By: Adele Galey
EVERYTHING BEGAN AT THE OTHER END OF THE WORLD…
About a year ago, I arrived in Chile with my back pack, a big smile on my face, and a lot of motivation. I was at a transitioning moment in my life. I was asking myself a lot of questions about what the next steps in my life needed to be, as an entrepreneur and as a person.
And then someone told me about Exosphere….
Exosphere (exosphe.re/) is a learning organization made up of out of the box thinkers, entrepreneurs and innovators (aka crazy people 🙂 ). They create training programs to stimulate personal empowerment, entrepreneurial mindset and creativity in every individual, to find solutions to the most pressing needs of the world.
At first I was skeptical: what the ***** was this thing??? But after only 2 days discovering the program, I decided to take a leap of faith and stay for the 8 weeks.
We were 9 girls, out of… 27 people. Okay, that’s not much. And the staff? All men. Okay. But hey, there are ladies in an entrepreneurship boot camp — that’s already something! But what struck me the most at first was the lack of confidence among the women. When we had to start presenting ourselves and our skills, all the women (including me) were saying things like: “I don’t really have a skill, and I don’t have an idea… but I’m really excited about helping all of you in your projects!”. Or: “It’s more about soft skills than real skills… “, “I’m just good with people“, “I’m open minded…”, and it went on.
With a few exceptions, all women in the group, if you were to hear us during those 30 minutes of self-introductions, didn’t have any “real skills” (using some of our own words).
THE GENDER GAP IN THE ENTREPRENEURSHIP WORLD IS A REALITY
The gender gap in entrepreneurship is a reality. It was a reality in our boot camp, and it is the same all over the world. It’s not only a matter of facts, but a matter of perception. Three different studies conducted by different prestigious universities (http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/246815) all end up at the same conclusion: “People form perceptions of what an entrepreneur looks like, and he is male. That (conscious or unconscious) perception leads men AND women to judge male entrepreneurs more highly than female entrepreneurs.”
Because of all those facts and all those perceptions, women judge themselves harshly. We think that we’re not capable, that we don’t know, that we’re going to fail, that we’re less than men. This affects our confidence, and our capacity to click the “apply” button for an entrepreneurship boot camp where we know we’ll be standing (and judged) next to men. So yes, I think we still do need women entrepreneurship programs to close the gender gap, and that’s why we are doing Athena. I hope this will be irrelevant in a few years, that it will considered a stupid and crazy idea. But for now, it’s important that we gain confidence, and that we realize our strength, together.
Guide to Women in Leadership
Organizations with women in their executive suites regularly out-perform others. Yet rising female executives (and their mentors) are frustrated at how hard it is to break through the glass ceiling. In this extensive guide, Executive Coach Dana Theus shares her tried and true strategies to help women excel into higher levels of leadership and achieve their executive potential.
