Editors Note:

At the heart of Bionomics lies the notion of organic, evolutionary change. Version 1.5 of the Journal of Bionomics explores and personalizes an evolving trend in the US economy -- the rise of women entrepreneurs. Readers may find parts of Frank Gregorsky's essay astonishing and unbelievable. But who said an economic ecosystem had to follow the predictable patterns promoted by panderers of the status quo?

Sometimes a force or an idea is so big it's nearly impossible to get a fix on. For example, most Americans who are self-employed probably do not think of themselves as "capitalists." Rather than consciously carrying out an economic theory, they are mostly doing what comes naturally, motivated by the entrepreneur's roller-coaster mix of inspiration and desperation.

To an even greater degree, the high-achieving professional women of the 1990s are not choosing to wear the label "feminist." They simply do not see their quest in ideological terms. Few will condemn that movement's leaders or agenda outright, but even fewer will be heard to declare, "I am a feminist, and my career reflects the ideals of that philosophy."

And yet, and yet: The 1990s will someday be looked upon as the crest of a double trend so powerful we took it for granted. This is the decade when communism collapsed and socialism went into hibernation, leaving capitalism as the world's only functional economic model. It is also the decade when the female "fortysomethings," the women of America's baby-boom generation, came into their own, across the board, in all the professions.

The east-coast media have given grudging coverage to capitalism's intellectual triumph. They also profile (with a lot more enthusiasm) individual women making headway in key industries. But this essay claims the media gatekeepers have missed the greatest triumph of all. You'll have a hard time guessing what and where it is. In fact, a majority of the women who are riding this wave seem hardly aware that it's quite a big wave.

Since September 1995, first as a U.S. Congressional consultant, and now as a Senior Fellow at the Discovery Institute in Seattle, I've had the privilege of studying the only sector of the economy where both of these "quiet revolutions" intersect -- by conducting 42 (so far) "whole life" interviews with women business-owners, the overwhelming majority of whom are "boomers" as well as the founders of their enterprises.

Of the 42 interviewees, the first 29 helped to shape Women Business-Owners in Post Corporate America, a report released with no publicity during the Christmas holidays by the Joint Economic Committee. (For a free copy, phone 202/224-5171 -- since this is a public document, there will be no charge, not even for postage.) Some of its liveliest interviews are also available, in transcript form, at this web-site, along with an executive summary of the congressional project's findings and proposals.

But this essay is neither a summary of that summary, nor a condensation of the interviews. Instead, it addresses three questions: (a) How widespread is this revolution? (b) Why is it so silent? and (c) Since the revolution obviously doesn't need publicity in order to unfold, does the silence matter?

Start with what Michael Rothschild likes to call the "macroscope." The 1990s have confirmed an equation which, put crudely, runs like this: Capitalism plus Feminism equals...what? Have you ever thought about it? One veteran of start-ups (six and counting) was invited to do so. Marleen McDaniel, CEO of the San Mateo-based Women's Wire, had this to say: "I would agree with your sketch, and the two trends are quite compatible. The best way to emancipate females is economically: Self-esteem plus the payroll; be self-sufficient and feel good about it. I'm a capitalist, too. And I believe in a free-market economy. If the world would let down the rest of its trade barriers, the funds would flow more naturally."

Even so, McDaniel's willingness to talk in such global terms is rare. So perhaps the 1990s equation is better expressed as "capitalism plus feminism" -- i.e., small "c" along with small "f" -- since very little of today's entrepreneurial explosion pays homage to ideology, and the behavior continues to unfold apart from any intellectual model.

Of my 42 interviewees, only two display a self-consciously philosophical framework for the world in general and their businesses in particular. (Who are those two? On the right, Mother's Work founder and COO Rebecca Matthias, a Reagan/Forbes conservative who would repeal the ADA and abolish affirmative action. On the left, Working Assets founder and president Laura Scher, whose brilliant business model -- fusing profits with social causism -- ought to inspire even those activists who do not share her liberal worldview. Both transcripts are nearby.)

As for feminism in particular, only one project participant -- Joan Feldman of Computer Forensics in Seattle -- is clear on the path from the '70s to '90s. And she wonders: "How do we as women take this positive trend and share our stories with other women? Because, despite all of my bitching about how hard it is, it's really a positive thing for me as a woman, and I would think for other women, to be doing this -- to have our own businesses. I think getting that word out is actually kind of critical to the next generation of feminism. I would like to tell other people about this, I would like to encourage it -- at least to some degree. But, the problem is: We don't because [laughter] we're working so hard!"

