women and the false promise of microenterprise

Women and the False Promise of MicroenterpriseAuthor(s): Tracy Bachrach Ehlers and Karen MainSource: Gender and Society, Vol. 12, No. 4 (Aug., 1998), pp. 424-440Published by: Sage Publications, Inc.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/190176 .

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WOMEN AND THE FALSE PROMISE OF MICROENTERPRISE

TRACY BACHRACH EHLERS KAREN MAIN

University of Denver

Since the 1980s, microenterprise development programs have proliferated in the United States, where they are widely praised as strategies for economic development and poverty alleviation, especially for low-income women and welfare mothers. Based on research in a highly respected urban center for women, this article argues that microenterprise development is more detrimental and problematic than it is purported to be. Two reasons are isolated. First, gender constraints mean women tend to choose small-scale, undercapitalized, and barely profitable "pink-collar" businesses, largely home-based operations based on work women are already doing as part of their gender-specific role. Second, microenterprise training programs reinforce this business segregation by discounting the sociocultural conditions women bring with them to business and instead emphasizing the personal growth of individuals. The result is that women are encouraged to maintain their economic vulnerability and social

peripheralization rather than become part of the mainstream business world.

INTRODUCTION

Over the past two decades, the international development community has shown tremendous interest in female mini-entrepreneurs and their small, self-generated businesses, known as microenterprises.' Once analysts recognized the value of the informal economic sector as a source of income for poor women (O'Regan 1992), programs offering minimal business training and loans as tiny as $50 grew prodi- giously. In the early 1990s, the popularity and financial success of projects like the Grameen Bank of Bangladesh, India's Self-Employed Women's Association, and Acci6n International in Latin America, among others, have sparked an interest in

applying microenterprise development to the United States. Over the past five

years, more than 300 groups across the country have adopted the Third World model

AUTHORS' NOTE: We are grateful to the colleagues who read preliminary drafts of this work: Paul Shankman, Nancy Reichman, Janet Jacobs, Cornelia Butler Flora, June Nash, Joan Winn, and Michael C. Ehlers. Special thanks to the anonymous reviewersfrom Gender & Society, who so patiently guided the article through its development.

REPRINT REQUESTS: Tracy Bachrach Ehlers, Department of Anthropology, University of Denver, Denver, CO 80208; e-mail: [email protected]

GENDER & SOCIETY, Vol. 12 No. 4, August 1998 424-440 ? 1998 Sociologists for Women in Society 424



Ehlers, Main / WOMEN AND MICROENTERPRISE 425

and turned it into their own brand of rural or urban poverty alleviation (Clark and Huston 1992).

The response to this transfer of a development model from the Third World to the United States has been resoundingly positive. Policy analysts view microenterprise as an idea whose time has come. The concept of microenterprise has been widely praised in the public and private sectors as "one of the hottest anti-poverty strategies" currently available in the United States (Gugliotta 1993). In an attempt to change "welfare as we know it," the Clinton administration has been touting self-employment as a viable strategy to decrease the ranks of the welfare population (Greider, O'Rourke, and Thompson 1992). Hillary Clinton's message to the Pre- paratory Meeting of the Microcredit Summit is illustrative.

Microenterprise is the heart of development because microenterprise programs work-they lift women and families out of poverty. It's called "micro," but its impact on people is macro. We have seen that it takes just a few dollars, often as little as $10, to help a woman gain self-employment, to lift her and her family out of poverty. It's not a handout; it's a helping hand. Through my travels in my own country and around the world, I have seen the profound impact that microenterprise initiatives are having on families.... I have met women whose lives are being transformed because, for the first time, they have access to credit.

U.S.-based microenterprise development is not directed at welfare recipients alone. It is more commonly promoted as a business development strategy for those low-income mini-entrepreneurs or small business people who are not normally serviced by banks or business support groups, especially women and racial-ethnic minorities. More women than ever are starting their own businesses. Between 1982 and 1987, the number of women-owned firms rose from 2.6 million to 4.1 million, more than twice the growth rate of all U.S. businesses during that period (Gould 1995, 22). Microenterprise development spokespeople suggest that by providing training and financial assistance in the form of credit to women-owned businesses, they can help engender responsibility, initiative, and self-reliance (Solomon 1992), and thus bridge the economic gap between low-income or impoverished women and the mainstream labor market.

Until recently, all of this has been taken at face value. Little has been written about the potential pitfalls inherent in this approach, or the long-term consequences such programs may create.2 Most of the discussion generated by practitioners and advocates addresses what microenterprise should accomplish in theory (e.g., Bar- ringer 1993; O'Regan and Conway 1993), but it fails to take into consideration the real barriers to successful microenterprise, especially for women already disenfran- chised from successful income production in jobs or businesses.

