Why Women Need to Stop Minimising Their Businesses

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So many women start a small business from home and instantly feel like they need to shrink it down with cute words just to make everyone else comfortable. But even if you don’t work from home, buy/ rent an office and start a women-led business, well, that’s clearly a serious operation too. Basically, a business is a business no matter where. But for a lot of women, it always gets undermined, like it’s always a “little Etsy shop” or a “small thing on the side”, like calling it what it actually is would be bragging. 

And it’s wild because the second a man makes five pounds selling something online, he is suddenly an entrepreneur with a company. There’s never any “oh, it is just a fun hobby” energy directed at him. But circling back here, women do it themselves, too, almost as a default setting. Someone asks how the business is going, and the first instinct is to minimise it to avoid sounding too confident. The world is so used to treating women’s work as extra instead of essential that many start believing it. And yeah, it becomes a habit fast.

Language Makes a Difference

So, it’s probably for the best to just start right here; the way a business is spoken about changes how others see it. So, saying something is only for a bit of extra money makes people treat it that way. Now, instead, if you’re saying it is a real business encourages others to take it seriously, and even more importantly, it encourages the owner to see it that way too. Now, you have to keep in mind that confidence looks good on women, and seriously, here, it’s about time it became the standard instead of the exception.

This isn’t even about pretending something is huge when it’s not. Instead, it’s just about giving it the respect it deserves. And yes, by all means here, small beginnings deserve recognition; otherwise, confidence never has a chance to grow.

You Even have Tools that Support Professionalism

So here’s something to think about too, the actual tools and equipment you use, because these technically do empower you, these basically reinforce that you’re running a real business and not some “cute side thing for some extra money”. Besides, there’s something incredibly empowering about having proper equipment that makes work easier instead of more stressful. Like, one of those fancy printers, for example, or a fancy letter press, or literally whatever it is you’re needing to use for your business. 

Just having these things, having these setups basically reaffirms it’s the real deal, even stocking something simple like Xerox printer cartridges helps keep things running smoothly, a good desk setup, good branding, a smooth workflow, all of this just reaffirms. Does a “cute little side project” have this sort of scale? No, they don’t. You’re running a real thing, and it should never be undermined or minimised. 

Just Take Up Space without Apologising for Existing

As you probably already know (who doesn’t know this?), women are often expected to juggle a million things while also keeping their ambitions neatly tucked away. Even in this current day and age, it’s still like this, unfortunately. So, working from the dining table doesn’t even mean the business belongs in the corner as soon as dinner is ready. It deserves space. It deserves dedicated time. It deserves attention without excuses.

Don’t feel bad for having ambitions, wanting this to happen, wanting this to exist, even if it mildly inconveniences others. For whatever reason, women (especially mums) are expected to feel bad for putting themselves first, even if it involves their livelihood and improving it.