It's Sunday night. You're cuddled up on the sofa, nursing a glass of wine as
you soothe your husband's moan about the stress of commuting and the weekly
grind. And the germ of an idea grows. For fun, you've been scouring local
markets for antiques and reselling them on eBay at double the price. You're
quietly making a fortune.
But every day you struggle to keep the books, negotiate the shipping rates and
you cry when the computer crashes. So you ask your husband about joining
your business. In time, his three-hour daily commute ends and he gives up
his day job to work for you.
A pipedream, maybe. But since 2000, the number of women running their own
businesses has grown by almost 20 per cent to around one million. Many of
them are mothers who decide that the best way to juggle motherhood with a
rewarding career is to be their own boss. Almost a third of all their
businesses are internet based.
So would you hire your husband? Laura Ashley, the pioneer of flowery
wallpaper, did; Anya Hindmarch employs hers as finance director of their
handbag empire; and Leo has long been the mainstay of Margaret Beckett's
staff.
For the fortysomething male, whose DNA is stamped with “household
breadwinner”, it is still a rare phenomenon. But as the number of women
running their own show grows, it is increasingly becoming a reality for
their other halves. How though do spouses cope when the traditional roles
are reversed? “Choosing a partner to work with is probably the most
dangerous thing in business - there are a lot of frogs out there you have to
kiss before you find a prince,” says Kevin Tomes, 58. “Choosing your life
partner is a good bet. Who would you trust more to protect you and represent
your interests?” Kevin should know. He and his wife Mary, 62, have worked
together for 30 years and she has been his boss for more than 20. Initially
they were equals in her father's printing business in Oxford, before she
took over. Then, on retiring in 2005, she was struck by the thought that
when she dies she would like to be buried in a yellow coffin with daisies on
it. Despite scouring the internet, she found it impossible - so she set up
Colourful Coffins.
“My family thought I was having a nervous breakdown,” she says. “They sent me
to see the vicar and the doctor - and now they're all working for me.”
Kevin was brought up in an all-boys household and went to an all-boys school.
In spite of this, he says that he has never questioned working for his wife
as it was clear her talents lay in running a business and his lay in running
the factory and design. After years of taking decisions in the
male-dominated printing world, Mary says that she is a more confident
manager now, but admits that being partners at work and home has not come
easily.
“We had very, very heated discussions,” she says. “But we're not the sort to
sulk, so over the years we've said what we've got to say, even if the other
may not like it, but we will go forward with that. At work, he knows that
I'm the ultimate boss and he's fine with it.”
Thirty-four-year-old Wendy Shand is married to Rob, also 34, a fighter pilot
in the Navy. One of the growing band of “mumpreneurs”, she set up
totstofrance.co.uk three years ago and agrees that sharing the office and
the bedroom is not always comfortable. “At one level it's massively
exciting,” Wendy says. “But there can be times when we feel stressed and
things aren't going well and we definitely bring it to bed. Then we have
chats at 11pm, which puts us both into a bad mood when we should be having a
cuddle.”
For Wendy, the idea of striking out on her own came after an idyllic, but
fraught, family holiday in France. It was a perfect retreat, but neither
could relax until their two small children were in bed. Her parents had to
drive a pantechnicon of toys to entertain them, there were no stairgates
and, in an unguarded moment, their son fell into the outdoor pool. On
returning home, Wendy, a former primary school teacher, and Rob considered
how they could do it better. Their solution was totstofrance.co.uk, a
portfolio of child-friendly properties in France and Italy, personally
vetted, stocked with sterilisers, stairgates and toys to give parents peace
of mind. The company will feature in Mum's the Business tomorrow at 7pm on
BBC Two.
Their commute is a mere two minutes to their converted garage from their home
in Northamptonshire. However, working over the shop can be all-consuming,
Wendy says. “We have to be very disciplined about downtime. We have rules
for when we stop work. I have to switch off the computer at 9pm, after the
children have gone to bed. We don't work Friday or Saturday nights so as to
leave room for family time.”
Rob trains Harrier pilots and is often away. So while he tackles the IT conun-
drums, the staff and finance, the couple are clear that it is Wendy's vision
that drives the company forward. A few weeks ago, Rob was ejected from a
Harrier at 1,000ft. He managed to parachute to safety, but has been given
time off to recuperate. In October he is off to Afghanistan. The couple's
plan is to take their business to a sufficiently secure financial footing to
give them a lifeline out of the forces and away from the endless moves and
tours of war zones. For that return, blurring the roles of the sexes is a
small price to pay, says Rob.