Our case study of an urban microenterprise program, called MicroFem, reveals a troubling institutional pattern that has been understated by microenterprise proponents. MicroFem's stated goal is to offer microenterprise training as a route toward economic independence for low-income women. Although we were initially intrigued and captivated by what we perceived to be an ingenious approach to



426 GENDER & SOCIETY / August 1998

poverty intervention and economic development for women, we were surprised to learn that many MicroFem clients, both welfare mothers and the much larger diverse group of nonwelfare women, left the program disenchanted and just as marginalized as when they entered.

First, by encouraging women to stay at home running businesses (what we call "pink-collar" businesses) that are little more than extensions of women's domestic routine, microenterprise programs like MicroFem are exacerbating women's marginalized status in the labor market and isolating women from the chance to legitimate themselves as businesswomen in the future.

Second, the training that would-be business owners receive at MicroFem does little to prepare them for the real challenges of microenterprise. The curriculum provides highly abstract and general information about business practices and offers little tangible and practical advice for students. Philosophically, the training promotes a highly individualized approach to microbusiness ownership that teaches clients that their success or failure as microbusiness owners rests entirely in their own hands. There is little critical analysis of the gendered nature of the business world that might give women a broader understanding of the barriers to successful business ownership beyond their individual circumstances.

We explain this pattern partly by applying Acker's analysis of the gendered logic of organization to female microenterprise development. Acker suggests that organizations assume an "abstract, ostensibly gender neutral worker whose central commitment is to the organization and who has no competing time or emotional

obligations such as those to children or spouses" (1990, 139). In the case of MicroFem, we argue that although the organization is explicitly considering women as business owners, it conceptualizes both its own business training and its clients'

microenterprises as activities abstracted from the reality of women's lives and commitments. In short, like Acker's "disembodied worker," the disembodied MicroFem business owner is assumed to be male.

Although clients' microbusinesses may be seen as attempts to combine the domestic arena with the public business sphere, MicroFem ignores the constraints of reproductive activities as outside their purview (Acker 1992, 567). Instead, their

training is designed to teach women how to extract useful ideas and skills from the

private domain to then be reformulated and inserted into a male-based model of business. Because women cannot, by definition, be real business owners (i.e., men divorced from reproductive tasks), the consequences of this gendered microenter-

prise training process are to frustrate women's business development. This article addresses these and other neglected considerations that are often

downplayed or ignored by both practitioners and analysts of female microenter-

prise. We argue that while microenterprise may suffice as an alternative to traditional labor market participation for a small number of women with sufficient access to resources, business experience, and entrepreneurial skills, in general, microenterprise produces a host of latent consequences that are ultimately more

damaging than productive for women.




BACKGROUND AND METHOD

Our conclusions are based on a three-year (1994-96) ethnographic investigation of MicroFem, a private, nonprofit organization located in a city in the western United States. Since 1976, MicroFem has earned a reputation for providing effec- tive employment and educational programs to assist low-income, minority women and youth. In 1990, supported by funding from the Small Business Administration, MicroFem established the Center for Women's Business (CWB). This project was not an isolated effort, but the replication of a well-respected midwestern microenterprise project eager to disseminate its training program. The CWB thrived. Women came from all over the region for help in starting or expanding small businesses. Capping its growing reputation, in 1993, the organization received the first in a series of federal grants to extend its business training program to welfare recipients.

We first relied on qualitative investigative strategies to gather as much information as possible about MicroFem, its programs, and its clients. Working sometimes as a team and sometimes individually, we attended classes and organizational functions such as graduation parties, networking sessions, and informational seminars. Altogether, we attended four full terms of the eight-week training sessions "Begin-a-Biz" which were held once a week in the evening, and four full terms of the 10-week We All Win sessions designed for Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) recipients.

Early on, we decided not to focus our attention exclusively on welfare mothers, since their program was new and, at the time, quite small. Instead, we made it a point to vary informants on the basis of socioeconomic status, race, ethnicity, marital status, educational background, and age. Accordingly, in this part of the research, we conducted 56 in-depth interviews with MicroFem clients reflecting the demographic and socioeconomic spectrum of the client base as well as the different stages of business development. We interviewed women from both "Begin-a-Biz" and "We All Win," each of whom spoke openly about her plans, her life, and her experience with the MicroFem program.

In addition, we continuously met with staff and members of the various advisory boards to talk about the program, its mission, history, and goals. We attended national, regional, and local meetings of microenterprise organizations to compare MicroFem's efforts with other programs. In short, we combined our own firsthand observations with the comments, thoughts, and experiences of MicroFem clients and staff to obtain the broadest and most accurate portrait of this microenterprise program.

