I started my coaching business back in 2021 after 12 years as a corporate geophysicist. One of my main motivations was to contribute to closing the gender pay gap.

I worked in a male dominated industry where the gender split was often 50:50 at recruitment. At increasing levels of management there were fewer females and even fewer mums from what I saw.

Like many of my female peers, I choose to work part time after having kids. But it wasn't until afterwards that I appreciated the impact that decision would have. What I hadn't anticipated was how hard it would feel to be 'left behind', like I wasn't quite keeping up.

The gender pay gap is real. And it's also more than that.

In 2022 in UK, the gender pay gap equates to women earning 90p for every £1 that men earn. But there is a crucial detail missing in this simplified headline.

Even referring to it as the gender pay gap is misleading. This brilliant 18 min video Why women are paid less (part of the Netflix Explained series) tells us why.

It explains how what we refer to as The Gender Pay Gap is actually more of a Motherhood Pay Gap. According to studies 80% of the gap exists between Mothers and other employees.

Why the motherhood pay gap exists.

What the gender pay gap fails to show is that many more mums work part time, either out of choice or necessity. So not only do they earn less per hour, but also a lower annual salary.

There are many factors that drive part time working. One being that men spend one third of the time women do on unpaid work. That's according to the World Economic Forum's Global Gender Gap Report 2022.

As many of us know, it's not only the time and physical energy that household chores and childcare take up. It's also the mental load.

The juggle struggle is real.

This is why policies aimed at part time and flexible working options for mums don't solve the problem.

For many of my clients they are leaving their corporate job to pursue a more meaningful business. But also to enable a more balanced lifestyle and freedom with their time.

They want to escape the daily grind of the corporate world and the 'always on' culture. They don't want to have phone calls

on their days off or have to answer emails after kids bedtime.

Why we need to drop the hustle.

Unfortunately, many of the behaviours we are trying to escape transfer into entreprenuership. Many start-ups practices were born in tech and industrial 'fail fast' businesses. They're based on hustle which is the very thing we are trying to escape.

Hustle;
a state of great activity
- Oxford Languages

Hustle in your start-up might look like:

trying to 'feel the fear and do it anyway'
selling that feels icky
trying to be on all the social media platforms
constantly creating new things
lots of work behind the scenes

What this often results in is a state of overwhelm. Where you are investing lots of time energy and headspace but seeing very little in return.

There is a different way.

As an already busy working mums, hustle tactics don't feel good and just don't work for us either. We feel like we have to choose between financial success through hustling, or having a business that feels like a hobby.

But the good news is that there is an alternative! And it starts by defining what success actually looks like for you. That will involve a particular financial income, but it's not all about the income.

It's about the impact your business has and what lifestyle it supports for you.

A new era of business building.

I started my coaching practice because I care deeply about female empowerment and closing of the gender pay gap.

I believe that the answer to both of these goes way beyond having better policies and benefits in place to accommodate flexible working. Or funding of female led businesses.

It’s about a much bigger cultural shift in the way we work. So that we are not perpetuating the idea that bigger, faster and busier, is what leads to success. Success starts with how it feels on the inside.

This way of working doesn’t only benefit mums, it supports anyone who wants to define their own version of success, on their own terms.

And it’s a much more enjoyable way to be a customer too. Who likes to be sold to by a pushy sales person or feel like someone wants your business in order to meet their financial goals for that month? Not many people, I suspect.

The Gender Pay Gap and starting a business