Women in the Entrepreneur Seat: Comparing Developed (The UK) and the Developing (India) Entrepreneurial Economy

“Women must live up to collective expectations of what makes entrepreneurs, while at the same time remaining true to certain gender expectations.” Over the centuries, femininity has been stereotyped as dependent, submissive and conforming, and hence women have been seen as lacking in entrepreneurship qualities. The male bias is reflected in the false conception of entrepreneurship as mere command or control. As entrepreneurship comes properly to be seen as a process of entrepreneurs engaging and mobilizing the human needs of products and followers, women are being more readily recognized as entrepreneurs. And thus, the topic of „women in entrepreneurship roles‟ has received considerable attention in the past two decades. As women symbolize over half of the worldwide talent pool, it is clear to us that they should be at the spearhead of the economic and social scene, not just out of a sense of fairness, but to ensure that the most prominent minds, men‟s and women‟s, analogous, are brought together to address the challenges that our societies face. Achieving equality for women in corporations, at all levels, is a long and demanding journey, which requires the implication of the whole company and the strong commitment of the top management. This disproportion in regard to women voices at the entrepreneurship position is more apparent in developing economies as compared to developed economies. The cultural, social, political and organizational factors play a pivotal role is this disparity. This paper aims to throw light on entrepreneurship issues faced by women in developed economies (the United Kingdom), as compared to issues faced by women in developing economies (India), which are traditionally male dominated. Furthermore, this paper aims to develop an understanding of the similarities and differences between entrepreneurship issues faced by women in the two different types of economies (the UK and India).