Finally, we supplemented our qualitative data with quantitative information. We had access to a short, informal survey (n = 96) of ex-clients administered by CWB. Also, during the course of our research, approximately 300 women participated in business training courses offered by MicroFem. MicroFem secured basic personal demographic data from each of its clients through intake forms. We used these




intake forms (n = 289) to establish our general profile of MicroFem's clients. Almost half (47 percent) of MicroFem's clients were Anglo, 26 percent were

Hispanic, 20 percent were African American, and 7 percent were "other." The

majority, 70 percent, were between 30 and 50 years of age. Approximately 60

percent identified themselves as unmarried; specifically, single, divorced/

separated, or single parents. Two-thirds had never been self-employed. Although half our sample had full-time jobs at the time of their training, nearly 90 percent made less than $30,000 a year, 66 percent made less than $20,000, and 20 percent made less than $10,000. Remarkably, these poorly paid workers had relatively high educational levels; two-thirds of the sample had some college experience.

Our research at MicroFem began as an evaluation of the CWB program by means of longitudinal analysis of the impact of training on women's microenterprises. The

application of research instruments to track and evaluate businesses started by clients was thwarted when MicroFem's two directors and the head of the CWB

resigned over a period of a few months. Thereafter, we had little institutional

support for our work. We lost our access to previous clients, and instead adopted a more intimate strategy based largely on the analysis of the existing client base. An

agency-based survey with a small sample provided some useful statistical data, but we could not confidently measure the success rate of clients' businesses or the

impact business ownership had on their lives. We were unable to determine how variables like age or race might be an influence on microbusiness. These concerns will have to be addressed by others. Although quantitative analysis of the impact of microenterprise programs has taken place at the national level (e.g., see a later discussion of the Self-Employment Learning Project), longitudinal studies carried out at the individual program level remain a challenge for future research.

PINK-COLLAR BUSINESS

The promise of microenterprise has been communicated to the public through a

deluge of uplifting Horatio Alger-like success stories about women-owned, largely home-based, businesses.3 In what could be deemed a microenterprise crusade, the

public landscape has been saturated with a vast array of self-help articles, books, videos, and television programs promoting microenterprise. The message is that

microenterprise holds the key to satisfying work, higher income, and a more balanced intersection between work and home.

For women, the promise of success through self-employment is especially captivating because it offers a way to bridge two often conflicting roles: that of

provider and that of mother. Probably the best-known example of the postmodern entrepreneur is Mrs. Fields, who managed to transform a traditional female skill,

baking cookies, into a vast money-making enterprise. Her sophisticated image and style epitomize a woman who has it all: success, money, power, and prestige. Mrs. Fields provides a role model for other women who strive for success and




equality in the business world yet want to maintain their primary status in the domestic sphere.

The women with whom we spoke offered their own optimistic, glamorized version of how microenterprise would affect their lives.

I can see myself owning another beauty salon, and having that nice car and buying my house.

My daughters will respect me for seeing that "Gee, my mom owns two businesses and she pays all our bills."

I can see myself in my own office space, with someone else working for me, with 30,000 in the bank, not including what I sink back into the business.

I can see myself on the move. In two years I would like to hire someone to take my place and all I'm doing is making calls, advertising for the company to get more clients.

Not all clients were attracted to microenterprise because they fantasized themselves as the Mrs. Fields of the 1990s. For many, establishing and running a small business offered the promise of a better life, decision making, and respect from their families and the wider community. Part of the appeal of self-employment was that it would produce alternative and/or increased amounts of money, and, more important, more control over women's personal and professional resources. The quest for excess time, for instance (typically a rare commodity among working women and mothers), or the ability to negotiate the hours they work entice women into small business ownership. But whether they believe that self-employment will provide them with the luxury of managing their own schedules, or that "it's about time" they did something for themselves, women see microenterprise as a magic bullet that will enable them to manage it all, and subsequently have it all.

Our assertion that the promise of microenterprise is overstated is supported by a considerable literature showing that small businesses started by women do not normally result in "millionaire moms" who made fortunes in their garage. Instead, research shows women's small businesses to be marginal and precarious proprietorships (Silver 1989) that end up neither lucrative nor competitive (Loscosso and Robinson 1991). Despite the healthy growth in the number of women's businesses-they increased 68 percent from 1972 to 1982 versus 24 percent for men to become 9.5 percent of all U.S. firms (U.S. Small Business Administration 1984)-overall, women's sales were only 35 percent of men's at the end of that period (Loscosso and Robinson 1991), garnering on the average less than $5,000 in annual receipts (Silver 1989).

A study of microenterprise among welfare recipients by the Institute for Women's Policy Research concludes that self-employment, by itself, "does not contribute a substantial share to families' income and is not a route to self-sufficiency for welfare recipients" (Spalter-Roth, Soto, and Zandniapour 1995, 33).