Feldman's enthusiasm is offset by the bluntness of Marleen McDaniel: "I believe in this 'backlash' effect." How so? "Feminists went about their campaigns in a way that turned a lot of people off. Some very negative connotations are now associated with 'feminism.' And I'm personally not a part of it. I don't want to be a part of it. And I don't think I can be recruited to be a part of it... We have plenty of economic power, and we're getting stronger. That is the best form of feminism, in my opinion."

While not contradicting Feldman, the numbers bear out McDaniel: Forget marches, forgot lobbying, and forget lawsuits. Who has the time or the capital for such things? Not the 8 million women who now own at least 35% of the enterprises in the U.S. Of the total, roughly half are one-woman shops; the other half employ an average of four people each (counting the owner, even if she takes no paycheck). At 20 million jobs, their total employment base is greater than that of the entire Fortune 500 -- even when you let the big guys count all their overseas employees.

So much for Question #1: The revolution is widespread (with profound impacts on management modes and child-development, which I am addressing in other venues). And this brings us to the mystery behind Queston #2: The only thing more overwhelming than the numbers is the silence about the facts that produce the numbers.

Last July, I audited a discussion among some 14 young women (ages 19 to 24). Mostly from Ivy League colleges, they were spending a summer working in the U.S. Senate, and their charge was to react to a draft of the congressional study. With one exception, they were not conscious of having met a woman business-owner (WBO for short) outside of their own family. Nor had they ever heard -- at these high-gloss educational institutions costing some of their parents half a life's savings -- how WBOs constitute the liveliest part of today's economic landscape.

Do not dismiss this lack of awareness as a function of callow youth. One of my savviest Washington friends, head of governmental affairs for a blue-chip multinational, when handed the 35% figure, said: "Thirty-five? I believe it because you're telling me, Frank -- but I really don't believe it." (He meant he could not see it or sense it.) Same with a veteran management consultant whose e-mail, after it lauded the "zing and zip" of the congressional report's summary, declared: "Even after reading your stats on women-owned businesses employing more people than the Fortune 500, I can't believe it. Shows how ingrained our beliefs can be.

Where are these businesses?" According to the data, they are everywhere. According to the mass media, they do not exist. Still, there it is: The total number of WBOs has quadrupled since 1981, from two to eight million. This has given capitalism an entirely new look -- but why can't America see it?

The cynic in me concludes: Only a few hundred people have managed to internalize this reality. The first 150 are active in the women's business movement, which is radically different in style and agenda from the NOW-type hardliners who still shape what the national media label "women's issues." What about the second 150? They run Office Depot, which last year put out the first TV commercial pitched solely at women entrepreneurs. (Wouldn't you know it: A growth-oriented private company has acted on the opportunity all the political-types remain oblivious to.)

I may have missed a few dozen academics and small-business writers. But, by and large, the number of people who grasp the social and occupational sway of women-business owners -- and have thus changed their own behavior because of it -- is minuscule. Okay, maybe it's more than 300, but I bet you it's not more than five or ten thousand -- this during a decade when the media acknowledge capitalism and appear otherwise eager to run stories of innovative professional women.

As the final chapter of the congressional study noted with withering irony, women entrepreneurs "are engaged in big-time cultural change yet have little political presence and absolutely no media profile. Of what other group of eight million decision-makers can this be said? Neither party knows what to do with them or for them, despite the obvious benefits to a Republican coalition that has a chronic problem with female voters, and to a Democratic Party that keeps looking for a way to be pro-jobs without sounding like economic royalists or corporate shills."

Study participant Julia Klein was a political activist on the Democratic side for 10 years before taking over C.H. Briggs Hardware in Reading (PA). So it seemed logical to ask her: "Who do you think is the best female elected official on these issues?" After a 10-second pause, Klein said:

"'On these issues' is tough. These issues don't matter to anybody. If these issues mattered more, if there were people who truly specialized in them, you wouldn't need to be doing this report to start with. I guess I would point to [California Senator Dianne] Feinstein [as an officeholder who is both] fiscally conservative and supportive of women. I look at all the women Senators as people who could have a lot of leadership on this issue, but who don't." Why not? "Because it's not clear-cut. Because it lacks specific policy positions to take (outside of affirmative action). These issues 'matter,' but they're not hot, and there's not enough clarity -- there's not a point."

