by Sarah Irving, November 08
Recently I've been carrying out some research for Togetherworks, the representative body for social enterprises in Greater Manchester.
The report I'm putting together is on the barriers that women encounter to setting up or working in social enterprises. Seeking some comments and quotes to liven up the report, I sent round an email questionnaire to a couple of dozen female friends who work in social enterprises, ranging from animal welfare organisations to fair trade companies to magazines on left-wing politics and ethical living.
The response was startling. I had anticipated what the main subjects might be – the lack of job security in small businesses or organisations dependent on grant funding; shortfalls in training which might help women go beyond 'traditional' female jobs, but especially the minimal levels of maternity pay and leave that small organisations felt able to offer their staff.
It was the anger of the response which surprised me. Perhaps not being a mum I had intellectually acknowledged but not viscerally understood the extent to which some women felt let down by the social enterprise sector. Many of them have put up with low wages and insecure jobs in order to do jobs which make positive contributions to society – and then find that if they want support as mothers they should be working at multinational corporations instead.
All of these women were still working in social enterprises or not-for-profit organisations. Their commitment to the sector had kept them there, and they acknowledged that often the benefits are enough to balance the failings – whether it was the strength of the support they got from colleagues, or the flexibility and ability to negotiate solutions that small social enterprises can sometimes offer. But how many equally talented and experienced women have ethical businesses lost, because they can't offer them a financially AND ethically sustainable way to survive?
Hopefully some of the announcements made by the government in October will help. To help small businesses beat the credit crunch – and let's face it, the vast majority of ethical and social enterprises fit into this bracket – they've committed to better payment terms by public bodies to small suppliers, and have urged high street banks to take advantage of £4billion in EU funding for credit for SMEs. And £500,000 in funding has been announced for a new centre to research the needs of women's businesses – including social and ethical enterprises, as part of the Prowess organisation.
Let's hope that these initiatives go a little way to helping women in ethical businesses not only weather the current economic crisis, but to come out of it in a stronger position – both for their ethics, but also as working women.
Sarah Irving is a freelance writer specialising in social and environmental issues. See www.sarahirving.net