These authors found that less than half of the microenterprise clients who start a business make a profit in a normal month, and only 12 percent break even. Some 25 percent reported a negative net worth, and nearly 48 percent stated their businesses were not profitable in 1992.

Business data from MicroFem clients is similarly dismaying. In a survey mailed to 1,837 women previously enrolled in small business training courses and counseling, only 96 responded. Between 1989 and 1994, only 34 had started a business.4 Of these, only 13 stated that they made a monthly profit, and 6 had profits of less than $500.

Microenterprise programs normally report figures like these with an optimistic slant. For example, a national study of seven microenterprise development agencies by the Aspen Institute's Self-Employment Learning Project (SELP) suggests that while in 1991,66 percent of businesses were not profitable, in 1992, only 48 percent were similarly in the red (Clark and Kays 1995). Analysts are so caught up in favorable microenterprise data, they fail to wonder what happened to cause that 48 percent to fall below profitability. Even if profitability rates improved for SELP's clients in one year, much can be learned from the fact that nearly half of the businesses failed to generate a profit. For every client with a monthly business profit of $10,000 or more (the study done by MicroFem shows two), there are thousands whose dreams of small business are never realized or whose businesses are so

marginal that their efforts to wring a profit from them are largely for naught. We believe that the disappointing performance of women's small businesses is

due in large part to the nature of the businesses women choose. Female microen-

terprises tend to be small (typically sole proprietorships), home based, minimally capitalized, and labor intensive, with modest sales volumes and a narrowly defined

neighborhood clientele. We use the term pink-collar businesses5 to refer to these

cottage industries or home operations that are built around the type of work or hobbies women already do or are familiar with (e.g., cleaning, day care, cooking or baking, sewing, handicrafts, selling women's products to neighbors and friends).

Why do women choose pink-collar businesses? To succeed in small business, many MicroFem clients must overcome a host of practical problems, most important of which is the fact that they already have full-time jobs as wives and/or mothers or two full-time jobs as workers and wives and mothers. Thus, on a daily basis, they must weigh the costs and benefits of spending time developing and running a business given their existing time constraints. What this means is that women choose businesses that suit their busy circumstances; specifically, home-based, part-time, temporary, low-skilled "women's" businesses.

In addition, women select these businesses because they offer easy entry that does not require extensive capital or business background, neither of which they possess. But at the same time, most do not realize that they are opting for the least

profitable, least successful businesses that happen to be open to low-income or

economically marginal women because they are unattractive to more advantaged men and women. In short, pink-collar businesses, like most pink-collar wage work, are predominantly dead-end, contingent, and unstable businesses that reflect




women's subordinated social condition and marginal business status. We found that

despite the potential complementarity between a woman's life and her pink-collar business, most businesses fail to produce the financial and psychological transfor- mations women were anticipating.

One may conjure up popular media images of home-based businesswomen

changing diapers with one hand while signing contracts with the other, but the situation is clearly not that simple. Pink-collar businesswomen are very different from the typically male "lone eagles" ensconced in quiet home offices, wired into

corporate headquarters, and communicating with customers by sophisticated tech-

nology. Studies of women working out of their homes (Boris 1994; Christensen

1989) conclude that it is the rare woman-who can afford baby-sitters and nannies- who can successfully combine business with reproductive responsibilities. Given the low income base and welfare status of many MicroFem clients, homework may not be a feasible income-producing strategy.

Nonetheless, pink-collar businesses have been promoted by microenterprise programs as a means to solve these "second-shift" obligations. For example, a brochure developed by MicroFem to market its training posed an enticing invitation to potential clients: "You may not realize it, but you may already be doing an activity that will enable you to start your own business." The brochure listed the types of home-based activities that could be transformed into a money-making venture. The list was highly gender specific, listing activities such as child care, cooking/ catering, house cleaning, pet services, sewing/alterations, writing, flower designs, arts and crafts, event planning, and beauty consulting. By providing potential clients with ideas for pink-collar businesses, the organization led women into believing that the transition from domestic work to a source of income could be easy, manageable, and profitable. Who wouldn't jump at the chance to transform house- work or hobbies into a lucrative business?

The fact that so many MicroFem women opted for these businesses suggests that women were pursuing businesses that they felt they could handle with a minimal amount of effort and investment. The majority of the women we encountered at MicroFem were simply unaware of what was involved in opening, managing, and growing a business. They wondered "Can I do the work?" rather than "Will this work pay?" Very few of the women we spoke with at MicroFem spent a significant amount of time analyzing and strategizing how to identify, confront, and overcome their competition. Instead, urged on by the focus MicroFem curriculum espoused, they contemplated and "considered" a business.

