It can be subtle, like failing to make eye contact with a woman business owner but engaging in animated conversation with her male co-owner. Or more blatant, like asking an owner who's seeking investor money if she plans to have children.
Many women business owners say they've encountered gender discrimination from potential investors, customers and employees who don't grasp the reality that a woman can be a CEO, trial attorney or own a technology company.
Many women are taken aback at first and don't know how to respond to comments or behaviour they find insulting, intrusive and demeaning. But over time, they find strategies to deal with bias.
When Amanda Bradford speaks at technology conferences and forums, discussing coding and algorithms, some men tell her afterward, "this is something I didn't expect when you opened your mouth." They assume that because she's a woman, she's the marketer, not the inventor of The League, a dating app.
When Bradford sought funding for her San Francisco-based company, "I often felt like I didn't get the credit for having the technical experience," she says.
Gender bias persists although the number of women-owned businesses in the U.S. has grown to more than 10 million from 5.4 million in 1997. Susan Duffy, executive director of the Center for Women's Entrepreneurial Leadership at Babson College, says that while women owners are more visible and accepted than decades ago, "someone still assumes that if you're the CEO you're the white guy in the suit or the white guy in the hoodie."
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