The business of empowering women - SNP fringe report

Women's empowerment fringe - credit David Anderson/Holyrood

Last year the United Nations made gender equality its fifth Sustainable Development Goal.

With moves afoot to install gender equality among public sector boards, the focus is increasingly moving to what business and the private sector can do to empower women.

This provided the theme for Holyrood’s recent fringe event at the SNP conference in association with Coca-Cola UK.

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Research by the United Nations shows gender balanced leadership makes business perform better, yet women represent only 26 per cent of all FTSE 100 board directors.

Equalities minister Angela Constance told the fringe the pay gap was falling in Scotland, and lower in comparison to the rest of the UK, “but it’s persistently stubborn”.

Social enterprises were leading the way in Scotland, she said, 60 per cent of which are led by women.

Constance told of how she had attended many initiatives to encourage women into science and technology during her time as Education Secretary. While “we absolutely want women to be in on the action”, she said, there should also be greater respect given to the jobs women are traditionally attracted to, like the caring professions.

“The one thing not mentioned enough in all the government briefings I get is actually about valuing better the work women are traditionally attracted to,” she said.

The same could also be applied to entrepreneurial spirit. Are women’s business ideas given the same airtime and respect?

Coca-Cola’s global 5by20 programme aims to support five million women to create their own business by 2020, and this year opened its latest project in Dundee, hosted in a custom built facility by arts charity Showcase the Street.

The move followed a similar Holyrood event at last year’s conference which saw Coca-Cola’s Global Director of Women’s Economic Empowerment, Charlotte Oades, asked why it wasn’t happening in Scotland.

At the launch of the Dundee course Oades said: “We hope the course will give women the practical skills, as well as the confidence to go on and make their dreams a reality. The 5by20 programme touches women across the world; from Brazil to Indonesia, and it’s great to see it come to Scotland.”

Recent graduate Rosie Fraser said the course had helped her overcome a lack of confidence which had stemmed from under-performing at school.

“When I spoke to my careers adviser she looked at my prospective qualifications and said ‘what about hairdressing for you?’ I thought I don’t think that’s for me at all,” she remembered.

Working for Business Gateway compounded much of the self-doubt for Fraser, she said, because people were expected to arrive with a fully thought out business idea. The 5by20’s project leader in Dundee, Agate Kuzmina, said Business Gateway tended to encourage people to go away and refine their business ideas, something the 5by20 project could provide the space to do.

“Just because something isn’t polished enough doesn’t mean it’s not valid,” she said.

“That’s what we’re trying to achieve here, to give these women the safe space, the social space to bang about ideas, bounce off one another, get the strength and ideas from one another.”

Fraser is planning to set up a high-end baby clothes business in St Andrews next years after spending 10 weeks with 5by20 to hone an idea she had while on maternity leave.

For Fraser, having a child was a “huge motivation”.

“I want to inspire my daughter as she grows up. If there’s something you want to do you can’t sit back your whole life and wait for it,” she said, adding “I can’t sit there and say don’t let something hold you back if I sat and let something hold me back.”

Some people around her, including her own father, questioned whether starting a business so soon after having a baby might be “too much”.

Fraser said: “Men don’t really get asked that question, do they? If my partner came forward with ‘I’d like to open a business’ nobody would say to him ‘you’ve just had a baby’.”

SNP Westminster Trade and Investment spokesperson Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh agreed. “Starting your own business is challenging enough as it is, but if you’re a woman starting your own business you face another set of questions,” she said.

By “joining forces” through encouragement and mentoring, women can succeed, she suggested.

“There is something about the shared experience,” agreed Constance, pointing to the influx of new members in the SNP. “We have so many talented, politically-active women who are now contributing, standing for election, and they socially get together.”

Some men in the party, she said, found that quite threatening.

Tackling preconceptions about what makes a good idea should come first, Constance said.

“I’ve heard from women that often their business ideas are disregarded or not taken seriously, because sometimes these business ideas are tapping in to interests or things relating to your own life.”

This includes business ideas which come after having a baby, represented by the majority of students at the Dundee 5by20 project.

““Whether you are a man or a woman, having a baby changes how you think about everything” said Ahmed-Sheikh.

Empowerment, it was agreed, was about encouraging those who succeed to support other women around them and coming up behind. Something exemplified by the 5by20 project.

“I’ve exceeded what I thought I was capable of,” said Fraser.