EXAMPLES OF MICROFEM BUSINESS CHOICES

Table 1 provides a list of the planned or existing microbusinesses we encountered during one year of our affiliation with MicroFem. From this list, it is obvious that nearly 90 percent of the business ventures women were pursuing were attempts to capitalize on the skills and tasks they did in the home or in pink-collar jobs. The




TABLE 1: List of Planned or Existing Microbusinesses at MicroFem (1994-95)

Traditional Businesses

Housecleaning/domestic services Arts and crafts Food carts/restaurant/catering Desktop publishing/word processing Nonprofit consulting Clerical/bookkeeping Day care Coffee house Cosmetic sales Pet care Home florist Seamstress/alterations Music lessons Thrift store Psychic reading room

15 Gift shop 12 Dollmaking 10 Pet health insurance 5 Food baskets 4 Nail salon 3 Hair salon 3 Artist/illustrator 2 Welcome wagon 2 Pet day care 2 Fashion boutique 2 Gift wrapping service 1 Fashion shows 1 Interior design 1 Editorial services 1 Wedding event coordinator

bulk of this list represents a narrow arena of low-level businesses that have little potential for income, economic self-sufficiency, or expansion out of this marginal business sector. They emphasize services or products already offered in the formal or informal sector, and for which there is poor market demand, such as home florist, fashion shows, music lessons, and a psychic reading room. Some women opted for farfetched enterprises like home gift wrapping or a welcome wagon, or were considering overly ambitious "fantasy" projects like Mexican restaurants, coffee houses, and pet health insurance that required far more experience, capital, and training than they possessed.

As outlandish as these choices may appear, at the time they seemed practical to the women involved. Interviews suggested that the majority of these pink-collar businesses were chosen because clients believed that since they were small and conveniently located in the home, they would be manageable and inexpensive to start. Repeatedly, we found women opting for pink-collar businesses when the demands of their lives made other income-producing options difficult to pursue, secure, or maintain. Enculturated by gender-specific role models to do women's work, most MicroFem business hopefuls did not even consider businesses outside that sphere. Nor would they be comfortable taking a chance with a nontraditional business.

Several examples illustrate these choices. Candace, an AFDC single mother with a college diploma, had sent out 150 resumes and had not received any responses. She opted to open a jewelry-making business in her basement, but was surviving on food stamps and assistance until she began to make some money. Lucy decided to quit her job when her infant's day care ended up costing half her paycheck. Since then she has tried several home businesses: Avon sales, clerical work, tax consul- tant, data entry, and night janitorial services. Mitzi turned to a home-based office

1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1




TABLE 2: List of Planned or Existing Microbusinesses at MicroFem (1994-95)

Nontraditional Businesses

Construction 2 Limousine service 1 Mobile auto glass replacement 1 Residential security guard 1 Advertising 1 Trucking 1 Insurance agent 1 Retail medical supply 1 Gem appraisal 1

cleaning business when she was fired from her job as a bonded courier. It seems the office's customers complained that her informal clothing was unsuitable and that she talked to herself. At age 50, Sarah left her husband when his drinking led to physical and emotional abuse. Out on her own for the first time in her life, she was attempting to turn Saturday morning garage sale hunting into a secondhand furniture business.

Research suggests that women-owned microenterprises are most successful when they are based on nontraditional activities (Otero 1989); however, entry into an all-male domain is difficult for most women. Table 2 identifies an extremely short list of businesses in which women transgressed their gender-specific expec- tations and pursued traditionally male-oriented businesses. A significant number of women pursuing nontraditional ventures were not necessarily taking on these businesses on their own, but rather were providing managerial or clerical assistance to spouses or family members. For the most part, their roles were only supportive. Kathy, for example, attended classes at MicroFem to run her father's bricklaying business. Margo similarly wanted to be able to help manage her husband's contract- ing business. The number of women breaking with tradition to do "men's work" was exasperatingly low. Only three are examples of female-owned and -run, nontraditional businesses: auto windshield replacement, a trucking business, and a medical supply store.

The SELP study developed a list of 386 microbusinesses that is remarkably similar to MicroFem's list.6 The largest number of businesses SELP identified (81) were in apparel and textile production, sales, and service. Next were 78 re- tailer/wholesalers, where, not surprisingly, only 8 were wholesale. A sizable number (14) were party plan operations, such as Tupperware. Other sales businesses of note included cake decorating supplies, sewing and hobby supplies, artwork, gifts, and stationary. There were 66 professional services, both personal and business. These included 16 hair/nail/cosmetic services inside the home or in a salon, 12 secretarial or business services, and 7 cleaning services. The MicroFem list parallels the tenden- cies in the SELP list toward low-level, economically marginal microbusinesses.




