Female Venture Capitalist: Women Tech Entrepreneurs Can't Cut It

It is 2011, there are still few women in venture capital or  heading tech start- ups. Attending the Israel American Chamber of Commerce on healthcare IT,  I decided to explore this issue with with two women at the Israel America Chamber of Commerce Conference on Healthcare IT.

Donna Usiskin, Vice President of Business Development at Edison Ventures is the only woman employee on the investment side at Edison Ventures, which has 23 employees. Usiskin said, "I do everything that I can do to mentor women tech entrepreneurs." She then listed several female mentoring organizations that she is a member of.

Usiskin continued, "Women are not cut out to be tech entrepreneurs. It is 24 hour a day, 7 day a week job.  Women chose family, a husband over that lifestyle." It was a little disappointing to hear this ancient stereotype about women was being parroted by a woman.

Usiskin was "thrilled" that she had to wait in line for the ladies room at this conference. "This conference is a little different. There are more women. The Israeli army teaches women how to handle a gun and be leaders," noted Usiskin.

Elizabeth Rounsavall, director of Research and Analytics at Chrysalis Ventures voiced the same sentiments. She said, "There are no women on the investment side at Chrysalis. I am sort of a bridge to administration. There is another woman employee in marketing. Part of the problem is lifestyle. A lot of travel is involved with the job."

Rounsavall continued, "The situation is also bad in private equity. A female speaker  at a private equity conference thanked the industry for being more progressive than the Taliban."

Later, she mentioned two women entrepreneurs that Chrysalis works with -  Liz Griggs, CEO of Nextimage Medical and Jan Bruce, who was an entrepreneur-in-residence at Chrysalis before they invested in her startup, Quilibrium. 

Vision 2020-ending gender inequality

Philadelphia was the birthplace of equality for men. Now it is the home of a movement to end gender inequality. A thousand women gathered in Philadelphia recently for Vision 2020, a conference about overcoming barriers to women’s equality. Spearheaded by the Drexel University College of Medicine, the congress features Oscar winner Geena Davis; Jane Seymour; the first black woman astronaut, Mae Jemison; Lisa Nutter, the mayor’s wife; and Sunoco CEO Lynn Elsehans.

Vision 2020 co-founder Lynn Yeakel, the director of Drexel University Medical School’s Institute of Women’s Health and Leadership, stressed the need for the gathering, “Women earn 80 cents for every dollar me earn. Women of color earn 62 cents. This wage gap costs the average working woman $700,000 to $2 million over her lifetime.”

Rosemary Greco, former Corestates CEO, stated that Vision 2020 plans a 10 -year effort to increase the amount of women in leadership positions. “3% of Fortune 500 CEOs are women. Despite the influence of Sarah Palin and Nancy Pelosi, there are only 6 women governors and 17% of Congress is women,” said Greco, Vision 2020 co-founder.

The summit produced concrete ideas on how to advance women in leadership positions. Sunoco CEO Lynn Elsehans advocates programs for young girls that will promote self- confidence and end self -limitation. She recalled, "Often when I would approach a woman for a promotion, she would refuse the job because of a lack of confidence."

Elsehans continued, “Ideally, women in senior positions will promote other women. One of my first acts as CEO was to appoint 3 women to the board of Sunoco. Academic studies have shown that with three women on the board the dynamics of the company change."

Roberta Liebenberg, chairman of the American Bar Association's committee for the advancement of women, wants more companies to follow Microsoft's and Walmart's lead."Microsoft rewards law firms for diversification with bonuses. Conversely, they fire the firms that are not diversified enough. Walmart insists that one out of the five relationship managers of the law firm be on flex time," she said.

Jane Seymour, who spent her childhood working in her doctor father's office, was thrilled to come to Philadelphia for Drexel College of Medicine. She said, "My character Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman went to medical school at the predecessor school to Drexel- Women's Medical College of Pennsylvania. Seymour, a former Bond Girl, is proud of playing Dr. Quinn and feels that it had a positive impact on women, She proudly mentioned, "Dr Quinn still plays on television every day in the United States and 98 countries. Women come up to me all the time and credit my character with convincing them to be a doctor."

In conjunction with this Congress, the National Constitutional Center has opened a new exhibit featuring milestones in women’s equality. It marks the date of the first female candidate as well as the first time a court refused to grant a woman a divorce. “This exhibition was created to inform the public about women’s history, which is often only a slim chapter in American history books,” Vision 2020 Co-Chair Lynn Yeakel said.

Geena Davis - a feminist icon

Academy Award and Golden Globe winner Geena Davis was a featured headliner at the Vision 2020 conference on gender inequality. Davis explained her choice of now iconic roles, “After Earth Girls Are Easy", I only played strong characters – no parts in which I wore a bikini. The only housewife that I played was a dead one. I tried to choose roles that made women feel good about themselves. Women need to come out of the movie theater feeling uplifted."

Off screen as well, Davis has been a leading light in the fight for gender equality. Davis wants women to have their rightful seat at the table. She credits three events for her passion for feminist issues, “Being half of Thelma and Louise, taking up archery at the age of 41, and playing the first woman president.”

Davis is a trustee of the Women's Sport Foundation although she did not take up sports until she starred in “A League of Her Own” at the age of 36. Davis elucidated her fervor for sports now, “Learning a sport changed my self image for the better.”

She actively spreads the gospel of women playing sports because she believes it will help them succeed in the corporate word. “80% of the female managers of Fortune 500 companies played sports. Women playing sports will increase the amount of women managers,” Davis stated.

Davis, a member of the high IQ club Mensa, established the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media after watching cartoons with her then two year old daughter Alizeh. “I noticed that there were far fewer female characters than male in children’s cartoons,” said Davis. “The women drawn by the animators were hyper- sexualized. Their waists were so narrow that there was no room for a womb," lamented Davis.

Davis felt that she could not go to the producers of children’s television without statistics, so she funded the largest study of gender in children’s entertainment ever undertaken. The study from the Annenberg School of the University of Southern California found that there was one female character for every three male roles on children's television. Only 17% of the extras in a crowd scene were female.

The actress believes that fighting for equal representation in children’s television is important because "it is no secret that children watch a lot of television." Davis argues, "Girls and boys have to learn to play in the same sandbox. Studies have shown that girls feel that they have fewer options with the more television they watch. Boys become more sexist."

With the UN as a partner, Davis, armed with her study, has asked the creators of children’s television to reduce gender stereotyping. Children’s television producers are beginning to listen to her and make incremental changes.