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What if I instructed you that there is a enormous pool of potential workers who’ve mastered multitasking, are remarkably resilient, emotionally clever and well-trained? They usually not often complain? Additionally, they’re straightforward to search out. Feels like a dream, proper?
These individuals are mothers. Mothers are patient and hard-working. We, girls, expect it from ourselves.
Girls stay underrepresented in management (nonetheless less than 30% in C-suite roles within the US). Girls are sometimes sidelined not due to a scarcity of talent or ambition, however by systemic and internalized limitations.
The invisible weight
As a mother of two, for a few years, I lived with the phantasm that feminism had already received. They gave me, as a girl, all of the rights to work and construct my very own profession, proper? I did not perceive why it felt so arduous.
I believed that I used to be the issue, and no one else felt how I felt. I did not acknowledge how deeply internalized misogyny formed my very own notion of myself. How I self-censored that I used to be a startup founder, a strategist and a product builder. However I all the time needed to have youngsters, and simply as I started elevating my neurodivergent daughter, I totally understood how invisible, unpaid labor reshapes your view of price and self-worth.
In a recent piece I wrote for Entrepreneur, I described how constructing a support system for my daughter mirrored the construction of my startup: managing a group, setting milestones and adapting rapidly to alter. But nobody sees a mom making a schedule for her little one caregivers as a founder. And that is the issue. We do not body caregiving (even for neurotypical youngsters) — deeply advanced, managerial work — as management as a result of we have been taught to not.
Associated: On Momternships: Do Working Moms Really Need to Start From Scratch?
Internalized misogyny: The quiet enforcer
Patriarchy shouldn’t be over, it is merely gone underground — and ladies typically implement it themselves. Internalized misogyny tells us to downplay our success, to self-edit our voices, to view nurturing as separate from management, not a power of it.
I used to be at a tech convention in Las Vegas, and seen one thing bizarre. There was no line in entrance of the ladies’s restroom. In the meantime, the lads queued up. Normally, it is the opposite means round. That small commentary hit me arduous. Girls are nonetheless so few in my business.
And let’s speak about expectations: girls are anticipated to carry out of their jobs, preserve the family, elevate youngsters and keep emotionally out there. And on high of all of it, maintain manicured palms. The double burden is actual, and it is draining.
Why it is a enterprise challenge, not only a social one
It isn’t simply unfair. It is inefficient. Companies lose once they ignore how gendered expectations exclude half the expertise pool. Even in 2025, girls are less likely to apply for management roles if job descriptions skew masculine. And when AI picture mills are requested to create a “CEO,” the result’s all the time a white, middle-aged man (strive it!). That bias is not the machine’s fault. It reflects the data (and the bias) we have fed it, which suggests if we wish to change the output, we have to change the enter.
That features our personal minds.
Associated: How Moms Build Empires with Love and Grit
Why I rent girls and mothers particularly
At my firm, 80% of the group are girls, and most are mothers. I rent them not as a favor, however as a result of they’re a number of the strongest professionals I’ve ever labored with. Motherhood teaches you the right way to prioritize quick, handle chaos and maintain shifting it doesn’t matter what as a result of you haven’t any time to waste.
Moms are disciplined, emotionally intelligent and deeply dedicated. My very own mother instructed me, “I would not have constructed my profession with out you.” And I really feel the identical. My youngsters did not sluggish me down; they gave me an entire new sense of goal. I see that very same hearth within the girls I rent. And once they’re supported, they shine.
What can companies do proper now?
This is not about rewriting your complete company construction in a single day. However this is what you can begin doing at present to unlock an unimaginable workforce:
- Audit your job postings for gendered language. Research shows that advertisements emphasizing traits like “aggressive” and “aggressive” entice dramatically fewer feminine candidates than these highlighting “enthusiasm” and “innovation.”
- Provide flexibility not simply as a profit, however as a baseline. Girls supplied excessive flexibility are much more productive and dependable — 66 % say they’d stick with a versatile employer three‑plus years, in contrast with simply 19 % when flexibility is absent.
- Mentor — and sponsor — upward. An absence of influential sponsors, not expertise, is a primary reason girls stall earlier than the C‑suite.
- Problem the bias. Whether or not in AI tools, group suggestions, or hiring panels, be proactive in asking, “Who’s lacking right here?”
As a result of once we embrace extra girls, we do not simply create fairness. We construct higher companies.
What if I instructed you that there is a enormous pool of potential workers who’ve mastered multitasking, are remarkably resilient, emotionally clever and well-trained? They usually not often complain? Additionally, they’re straightforward to search out. Feels like a dream, proper?
These individuals are mothers. Mothers are patient and hard-working. We, girls, expect it from ourselves.
Girls stay underrepresented in management (nonetheless less than 30% in C-suite roles within the US). Girls are sometimes sidelined not due to a scarcity of talent or ambition, however by systemic and internalized limitations.
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