SELP's analysis of these trends, however, is significantly different from our interpretation. SELP's sunny optimism about microenterprise seems to deny any sort of critical examination of the nature and potential of these pink-collar businesses. The authors' enthusiasm for the microenterprise strategy (Clark and Kays 1995) is practically gushing. Specifically, Clark and Kays focus on the

diversity of experience, interests and capabilities of the individuals who run them. Although there are concentrations of entrepreneurs engaged in activities that seem to fill market niches or respond to unique community characteristics or circumstances, the range of businesses is broad. Microbusiness activities include desktop publishing, catfish farming, specialized high-volume embroidery, jewelry-making, and clothing sales. The wide inventory of businesses underscores the ingenuity with which the entrepreneurs apply their talents and resources to employ themselves doing something they enjoy or for which they see a potential market. (1995, 29)

TEACHING AND LEARNING MICROENTERPRISE

A significant amount of the "Begin-a-Biz" curriculum taught at MicroFem reinforced and perpetuated many of the romanticized visions associated with

microenterprise without honestly confronting either the problems women face in the business world or the reality of managing a pink-collar business. Although class instructors appeared to be taking clients seriously, we found that the training did little to empower women to make sound choices about their productive roles. Instead, it further isolated them on the margins of a segmented labor force described in large part by women's reproductive roles. Encouraged by instructors to feel good about being in business, clients were actually being trained to insert themselves into a disadvantaged sector of the business world without the opportunity or the tools to achieve the economic independence MicroFem promised.

For example, following an introductory seminar called "Thinking about a Business?" participants completed a worksheet titled "Define Your Dream." In this exercise, clients were asked to "[i]magine what your ideal business looks like at the end of three to five years." Clients then described the types of products and/or services produced and sold, the nature of their customer base, and their business location (including questions such as "Do you have multiple locations? How

many?"); detailed the number of employees their business will need; and described the role they, as owners, would play in the business. In essence, clients were instructed to take themselves on a magical and imaginative journey; they were asked to "think big and follow their dream."

In the beginning, classes tended to be motivational feel-good rallies in which instructors amusingly recounted their own business adventures, start-ups, and failures. These entertaining spiels kept women intrigued with the microbusiness life, and were part of the stimulating atmosphere that brought clients back. "Begin- a-Biz" evenings provided clients with a welcoming all-female environment and an

atmosphere of encouragement and excitement about running one's own business.




If clients' dreams had not been validated by a supportive family or friends, at MicroFem they would be.

Ironically, inside this comfortable clubhouse environment, MicroFem was teaching women that they, too, could be entrepreneurial if they adopted masculine characteristics such as competitiveness, aggressive marketing, risk taking, and authoritative decision making. They were told that they could raise their level of self-esteem simply by devoting themselves to developing a business. In other words, hard work is its own reward. The implicit message was that if the individual really wanted something badly enough, she could make her dreams come true. Real problems women faced were often dismissed as "personal troubles" that could be overcome by determination and tenacity.

We found that MicroFem's well-respected curriculum for female microentrepreneurs ignored the gendered practices that women brought to the business world. In spite of the considerable literature chronicling the differences between male and female small business owners (e.g., Brush 1992; Hawley 1995; Lee- Gosselin and Grise 1990; Longstretch et al. 1987), instructors rarely referred to women's business goals, the special way women manage their operations, the kinds of challenges or problems women need to overcome, how women measure success, or the strategies they might use. Rather than confronting the dynamics and constraints of female microenterprise (and comparing it to male microenterprise or business in general), classes assumed business to be business, period.

Indeed, MicroFem dangled the promise of microenterprise in front of clients and encouraged them to go for it, yet training provided them with few tangible and practical tools to manage day to day. MicroFem did not consider problems associated with the management of the tiny, poorly capitalized pink-collar microenterprises that most clients could or would open. Instead, classes tended to emphasize business practices such as marketing, taxes, advertising, or writing a business plan that had limited utility to most of MicroFem's clients. No time was devoted to how to manage a business in the home, an issue that would have been extremely relevant to more than 90 percent of the clients. Instead, instruction skipped to the questions of "zoning and your home business," and whether clients should consider their home businesses "corporations or sole proprietorships."

The unfortunate application of an ostensibly gender-neutral standard curricula was repeated in the pedagogical methods used in "Begin-a-Biz." MicroFem believed that once businesses began, its clients did not have time to learn business basics.7 In its attempt to give microentrepreneurs a running start, it tried to impart as much information as possible and in the process ignored basic teaching and learning guidelines. Instructors lectured for hours on marketing strategies or cash flow projections, giving these business beginners too much new material and no chance to participate, discuss, or apply what they were learning in classroom exercises. Due to the late hour (7-9 p.m.), the rapid-fire delivery of the lecturer, and the general unconnectedness of the topics to their lives, many students stopped taking notes and some simply nodded off. The lecturer never asked trainees for examples from their own businesses, business plans, or ideas. This lack of sharing




or working through common problems diluted the educational impact of the material and prevented solidarity on any level.

