Posted by James Tuckerman, Publisher, Founder & Editor-In-Chief

Wow!

The comments generated by yesterday’s blog post certainly had us on the edge of our seats and doing some serious introspection.

Firstly, some quick responses…

The category thing: We did add some categories after initial feedback and I’ve also added a new field today - ‘Create an award category’. Of course, we can’t have an endless supply of award categories but, this being our first year, we are largely being guided by participant feedback and what our statistics say (eg. what works and what doesn’t).

The age thing: Perhaps women entrepreneurs do run to a different clock (the ‘broken pathways’ debate). I just gotta say that we LOOOOVED Sonja’s idea of resetting age. But, ultimately, Leela’s point reflects our position. We created 30under30 because young entrepreneurs were lacking in entries and finalists for the Cool Company Awards. We wanted to create a platform to recognise the ‘up and coming’ talent. There are plenty of awards for entrepreneurs but few for young entrepreneurs.

James’ secret agenda: No agenda to meet more women here (I think Gulliver has been on too many travels). Our agenda was simply to generate more nominations from women. And it worked! Women now represent almost 30% of nominations. That’s a big jump from 3%. So, we’re very pleased. Also… by the way… I’m not under 30 (despite what the press releases might say).

Can someone tell me where to get one of those ‘age resetter’ devices from Sonja?

Finally…

Women as contributors: After all that… The following cheeky letter to the editor at BRW (below) titled ‘The X-Chromosome Factor’ had me take a quick measure of the male to female ratio of content in Anthill.

After reading this, I grabbed a nearby copy of BRW (February 7-13, 2008) and, after a cursory flick, found 51 opinions or stories featuring blokes and only two about women. That’s a gender ratio of 51:2… Ouch! The other business magazines on my desk didn’t do much better (and let me assure you, there are many business magazines on my desk). The exception, of course, was Vive.

So, how did Anthill Magazine rate?

We came up 15:6 in favour of the patriarchy.

Hmmm.

So, here’s my plan.

Firstly… please continue to nominate women for 30under30. Secondly… I have created a Forum thread, calling for readers to promote themselves and other female entrepreneurs. Thirdly… if you have an idea for an opinion piece, please read our Editorial style and contributor guidelines.

However, because I suspect that Leela and Phillipa’s comments are spot on (women are too busy RUNNING their business to have time for self-promotion), I suggest that you pitch the idea for the opinion piece before the editorial.

In fact, why not do it now as a comment below?

What’s an angle or story that you would like to contribute to Anthill?

Posted by James Tuckerman, Publisher, Founder & Editor-In-Chief

Thirty must be a magic number. Within 30 minutes of launching our 30under30 awards program last Wednesday, we’d received over 30 nominations.

They came from every State and Territory. They represented a good cross-section of our award categories. But there was one notable, unnerving discrepancy with the data. Where were the women?

We can only assume that Ms Rhoade of Diva Promotions must be pretty special. Not simply because she is under 30 and runs a marketing company for women in business. But because she was the one and only female Australian entrepreneur to be nominated among this initial group of 30.

This, of course, baffled me. I’m still baffled.

Surely female entrepreneurs represent more than 3% of the entrepreneur mix!

So, I did my research.

According to the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM), an annual report that monitors entrepreneurial activity across nations, women make up about half the Australian labour force “who are actively involved in starting a new business or who own/manage a business less than 42 months old.”

This has remained consistent over the past 10 years.

So, if women are responsible for approximately half of all entrepreneurial activity taking place in Australia, why the lacklustre response to our awards program from the ‘fairer sex’?

I suspect that there lies a clue in this dated and, let’s face it, deliberately provocative expression. You might want to slap me down for using it (there’s a place for comments below) but I invite you to first hear me out.

From our side of the editorial desk, Paul Ryan (who’s probably not thrilled about his involuntary inclusion in this hoary debate) and I have observed the disparity between the gender of incoming callers for a long time.

A day will not pass without a big, blokey egoist barking his credentials for a feature story down the phone. “Write about me! My business is unique!” (And we all know the disproportionate nature of barks to bites.)

But we rarely, if ever, receive even the most courteous enquiry about the potential possibility of placing a female entrepreneur in our pages. Even a delicately phrased suggestion is a rare thing from where we sit.

So here’s my unscientific conclusion.

Female entrepreneurs simply seem less inclined to self-promote. And I suspect that the only reason why Anthill Magazine’s male to female ratio is as high as it is (said with the caveat that we know we could improve) is because we make a concerted effort to chase opinions and stories beyond the obvious members of the Australian bizerati, which has nothing to do with gender at all.

So, why is it that Australian women are so under-represented in the Australian business media?

Am I onto something or are my opinions simply another part of the problem?