Female entrepreneurs are forever reminded of business bias

Thursday 26 February 2026

By Claire Aiken | Managing Director at Aiken PR, featured in The Irish News.

Bias in business is something of an uncomfortable truth — the assumptions and judgments made without any basis in evidence or merit. Sometimes it’s unconscious, like someone being quietly passed over for promotion. Other times, it’s jaw‑droppingly blatant.

I still recall an interview many years ago, long before I pursued my own entrepreneurial path, when the interviewer — a man — asked me directly when I planned to have my next baby. The room fell silent. When I couldn’t provide an answer, he politely but abruptly ended the interview. That was more than 30 years ago, and I founded Aiken PR shortly afterwards. His reason was obvious, though left unspoken.

Far too often, this blend of business bias — whether unconscious or deliberate — is allowed to simmer unchecked. And its impact on female entrepreneurs is still felt today, albeit in more subtle ways. Systemic stereotypes continue to curtail women’s potential in what should be a dynamic and exciting entrepreneurial ecosystem.

Whether starting, funding, growing or scaling a business, women still face questions around family responsibilities and personal commitments — not nearly as intrusive as my own experience, I hope, but still revealing. And this is despite women logging just as many hours (if not more) than their male counterparts.

And yet, we are seeing record numbers of female‑founded businesses in the UK. In 2025, women’s early‑stage entrepreneurial activity reached 9.2% — the highest on record. Which only makes persistent stereotypes all the more frustrating. Sometimes it shows up in the simplest phrasing: an investor asking a male founder, “How big can this get?” while asking a woman, “What if this fails?”

Words matter. The language we use around entrepreneurship has the power to shape — and reinforce — biases that women founders encounter at every stage, from access to finance to confidence barriers.

Contrast this with the early Silicon Valley era, which championed the “move fast and break things” playbook. Many of those success stories were driven by leadership teams centred around one person’s impulsive vision, prioritising “growth at all costs” with little thought given to inclusion or diversity.

Societal norms continue to play their part as well. Professor Maura McAdam of DCU Business School, who has analysed female entrepreneurship data in Ireland for over two decades, notes that women often feel they must seek permission before taking the leap into business. Her research highlights the mix of stereotypes, cultural norms, and expectations that leave many women feeling they don’t belong in the entrepreneurial space.

This is rarely about ambition or competence. Women are operating in systems still stacked against them, encountering subtle barriers in the everyday running of their businesses.

All this brings to mind novelist Fannie Hurst’s famous line: “Women have to be twice as good to get half as far.” She said this in 1943. Much has changed, thankfully, but the fact that the quote still resonates says a lot about the landscape today.

That is why events like June’s All‑Island Female Entrepreneurs Conference, hosted by Women in Business, are so important. As the only event of its kind on the local business scene, it’s one to mark firmly in the diary. Last year’s conference welcomed Sara Davies MBE and provided a truly memorable gathering of insight, experience and, at its core, humanity — making it deeply relatable.

Professor McAdam’s research echoes this, identifying four workplace cornerstones that allow organisations of all sizes to thrive: human connection, empathy, emotional intelligence, and clear professional goals.

These, to me, are the timeless business principles that will long outlast trends like “grindcore” culture or the extreme “9‑9‑6” working week raising eyebrows elsewhere. Together, they equip entrepreneurs and businesses with a protective armour — positioning them to navigate change with confidence, clarity and assurance.

And all without needing to move fast or break things along the way.

Thursday 26 February 2026