Moreover, classes, seminars, and curriculum did not take into consideration the specific educational preparation or socioeconomic circumstances of trainees. Train- ers assumed homogeneity in spite of the fact that each class consisted of women of various races, ages, educational backgrounds, and business experiences. One night the mix included a white welfare mother who brought her kids because she could not find child care, a working-class Latina who had just lost her job, an African American high school dropout on disability, a Ph.D. sociologist looking for a new career, a flight attendant who arrived in a Porsche, several working women, and a

46-year-old victim of domestic violence trying to leave her husband. In this class, only two women had businesses, and neither had generated a profit. The others were in the planning or dreaming stage. This variety was problematic pedagogi- cally, but the situation was made even more difficult by the white, thirty-something, middle-class instructor who blithely ignored the diversity.

In summary, we discovered that much of the training that MicroFem pursued with its clients sidestepped the reality that they would face as women business owners. Never were they instructed to critically evaluate whether microenterprise was a feasible option for them. Instead, a gender-neutral model of entrepreneurship was held up as a model to be emulated. Nor was microenterprise itself critically analyzed, and real difficulties, obstacles, and barriers that clients would encounter in business start-up and management were not exposed. Gender, race, class, age, or geographic location were not regarded as structural barriers that could impede or complicate clients' forays into the microbusiness world. Rather than honestly inform clients about how lack of capital, business experience, and business con- nections would handicap them, MicroFem staff itself pitched microenterprise as a

panacea. MicroFem's reputation is based on those few, but very visible, women who

started businesses. It does not seem to matter that only a handful of the trainees

surveyed reported they were making a profit from their businesses, nor that the

overwhelming majority of women who come through MicroFem's doors fails to

get their businesses off the ground. To maintain its client base and its funding, the

organization promotes itself as a center for developing entrepreneurship in women. In spite of the fact that staff regularly acknowledged that microenterprise was not for everyone, they did little to directly discourage their clients' efforts.

CONCLUSION: THE DISAPPOINTMENT OF MICROENTERPRISE

Microenterprise development has earned its reputation largely on the basis of the "fit" it produces between capitalist ideology and practice. On the surface, small business training and support programs reinforce the American cultural commitment to the free market system, hard work, and the Protestant ethic. In the political climate of the 1990s, these programs are revered because they instill and reinforce




values surrounding the traditional meaning of work and the rewards that should emerge from it. We have argued that as it is practiced in the United States, this approach to microenterprise development neglects the larger infrastructural conditions impinging on the ability of women to earn a living. It also ignores the negative personal repercussions that can accrue when programs encourage and support a woman as she throws herself into the maelstrom of the business world.

This article has suggested that economic, sociocultural, and gender constraints make it extremely difficult for most women to turn microenterprises into viable income producers. Microenterprise means that women must forgo the benefits associated with wage labor, for instance, salary, skill acquisition, health insurance, professional companionship, and personal support systems. In exchange for the income generated through their own labor, women have the additional burden of negotiating the myriad responsibilities that go along with business ownership, such as tax laws, marketing, competition, and inventory control. Furthermore, it is difficult to ignore existing research that suggests that self-employment increases stress levels and negatively impacts the quality of women's lives, especially in terms of the relationships they have with children and significant others (Spalter-Roth, Soto, and Zandniapour 1995).

Although we looked at only one microenterprise training program, MicroFem's problems are characteristic of a larger, as yet unexamined, pattern. Within the microenterprise community, success has been measured in terms of personal outcomes. Specifically, this means the development of self-esteem and confidence that ought to spill over into other areas of women's lives (Barringer 1993). With this in mind, it is clear that microenterprise programs like MicroFem are looking not to change societal patterns but to integrate women into the existing economic mainstream (Klein, Keeley, and Carlisle 1991) in persistently marginalized posi- tions. Investing in a mission designed to fortify individual women has meant MicroFem, like most similar agencies, discounts the weighty cultural baggage its clients bring to its door (e.g., social isolation, domestic responsibilities, no business skills or experience). It makes no attempt to confront the practical socioeconomic problems women face. Nor does it take a hard look at the world in which its clients live, where the daily reality means few decent job opportunities, the real difficulties of self-employment even for the best entrepreneurs, absence of infrastructural supports for women workers, and isolation from tools and skills. This is particularly problematic with low-income and AFDC mothers, most of whom have even fewer skills, less experience, and more domestic complications that impede business development.