“My father had five children and was a top surgeon in London,” he says. “I do
sometimes look at his life and envy the simplicity of his going to work and
leaving Mum to stay at home and look after the children...Wendy and I share
a lot where we can and there's nothing that I won't do in the garden,
kitchen and looking after the kids. She doesn't give me orders, but it's her
lead and expertise at marketing and PR that drives it forward. If it weren't
for her we'd not have a business. But that doesn't make me feel awkward or
disenfranchised.”
While there are still more male entrepreneurs than female in Britain, women
are catching up. This is put down to a growing exodus of senior women
managers, who are leaving big companies to find other ways of making their
job work for them.
Although women graduates at undergraduate and masters level have outnumbered
men for years, only 11 per cent of directors in FTSE 100 companies are
female and only 3.8 per cent of executive directors are women.
The reason, says Ruth Sealy, a doctoral researcher at the International Centre
for Women Leaders, in Cranfield, Bedfordshire, is that large corporations
are still set up predominantly for the career man, who works 70 hours a
week, with his partner at home supporting his ascent to the top.
“Substantial numbers of women are leaving to take on a portfolio of
non-executive directorships and others are setting up their own
organisations. Stereotypically, women are very good at that because we are
comfortable at multitasking, more astute at influencing without power and
resources and more flexible in the workplace,” Sealy says.
This week a study by Cambridge University also indicated that the “shine of
the supermum" is losing its brightness and that women now find juggling
a career, home-making and reading bedtime stories is more than most mortals
can manage.
Although women make up 45 per cent of the workforce, more people believe that
family life suffers if women work full-time than they did a decade ago.
In 1994, 51.8 per cent of British men and 50.7 per cent of women agreed that
“a family does not suffer if a woman is in full-time employment.” By 2002,
those fell to 42.2 per cent of men agreeing with the proposition and 46.5
per cent of women. But while working from home with your spouse might sound
like the dream ticket, for Sealy, it was not. She set up a skiing business
with her ex-husband and found over time that he would issue the orders and
she followed.
“In the latter years, I became managing director and he was on the board,
which was a disaster because I ran it in a different way,” she says. “This
led to a change in the power dynamic, which the relationship couldn't handle.”
To Cary Cooper, Professor of Organisational Psychology and Health at Lancaster
University, this is a familiar story. Men are trying their best: they do
dinner on Saturday nights and drop off the children at school, but
predominantly they see their role as the breadwinner.
Although businesses are more flexible, most are not flexible enough for women
to juggle children and careers successfully, he says. So after spending
years of innovating in the home and feeding the family on a tight budget,
women found a niche business from their kitchen and, like Martha Stewart,
find that it suddenly takes off.
“But it's a double-edged sword,” Cooper says. “It gives you control, helps you
to express your individuality, fits in with the demands of family life,
until it starts to grow outside your control. Then you have to delegate. The
good news is that women tend to be better at that. Their management style is
more inclusive, involving and participative than men.”
But it is also a generational issue, he insists. While women entrepreneurs are
increasingly common, and will become more so, the older pioneers among us
might find it tough to get our fortysomething husbands to submit to our will
in the boardroom.
“Although he's a sensitive, educated man, the role model for the breadwinner
is likely to be his dad and that's very hardwired and difficult to remove.
For the younger generation it could be easier to rationalise. These men
won't have the vision for fashion or cookery, but they will be comfortable
taking on the more traditional male role, such as finance director.”
To those wishing to follow their lead, however, Mary Tomes offers one piece of
advice for a successful working union: “The answer is to have defined roles
and the same at home. It's like two working together in the garden - one
might cut the grass and the other does the flowers. You have to do it in
harmony. It can be a very painful learning experience, but like a good
marriage, the hard work has its rewards.”
FIRM COMMITMENT: THRIVING COUPLES
Anya Hindmarch and James Seymour
The doyenne of designer handbags, Anya married widower James in 1996, taking
on his three small children and stealing him from Jigsaw as her fashion
finance director. Working together clearly suits them as the business is now
a multimillion-pound enterprise and the family has grown to five children.
Karren Brady and Paul Peschisolido
Known as the first woman of football, Karren became managing director of
Birmingham City Football Club in 1993, before literally marrying the job two
years later. Paul Peschisolido, her Canadian striker, played for his wife's
team for two seasons, before a transfer in 1997. Paul is currently without a
club, but is still one half of football's golden couple. Alongside her day
job, Karren has had two children, survived brain surgery and writes columns
and novels in her spare time.
Margaret and Leo Beckett
Labour's dynamic duo have been a close professional team since they married in
1979. A mere party official as a bachelor, he has since worked as Margaret's
agent and aide, travelling with her and working in her private office when
she was Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs or
Foreign Secretary. They have no children and are arguably most famous for
their caravan holidays. But epic trips in their Bailey Pageant Champagne
were sadly cut short in 2006 in light of security concerns.
