Ahead of women’s day, industry experts focus on gender equality and education

With international women’s day round the corner, industry experts said that there is a need to change social conditioning with special focus on gender equality and education to promote women entrepreneurship.
“There is a need to create a support system and a favourable environment at offices so that women can easily balance work and home and become more productive,” domestic PE fund Multiples Alternate Asset Management founder Renuka Ramanath said at a session on women entrepreneurship at the ongoing Maharashtra investor summit at Mumbai on Tuesday.
She said that changing social conditioning with emphasis on gender equality and education are crucial to help build confidence in women to take up the challenge of becoming entrepreneurs.
There is also a need for government to spend more on educating women and help them become entrepreneurs and also help them come out of their insecurities, which are due to social conditioning. “They need to be educated on being self- reliant,” she added.
Echoing similar views, Bardish Chagger, leader of the Canadian House of Commons, said that women should now be a part of the decision-making process.
“Women need to be included more into the decision making process, like the boards of companies, that will help in tapping their talent and empower them,” she added.
Describing women as “the largest untapped resource in the world”, Amazon India’s Archana Vora said that “in the space of e-commerce, the movement of women is getting initiated.”
“The idea is to help women stop feeling guilty of what they want and to be themselves. They must go ahead and follow their passion. We need to build and empower women,” she added.
Similarly, ISRO scientist Minal Rohit opined that there is a need to encourage and retain more women employees.
“Women in science are scarce. According to a study by UNESCO, only 14 per cent researchers are women in the country as compared to 28.4 per cent globally. The need of the hour is to encourage and retain more women employees,” she added.
Rohit also noted that the emphasis should be more on girls’ education.
Metropolis Healthcare managing director Ameera Shah said that women are socially conditioned to being safe, which discourages them to take up any challenges.
“As kids, we are conditioned to find way to remain safe. Hence, we are unable to take risks and turn into entrepreneurs. About 90 per cent of challenges we face are internal,” she said, adding unless it overcome, it will be difficult for women to find courage and become entrepreneurs.