Make room for female entrepreneurial Gen-Xcellence!

Think of Gen-X and you think of the kids who had the freedom to play outside and sat in the backseat of the car without seatbelts. Waiting for a new music videoclip to be launched on MTV was the height of anticipation, as was waiting for your favorite weekly teenage magazine to drop on your doormat. We grew up firmly in the analogue era and saw the world change unrecognisably, all be it at first very slowly to the sound of a dial-up modem. As we grew up, so did technology.

And, us girls, we were promised the world. Our matriarchs had fought for our right to vote, for our right to work and for our right to equally benefit from everything men were offered, and most importantly, that we didn’t need to choose between children or a career. At least, that was the message on my radio shows, or in the television commercials I was shown. But the rest of the world didn’t get that memo.

In fact, it has been stated we got the worst of the two worlds. As Whitney Casares wrote in her 2023 Fortune article: “Gen X women were raised to do two things simultaneously: operate according to traditional gender roles and be independent, career-focused businesswomen.”

We were promised that we “could have it all”, but when we tried to “have it all”, we discovered that working environments had not yet adapted to this so-called equality, and often we still ended up sacrificing one or the other, or ended up with a burn-out. This is not to say we let it stop us from trying, some of us even with great success, but for many it also led to a sense of failure, or of not living up to our potential. “So many women — no matter what they’ve done — feel like there’s a piece missing.” says Ada Calhoun in her 2023 interview.

That is why it is so fantastic to see that now, in their 40s and 50s, we see a plethora of female founders pushing out their elbows, daring to take up space and fulfill their passions. While traditional working places have failed many of us, being an entrepreneur gave Gen-X women the freedom to write their own rules.  Whether the business is small or big, making profit or just breaking even, it is ours! States Melissa Houston in her recent Forbes article: “This isn’t a midlife crisis; it’s a midlife power move.”