Unit XIV

Key words and expressions: women entrepreneurs, to enter business, lack of training, to rise in number, to earn a degree, to face obstacles, to exclude, on one's own, to succeed, men dominated.

Pre-reading tasks

1. Look through the key words and guess what the text is about.

Until recently, most American entrepreneurs were men. Discrimination against women in business, the demands of caring for families, and lack of business training had kept the number of women entrepreneurs small. Now, however, businesses owned by women account for more than $40 billion in annual revenues, and this figure is likely to continue rising. As Carolyn Doppelt Gray, an official of the Small Business Administration has noted, "The 1980s was the decade of women entering management, and this decade has turned out to be the decade of the woman entrepreneur."

What are some of the factors behind this trend? For one thing, as more women earn advanced degrees in business and enter the corporate world, they are finding obstacles. Women are still excluded from most executive suites. Charlotte Taylor, a management consultant, had noted, "In the 1970s women believed if they got an MBA and worked hard, they could become chairman of the board. Now they've found out that isn't going to happen, so they go out on their own."

In the past, most women entrepreneurs worked in "women's" fields — cosmetics and clothing, for example. But this is changing. Consider ASK Computer Systems, a $22-milIion-a-year computer software business. It was founded by Sandra Kurtzig, who was then a housewife with degrees in math and engineering. When Kurtzig founded the business, her first product was software — and her office was a bedroom at home, with a shoebox under the bed to hold the company's cash. After she succeeded with the newspaper software system, she hired several bright computer-science graduates to develop additional programs. When these were marketed and sold, ASK began to grow. It now has 200 employees and Sandra Kurtzig owns $ 66.9 million of stock.

Of course, many women who start their own businesses fail, just as men-often do. They still face hurdles in the business world, especially problems in raising money; the banking and finance world is still dominated by men, and old attitudes die hard. Most businesses owned by women are still quite small.

But the situation is changing; there are likely to be many more Sandra Kurtzigs in the years ahead.

Post-reading tasks

1. Now that you have read the text think of a proper title to the text or choose from the ones given below. Motivate your choice.

1. Women in business: now and then.

2. Women's traditional business fields.

3. Discrimination of women in the US.

2. Choose the synonyms to the given words according to the context. Reproduce the sentence from the text with the synonym chosen.

entrepreneur a) shop assistant b) business person c) manager d) boss

hurdle a) obstacle b) drawback c) disadvantage d) trouble

board a) chief manager b) committee c) officials d) authorities

to hire a) to include b) to enroll c) to monitor d) to employ