What about the more cynical explanation, namely that WBOs do not generate big PAC donations? "Right, and that has to do with many women entrepreneurs doing what they do because they're sick of everything else, you know? 'So why aren't you politically active?' 'Well, because it's just kind of more of the same: I don't have control, and can't make a difference. But here [this enterprise] is what I can do that is all mine and reflects my efforts.' Another big reason [for our low profile] is because women entrepreneurs often have family responsibilities, too -- and are simply very, very busy. We are making a lot of progress, but it's mostly in isolation."

Klein's is as good an explanation for the silence as any. But -- our final question -- does the silence of this revolution matter? The answer is yes, for this reason if no other:

By continuing to treat "women's issues" solely in the context of domestic violence, abortion policy, day-care services and the glass ceiling, the national media are signaling that just about everything to do with American womanhood is a matter of discrimination, abuse, lawsuits, and inadequate federal subsidies. This is burying women's economic progress beneath a mound of endless victimization and left-leaning political rhetoric.

The new generation of girls -- especially high-school students whose cultural menu sometimes seems confined to the heedlessness of Madonna and the cluelessness of Alicia Silverstone and her feathered-boa -- deserve to see women entrepreneurs as a role model. They deserve a personalized peek at the type of hard-work and high-results option hardly any of those young staffers and interns heard about during a combined 50 years at their Ivy League outposts of sociological diversion and sky-high expenses.

What was once called "home economics" should be redesigned to showcase local women who are both in-charge and on the line -- not thru political manipulation but via new-fashioned capitalism. Or, if you're in a position to take a more sweeping route to cultural change, I would suggest "My Mom, The Entrepreneur." The sitcom possibilities are endless -- everything from negotiating with the IRS to facing down those sleazy gentlemen from the bar (and I don't mean the tavern).

Yet the comedy can still rest on a healthy message: The creation and ownership of economic assets takes work, and social progress requires someone to be exploiting the capital intelligently. For such a role, why not a woman? If Hollywood can portray "steel magnolias" and X-File heroines, why not a female entrepreneur? Admittedly, the eight million WBOs would have no time to watch any such TV show. But they are not the ones who need an entirely different kind of role model.

The research goes on. The Discovery Institute in Seattle (206/287-3144) is planning for what will be the Pacific Northwest's first WBO conference, touching on everything from how to raise your first $10,000 to a real national agenda for entrepreneurial women. Here's one reason the latter is overdue: The legislative program of the old-line women's groups remains oblivious to the single most intense demand of my study sample: Regardless of political beliefs, they want the tort and liability systems cleaned up. In Rebecca Matthias's words, "It's a drain of money and energy. And it is so random, that's right -- it's anytime, against anybody... It's not the kind of thing you can put your finger on, and maybe it's harder to stop -- but it's as big of a problem as high taxes. It's draining." (The legal-reform movement are first-class fools if they don't let women entrepreneurs take the lead on the nationwide articulation of such concerns.)

Meanwhile, the U.S. is delivering -- right now, in relative silence -- something unprecedented: Greater ownership, by women, of the "means of production" than at any time anywhere in recorded history. Not "influence on" or "participation in," but ownership of. All in all, this is an exciting time to be associated with think tanks in search of the new economy. Or to be a forty-something banker looking for new "micro"-enterprises to take a stake in. Or to be a twenty-something female with an array of opportunities wider than any previous generation. If you feel any part of this excitement, e-mail me -- at druckerite@discovery.org -- and let's tackle the next set of questions. For example: (1) Exactly how might your own area's women business-owners became role models in a way that helps to offset the lowest-common-denominator imagery of mass media? And (2) What new models of organic economic growth and management are being developed in the WBO world -- and why?

