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Numbers aside, Americans hold a negative view of The few women in entrepreneurial leadership rolesalso have to deal with negative societal perceptions of their jobs. According to data from a 2015 Pew Research Center survey, 43% of Americans believe that the U.S. is not prepared to hire women for top-tier executive positions. A relatively smaller, but still significant, number of Americans (23%) believe that women don’t have the time to hold an executive position, given their “family responsibilities”. [http://www.citylab.com/work/2015/09/where-can-female-entrepreneurs-find-the-most-success/406987/]
→Status Quo
==Status Quo==
Overall, women-owned businesses account for slightly less than 1/3 of all businesses in the United States, but at . At first glance the statistics portray a positive picture for the field's growth: the number of women-owned firms has grown 68 percent since 2007, compared to only 47 percent for all businesses. [http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/04/women-are-owning-more-and-more-small-businesses/390642/]. However, these women owned businesses are typically only run by the woman herself; the Kauffman Foundation reports that among employer firms, women-owned businesses account for only 16% of the total, and their shares of revenue and employees are in the single digits. [http://www.kauffman.org/~/media/kauffman_org/research%20reports%20and%20covers/2014/11/sources_of_economic_hope_womens_entrepreneurship.pdf]
The American public's generally negative perception of women in entrepreneurship presents itself institutionally as well. Even though female founders perform equal to or better than their male counterparts when raising money online, only 10 percent of startups which raised Series A last year had female founders. Today's venture capital environment clocks some 305 active funds over $100 million, collectively putting $114 billion to work. 90% of these funds never see a female founder. [http://www.inc.com/lisa-calhoun/30-surprising-facts-about-female-founders.html] Texas claims the worst record of supporting women seeking venture capital. Last year, 42 Texas startups got Series A rounds. Not a single startup had female founders. Structurally, ninety-four percent of decision makers at venture capital funds are male. Among chief executives of S.&P. 1500 firms, for each woman, there are four men named John, Robert, William or James. [http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/03/upshot/fewer-women-run-big-companies-than-men-named-john.html?_r=2] But venture capital firms with women partners are more than twice as likely to invest in companies with a woman on the executive team and three times as likely to invest in companies with women CEOs.
