Eminent women on Thursday held a special summit “Right to Excellence” ahead of International Women’s Day where they shared their views on “Women Empowerment and Entrepreneurship”. The summit focused on the very concept of economic independence that working women and women entrepreneurs build for themselves. During the summit, moderator Anisha Naya Dhawan also discussed the challenges facing women entrepreneurs.
The panel included Vasundhara Choudhury, the youngest village head from Lilawali, Rajasthan, Deepti Rustagi, Group Legal & Chief Compliance Officer, Policybazaar.com, Kamaljeet Kaur, Group CHRO, Blusmart, and Pooja Rajvanshi, Amway Business Owner, Health & Wellbeing.
During the summit, Vasundhara Choudhury shared her views on the difficulties women face in decision making and whether they have the resources to make proper decisions. “When we talk about decision making, the main difficulty women face is having confidence and the need to get approval mainly from men is seen,” she said.
Speaking about the resources available to women, Vasundhara said, “We have the cognitive capacity to take the right decisions, but how well it is received by the audience and how it is communicated is also very important. It sounds very basic, but that’s where we are stuck. Look at the panchayat system. When there are women ‘sarpanches’ and ‘upsarpanches’, their husbands always try to influence their decisions or take decisions on their behalf.”
When asked, “Where does the will to say that you have the resources without having any leverage come from?” Choudhury replied, “I think it comes from confidence. It is a two-way process and since women are not accepted by society, their decisions are not accepted either. We need to work on the mentality of the people.”
Vasundhara also shared her views on how women entrepreneurs are impacting and benefiting society. She said that women entrepreneurs contribute to the GDP and set an example for the youth. Vasundhara highlighted that women entrepreneurs are bringing about change in society.
During the summit, Deepti Rustagi shared her views on whether women entrepreneurs are better off than salaried workers when it comes to equity. “Both the roles are quite challenging. When we talk about entrepreneurship, it’s about taking responsibility. There are two types of women entrepreneurs – pull entrepreneurs and push entrepreneurs. When we talk about push entrepreneurs, there is the challenge of finding a job. Women are pushed to work and there are challenges with funds. In case of a pull entrepreneur, she is ambitious, has a dream and goes for it. But when we talk about women working in corporates, there are a lot of policies that support women. So, I think women working in corporates are much more equitable than women who are starting their own businesses.”
Additionally, panelist Kamaljeet Kaur was asked about the issue of “women not supporting other women,” to which she replied that her organization actively promotes the idea of supporting women to achieve their dreams.
She said, “Blusmart is the largest right-hand drive service. We have women driver-partners and we currently have around 100 women driver-partners. We have organised the Sakhi project which aims to have more than 1,000 women driver-partners across our hubs. As you say, we are doing a lot of work to support women. There are women who have never worked outside but they are breaking the stereotype by choosing to go out and become drivers.”
She said the women she works with believe that female empowerment means taking power and control over their own lives. They feel included in decision-making and are involved in many financial decisions. They are role models for their children.
Speaking at the summit, Pooja Rajvanshi shared her view that “Entrepreneurship is a risky business.” She said women should take the initiative. “Whenever you start something, the initiation itself is a success. And whatever you do, it requires consistency, persistence, hard work and dedication.”
She further emphasized that we should have a filter in our mind to filter out the elements that hold us back.
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