Appendix on links: Short profiles of the six enterprises and business-owners making up the transcripts available at this web-site, three of whom are located in the San Francisco Area:

Judy Foley, The Patricia Moore Group Ltd.
In operation since 1984 and "California's premiere introduction service for successful people of culture and attainment. Created specifically to fill a need among busy professionals wanting to meet quality partners for lifetime companionship." The founder and president emeritus is Patricia Moore. Foley is now president, having purchased the business from Moore in June 1994. Foley is divorced after a 15-year marriage. Although she never had children, she has been very active in children's causes, included serving as chairperson of the board of directors of the San Mateo County March Of Dimes. Birthyear 1950, phone (415) 777-9752, HQ San Francisco.

Toni Ford, TELSPAN International Inc.
Offering "customized multimedia solutions," TELSPAN is a technology-applications company providing kiosk design, installation and maintenance; electronic A/V info system-design; and video teleconferencing system design. Corporate clients include AT&T, CBS Records, Loral, Sprint and Johns Hopkins University. Revenues in 1995 were $2 million with 30 employees. Before beginning TELSPAN, Ms. Ford had a governmental career (1971-84) that included three Senate confirmations. A black Republican descended from slaves and prospecting among the techies, Ford in her transcript melds a wide array of perspectives. Birthyear 1941, Phone (301) 731-5355, HQ Landover (MD).

Rebecca Matthias, Mothers Work Inc.
Upscale maternity clothes in 451 stores, divided among four chains: Mothers Work, A Pea In The Pod, Mimi Maternity and Maternity Works. Publicly traded (as MWRK on NASDAQ) since early 1993. From Fortune Magazine of 3/21/94: "Matthias started the company in 1982 when she had trouble finding stylish maternity clothes to wear to her job as a civil engineer." Later her husband Dan joined as CEO (she is COO). The Matthiases were married in 1981 and have three children, ages 14, 13 and 7 at the time of the taping. Birthyear 1953, phone (215) 873-2200, HQ Philadelphia (PA).

Terry McCaffrey, TechWrite
With Joyce Query, McCaffrey is co-founder and 50% owner of this full-service technical communications firm. They create and electronically distribute technical documentation for regulated industries (chiefly aviation, pharmaceuticals, mining and chemicals). In business since April 1989, with 15 employees at the time of this interview, the company had 1995 revenues of $1.25 million. This transcript contains a blistering critique of the Fair Labor Standards Act; it also conveys the logistical dramas of running a company while being the mother of three children under the age of 10. Birthyear 1957, phone (412) 429-1656, HQ Pittsburgh (PA).

Laura Scher, Working Assets Funding Service Inc.
A privately-held long-distance telephone and credit-card company uniquely designed "to build a more just, humane and environmentally sustainable world" in the process of delivering conventional services. By generating $7 million in donations since 1986 at no cost to the customers, through everyday activities like talking on the phone or using a credit card, the company provides them with ways to be effective activists and philanthropists. Scher is married to consulting actuary Ian Altman and has a seven-year-old daughter named Alison. Birthyear 1959, phone (415) 788-0777, HQ San Francisco.

Marketta Silvera, Pilot Network Services Inc.
Founded in late 1993. Provides secure Internet and remote-network services to companies with enterprise-wide networks. Pilot was the first to offer comprehensive, secure Internet services, thereby protecting corporate systems from hackers and intruders. (These services are provided through the company's "network-services centers," configured with advanced "firewall" technologies.) Pilot is headquartered in the San Francisco Bay Area, with service centers there as well as in L.A., New York and Chicago. Silvera is founder, President and CEO, and a major shareholder. The company's technology was lauded as "state of the art" by Fortune's Richard Behar in "Who's reading your e-mail?," the magazine's February 3rd cover story. Birthyear 1943 (Finland), phone (510) 433-7800, HQ Alameda (CA).

Cheryl Welch, Peacetree Inc.
Founded by Welch in December 1989. "By providing information and resources to its clients about socially responsible ways to tread a little more lightly on the Earth when using paper products, Peacetree allows people to put their principles into action." Sells recycled paper with "high post-consumer content and with reduced or no chlorine bleaching." Recently added print-project management, including posters, calendars and fundraising appeals. Revenues in 1996 $491,000, three full-time employees as of March 1997. Last September, Peacetree was one of 32 winners of the "Astra Award," as given by the Portland-based Gateway to the Women's Market Information Campaign. Birthyear 1958, phone (503) 233-5821, HQ Portland (OR).

Related Links:

• Discovery Institute
• Joint Economic Committee
• Women Business-Owners in Post-Corporate America