By ignoring the conditions in which their clients live, programs place the responsibility for small business success squarely in the laps of the operators themselves. They suggest that individuals should be able to take control of their own lives and impoverishment by applying to their small business development whatever talents, skills, or resources they have available to them. The stated goals of these programs therefore are beyond the alleviation of poverty or economic development in that they often measure success in terms of moral rejuvenation,




psychological improvement, and character building. When women drop out of the program or reject microenterprise as an option, it is not because they finally appreciate the fact that gender constraints narrowly define their possibilities as businesswomen. Instead, they emerge from typical microenterprise training dis- mayed and discouraged that they do not have the right entrepreneurial stuff.

Microenterprise development programs can be more detrimental and problematic than they are purported to be. In contrast to the optimism exuded by these programs, their supporters in Washington, and the popular media, we have found that they encourage women to partake in undercapitalized, small-scale businesses that maintain economic vulnerability and social peripheralization in a gender- biased world. We are especially concerned that microenterprise organizations designed to enhance women's productive role would reinforce the segregated nature of the business world. By treating clients as a homogeneous group of disembodied business owners who are required to distance themselves from the reproductive and societal imperatives that impinge on their operations, MicroFem denies women the opportunity to honestly evaluate their suitability for business. We have come to realize, just as Acker (1990) did in her discussion of workers, that the logic of patriarchy has been transplanted into a women's business organization.

Although we remain seriously skeptical about the marginal position of female microenterprise vis-a-vis the larger business world, for many women it is the only feasible production option they have. The obstacles to the success of a microenter-

prise are considerable, but with appropriate training and institutional support, more women would have a fighting chance. Unfortunately, we have learned that many business hopefuls leave microenterprise programs still lacking what it takes to be in business. Business analysts tell us that this kind of discouragement or failure is

typical of small business (Winn 1995). Our question then is why women, particularly low-income women, who are economically vulnerable to begin with, are being encouraged to become self-employed at all.

There are no clear and easy solutions to this problem. This article was written

partly to encourage the kind of debate that might lead to a more careful examination of the premises of stateside microenterprise development and eventually to gender- sensitive policy implications. The existence of some successful female business owners, from microenterprise to corporate giants, has led to complacency about what most women face in the home and in business. Discussion of pink-collar businesses needs to take place, especially where more specific considerations of

ethnicity and class can be included. As long as the division of labor remains stratified, individual efforts to chip away at it will be futile.

NOTES

1. The Self-Employment Learning Project (SELP) defines microenterprise as a sole proprietorship, partnership, or family business with fewer than 10 employees with credit needs less than $15,000. Many microenterprises are owned and managed by low-income, minority, or female operators. In addition,




SELP notes that microenterprise owners are generally excluded from formal credit markets because their credit needs are too small and too risky. Most have poor credit histories and inadequate collateral (Clark and Huston 1992).

2. Several writers have attended to issues surrounding women and small business (e.g., Boris 1994; Christensen 1989; Loscosso and Robinson 1991). However, their criticisms were not specifically connected to microenterprise development programs. Among the few reports available on the development programs is the Institute for Women's Policy Research report (Spalter-Roth, Soto, and Zandniapour 1994) on microenterprise and welfare. The findings suggest that microenterprise by itself could not be an alternative to welfare or a route toward self-sufficiency, but should be part of an income package for those motivated Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) recipients.

3. See, for example, frequent television news spots on Good Morning America (ABC), Business World (ABC), Morning News (CNN), and Early Prime (CNN); radio coverage on All Things Considered and the Morning Edition (NPR); and regular feature stories in magazines such as Money, Inc. and

Working Woman. 4. MicroFem's internal statistics suggest that 10 percent of its clients seeking training or counseling

open businesses in a normal year. On the average, this translates to approximately 40 or 45 businesses, although a percentage of these are certainly continuing or expanding enterprises, not start-ups.

5. Louise Kapp Howe's 1977 book Pink Collar Workers first popularized the concept of pink-collar jobs as the narrow category of low-level service employment many working women seek as childbirth and child care responsibilities move them in and out of the labor market.

6. Unfortunately, SELP's figures are not broken down by gender. However, the large number of pink-collar businesses in its list may be explained by the fact that 78 percent of its clients are female.

7. In fact, we encountered two women who had gotten little from the Begin a Biz course before they opened their microenterprises, but came back for a refresher when they encountered problems the training might help them address.

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Tracy Bachrach Ehlers is an associate professor of anthropology at the University of Denver where she specializes in gender, Latin America, and underdevelopment. Her research on female microenterprise in Costa Rica and Guatemala was the basis for this study of small businesswomen in the United States. The second edition of her book, Silent Looms: Women and Production in a Guatemalan Town, is being published by the University of Texas Press.

Karen Main is a doctoral candidate in sociology at the University of Denver. Her areas of interest include lesbian and gay history, culture and politics, gender studies, and popular culture. She teaches at several state and community colleges. Her dissertation research examines rural lesbian communities in Colorado.



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