Launching While Female

Smashing the System That Holds Women Entrepreneurs Back

De: Susanne Althoff

Narrado por: Ann M. Richardson

An exposé of the gender gap in entrepreneurship and a road map for a more inclusive and economically successful future for us all.

Journalist and Professor Susanne Althoff investigates the obstacles women and nonbinary entrepreneurs - especially those of color - face when launching, funding, and growing their companies, obstacles that persist because the current start-up world was engineered by and for White men. Through interviews with more than a hundred founders across the country and in all industries, Althoff paints a picture of an entrepreneurial system rife with bias and discrimination, where women receive less than three percent of this country's venture capital, struggle to find mentors in the wake of #MeToo, and are dismissed as "mompreneurs".

The effects of this unequal system - a weaker economy, fewer jobs, less innovation - are felt by all of us, and Althoff explains how more equitable structures in business and entrepreneurship will benefit all people, not just those hoping to fund a start-up.

By exploring some of the practical ways we can open the entrepreneurial system to everyone, Althoff provides a rallying cry and a way forward for women entrepreneurs and their allies, showing that change is urgent and within our reach.

©2020 Susanne Althoff (P)2020 Beacon Press

Reseñas de la Crítica

“Debuts with a wise collection of advice and encouragement for aspiring female entrepreneurs . . . Althoff’s incisive, practical guide should be required reading for any entrepreneurial woman.” —Publishers Weekly

“Launching While Female should find enthusiastic readers among women who want to launch, but probably even more so among women who’ve already launched—for solidarity, for inspiration to seek out more support and community, for knowing they’re not alone in this endeavor, and that they’re paving the way for those who aspire, for those who are coming up a few steps behind them.” —Women’s Review of Books

“It is critically important that we continue to unpack and understand the nuance of how the white patriarchy continues to diminish, stunt, and end the careers of the 70 percent of us who are not them. Launching While Female provides an incisive, well-researched, and clear view into the small and large obstacles for women in the entrepreneurial and venture-capital realms. A must-read for those seeking to understand how sexism continues to happen in business and how we might go about trying to change it.” —Naomi McDougall Jones, author of The Wrong Kind of Women