses (I believe the number is closer to 10 million) - well over 33 percent of all American businesses. They are still starting businesses at twice the rate of men. And this year, women-owned businesses are expected to rake in total sales of $2.3 trillion. Yes, trillion! What's more, the three-year success rate of women-owned enterprises (studied from 1991 to 1994) was a phenomenal 75 percent, 9 percent higher than the success rate for all small businesses. And, according to Laura D'Andrea Tyson, national economic advisor to the president, 50 percent of all U.S. jobs created in the last three years (virtually all of which were created by small businesses) were created by entrepreneurial women.

And we now know that these women-owned businesses are definitely not the tiny cottage-industry ventures naysayers tried to label them several years ago in an attempt to sabotage the phenomenon. In fact, women are using technology more and more to grow their businesses. According to IBM, not only do more than 90 percent of women business owners have and use computers, women entrepreneurs will spend more than $35 billion this year on computers and technology.

You're probably thinking, "This sounds great, Rieva. What's the problem?" Well, problem number one is access to capital - or, more accurately, the lack thereof. This is not merely my opinion but the consensus of more than 400 women business owners and leaders from the fields of government, academics and business who attended the first National Women's Economic Summit.

Summit '96 (as it was called), held in May, was a collaborative effort of the National Women's Business Council and Northwestern University's J.L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management. At the end of the two-day session, attendees voted on the issues they considered of paramount importance to entrepreneurial women. Access to capital handily came out at the top of the list.

Summit '96 was an electrifying experience. And while most of what happened there was overwhelmingly positive, I was bothered by what I perceived to be territorial skirmishes. If women are to achieve a level playing field, we cannot afford the sniping attitude of "My group's better than your group," or the implication of "It's my way or the highway." We cannot pass bucks or point fingers. That old Queen Bee 'tude should have died a long time ago.

Rather, we need to heed the words of poet Kate Braverman: "To be one woman, truly, wholly, is to be all women. Tend one garden, and you will birth worlds." If we are not there for each other, then we have no right to expect others to be there for us. As Sara Duvall, CEO of Thunder River Pictures and producer of the Academy Award-winning film "Fried Green Tomatoes" says, "Women have had much success. Now it's our responsibility to create even more for women across the board."

Duvall's right. It is our responsibility, each and every one of us. We should strive to be like former Congressional Representative Marjorie Margolies-Mezvinsky, who, although she's a fervent Democrat, founded the Women's Campaign Fund, which gives money to women of either party running for office.

Too often, we women tend to belittle our own importance and impact. We are vital to the survival of this nation, economic and otherwise. True, there are some women who appear to have more power and influence than others. But each one of us is a powerful woman. And we owe it to the women who pioneered before us and to those who will come after us to use that power.

One of the best opportunities to wield that power comes this November. As Sara Duvall reminds us, "We've got to get more women elected to public office. If women are at the table, the agenda changes." True, but first we have to vote. Betsy Myers, director of the White House Office for Women's Initiatives and Outreach, points out that in 1994, 54 million eligible women voters did not vote. There is no excuse for that. It is a shameful legacy, and we cannot afford to repeat it.

According to a report on women by the United Nations, women worldwide will achieve equal managerial posts with men in 500 years and reach equal political and economic status 475 years after that. I don't know about you, but I am not willing to wait.