Younger Women

This book presents scholarly reflections on women's entrepreneurial propensity and on women's entrepreneurship in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) fields. Contributing to a country's innovativeness and competitiveness, women entrepreneurs also promote healthy social and economic growth and act as mentors and role models for younger women.

We are experiencing a mentoring crisis today. One key reason is that too many women cling to an outdated formulaic idea of what mentoring is all about. When we hear the word "mentoring" we conjure up a picture that fit our experience decades ago. Then we look in the mirror and don't see an adequate mentor staring back at us. Our preconceived ideas about what today's young women want in a mentor convince us we are not qualified to be mentors—but we are wrong. What we don't realize is that younger women today are far more likely to want a relationship with that woman in the mirror than the conjured-up perfect mentor in our head.