It is important to hear the experiences of women entrepreneurs because they are role models for girls who will one day find themselves at a crossroads when choosing a job. Being an entrepreneur is hard, and being a female entrepreneur is even harder. That’s why the experiences of female entrepreneurs are important so that we know what to do together, how to change things and encourage women to engage in entrepreneurship, said the Commissioner for the Protection of Equality, Brankica Janković, at the opening of the conference on female entrepreneurship. “Overview of the Current Situation and Opportunities for Empowerment”, organised within the German-Serbian initiative for sustainable growth and employment and UN Women, with the support of the EU project “Key steps towards gender equality”.

Numerous factors affect female entrepreneurship, from social status, perception, family life, economic and property inequality, old age, education, but also discrimination, caused by prejudices and stereotypical social roles. Although we still have female entrepreneurship more out of necessity, in recent years we have witnessed an evolution from a woman seeking income to a woman on the path to realising her dreams. As a society, we should prepare so that in the future, we no longer talk about the separation to men and women, but only about entrepreneurship, Commissioner Janković said.