When I started selling my art a few years ago, I had little
idea what was involved in starting a small business. Using the extensive resources provided on the Etsy blog, I
was able to become a sole proprietor through my local city government, open my
shop, and learn skills around branding, product development, and
advertisement. In short, I became
part of a supportive community that helped me realize my dream of making art
for profit.
From the beginning, I decided that my business model would
include a charitable element for women.
I decided this because the defining struggle of our era is the end of
oppression of women and girls worldwide. Women represent nearly 70% of the
world's poor. Millions of women in the developing world face life threatening
health conditions, limited to no access to education, and are at a high risk of
being sexually violated and forced into sex trafficking or prostitution.
Because the global sex trade problem is so widespread, women and girls have in
no exaggeration become the slaves of the 21st century. In fact, more
women are likely to be maimed or killed by male violence than by cancer,
malaria, traffic accidents and war combined.
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| Women for Women - Afghanistan participants during literacy training. |
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| Etsy meet up in Providence, RI. Photo from Vanessa of Etsy Labs. |
A friend had told me about an organization called Women For Women whose purpose is to give job and life skills training to women in areas
of the world most destroyed by war and poverty. Unlike conventional charity, this organization seeks to
empower women to become self-sufficient leaders in their communities. After joining, I became the sponsor of
a “sister” in Afghanistan who was enrolled in a year-long program. Similar to my experience with Etsy, she
would be given practical skills and job training specific to her community.
More importantly she would be learning,
possibly for the first time, about her human rights. This kind of an education is fundamental if we want to
imagine a just and peaceful global society. Empowering women tends to lead to
faster economic growth within a community and more stability, which in turn
undermines extremism and reduces oppression and civil conflict.
The buyers and sellers of Etsy are
primarily young, highly educated females hailing from the US. It is no surprise that this demographic
is inspired by the Etsy’s revolutionary mission to “empower people to change
the way the global economy works.
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| Women for Women-Sudan participants during a Life Skills training session. |
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| Members of the Vintage Etsy Society at an event in Chicago. |
I think the one of the greatest ways we as
entrepreneurs (of every demographic!) can change how the global economy works in a positive way is by
advocating for social justice within our business models. But how much more
revolutionary would this impact be on the global economy if Etsy itself built
in a component to empower women survivors of war and violence to become
leaders, rather than the victims, of their local (and global) economies.
What
if Etsy took a percentage, however small, of its profits, and funded an
organization like Women for Women that has a direct impact on the lives on
women who may have otherwise lost everything. We are talking about millions of women who may not have access
to cameras or computers or other tools that would make participation in the
Etsy model of entrepreneurship viable, but who can be supported in other ways to
generate a steady, sustainable form of income that will benefit their families,
their societies and the world.
One might argue that Etsy obviously has
the right to protect its own profits, and that individual store owners can
donate to this or that charity as they please. But I would argue that the women and men who use Etsy would
probably be proud, and even willing to pay a little extra, to know that their
consumer power supports the empowerment of the most oppressed people of our
time.
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| Women for Women--Seen here without her abaya, an Iraqi woman is busy molding candles to sell. |
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| A world away, another candle seller. Suzanne, owner of blisscandles, was recently a Featured Seller on Etsy. |
What do you think? Would you be willing to pay a few cents extra on an Etsy purchase if you knew you were supporting a global movement to empower marginalized female entrepreneurs?
Resources:
Half the Sky book by Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn
Women for Women website
link to Etsy's mission statement.
