What could you give a TEDx talk about with zero prep? For me, it’s HR 5050. Hand me the mic, y’all — I’m ready! Because #DYK — until 1988, banks could legally require a male cosigner for women business owners applying for loans.
Meaning women who were 100% owners of their business and in good financial standing could STILL be required to get their husband, their father — even their high school age son — to co-sign.
And, yeah, you read that right — it didn’t become illegal until 1988.
When we talk about #funding gaps in #entrepreneurship today — including the fact that women are still wildly underrepresented in who gets funded — we have to talk about this history. This RECENT history. Because without it, we risk telling an incomplete story.
I’ve been in rooms where women are told they just need to be “braver” about capital — that they “just need to learn to ask for it.” And while confidence matters, 📣 let’s not pretend that courage alone 📣 fixes systems 📣 that were never built with women in mind. 📣
When capital access was literally off-limits — legally — for some women just a few decades ago, we can’t ignore how those systemic exclusions still ripple through today’s funding landscape.
Learning about HR 5050 is about understanding the barriers that were there — and in many ways, still are — and doing the work to remove them. Because women entrepreneurs aren’t risk-averse. In many ways, they take on MORE risk in the ways they get funding. (Don’t get me started — I’ve got citations.)
But they do have a long history of being systematically excluded.
If you didn’t know about HR 5050, you’re not alone — but let’s fix that.
Let’s honor the stories of the women who came before us. And let’s keep building better systems for the ones rising now.
Action items —
Follow @ncwomenbusinessownershallo2959 NC Women Business Owners Hall of Fame and help preserve and amplify the stories of #womenentrepreneurs in #NorthCarolina.
Follow NAWBO Greater Raleigh, one of our area’s local organizations that focuses on supporting #womenbusinessowners through community and advocacy.
Follow LiLa (Ladies Investing / Local Angels) for more on #womeninvestors who are changing this conversation from the funding side.
🎥 Huge thanks to David Chatham at @AngelOakCreative Angel Oak Creative for giving space for this conversation on the Nonprofit State of Mind podcast.
#WomenEntrepreneurs #HR5050 #EntrepreneurshipHistory #SmallBusiness #BusinessFunding #KeynoteSpeaker #WomenInBusiness #SpeakerLife #TEDxReady #LeadershipDevelopment #AdvocacyMatters #Conferences #CapitalAccess #AngelInvesting #VCFundingGaps #EconomicEquity
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