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How Covid-19 Highlighted The Obstacles Women Face In Pursuing A Career

Jennifer "Jay" Palumbo

According to Crunchbase data, global venture funding for female-founded companies fell significantly in 2020. While it's not completely clear if it is related to the pandemic, it's difficult to ignore the recent report stating there were 140K job losses for women this past December.

"The pandemic has created a greater sense of urgency around how unsustainable our current systems are and how disproportionately they affect women, but that adverse impact isn't new. It's just been accelerated," said Lindsey Taylor Wood, Founder/CEO of The Helm. "I fear that the response from both private and public sectors will be solely about the near-term versus fundamentally rethinking the way people of all genders are supported in their work and their homes."

An expert in the empowerment of girls and women, Wood, brings 15 years of experience as a leader in the gender equality movement to The Helm. Wood was formerly the founder and president of LTW, an impact studio with an emphasis on contemporary feminism.

Before consulting, Lindsey was on the founding team of Catapult, a crowdfunding platform for girls and women. Incubated as a project of Women Deliver, Catapult established and maintained a sustained, long-term funding infrastructure capable of scaling to many thousands of projects and delivering millions of dollars in funds to benefit girls and women over the next decade. While there, she led the marketing, communications, and outreach initiatives.

Covid-19 and Women's Careers

A new McKinsey analysis shows that women's jobs are 1.8 times more vulnerable during the coronavirus pandemic than men's jobs, and there's been much talk around addressing the gendered job loss of Covid-19. However, Wood explained that these issues existed long before Covid-19. If anything, the coronavirus just created a sharper focus on the full extent of gender inequality.

"We remain the collateral damage of scenarios that are broken and exclusionary," stated Wood. "The biggest issue we see right now is a national response to symptoms rather than root causes. Women aren't disproportionately affected because of a pandemic hit. They are affected because we have widespread economic and employment instability. We have rocketing caregiving costs, a pervasive gender pay gap, and an inequitable healthcare system."

In addition to job loss, there's also been a drop in venture capital funding for women-led startups. In 2019, 2.8% of the budget went to women-led startups; and in 2020, that fell to 2.3%, Crunchbase figures show. This comes after years of increases. The 2.8% figure, while seemingly low, was actually at an all-time high.

When asked if she had any insight on why this is and how we can turn it around, Wood answered, "The pandemic magnified existing inequities across the board, and VC is included in that. We know that pre-Covid investors (most of whom are male) were less likely to invest in women and that when they do, the average deal size is less than half of those founded by their male counterparts, and that pattern matching perpetuates bias. So, it would make sense that when people are more fearful and more risk-averse, women founders continue to pay the price."

As far as how to turn it around, Wood explained that the most direct way to do so is by actively investing in women. For example, The Helm recently launched an Investor Membership that makes investing in female-founded companies easy. They complete all of the diligence calls and initial vetting, and members can then invest in these private equities on the ground floor, directly supporting them with their dollars.

"Right now, it's so critical that we not only focus on social and political equality but economic equality as well." Wood said.

An Actionable Plan

The lack of gender equality in funding startups leads to further problems beyond the pandemic. According to an analysis last year, about 12% of decision-makers at VC firms are women, and most firms still don't have a single female partner. Since women venture capitalists are twice as likely to invest in female founding teams, Wood feels companies must make hiring and mentoring women the highest priority.

"The good news is that we are now seeing a surge of women raising their funds for the first time," Wood stated. "I can't underscore enough how much I believe the long-term effects of this will radically change the amount of capital that ends up in the hands of women and minorities and, subsequently, how much more of a value will be placed on investing in funds and companies which emphasize both a financial and social return."

For women looking to pivot their careers or start their own companies in light of the setbacks in the past year, Wood's advice is to start now.

"The older you get, the more obligations you have, the less time you have, and the less psychological, spiritual, and emotional bandwidth you have. It's always going to be hard, and there is never going to be the exact right moment, so the sooner you get in the ring, the better."

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