As women reach entrepreneurial heights unthinkable to their mothers or grandmothers, new terms have surfaced to sort and categorise them. For many, the results are a decidedly mixed bag.

Take mumpreneur. According to Google Trends, interest in the term has waxed and waned since 2005, but it always seems to make an inexorable return, much like editorials wondering whether women can in fact be as funny as men.

While some find it inescapably sexist and infantilising — particularly the implication you are defined by the act of breeding and just manage to earn a dollar in between nappy changes — other female business owners choose to make the word work to suit themselves.

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Does what it says on the label

Diana Holwerda, 42, the founder of Virtual Assistant 4 Your Biz, was referred to as a mumpreneur in a recent Fairfax Media article and uses the term in her Twitter profile. Based in Sydney with two children aged six and eight, Holwerda told Mashable Australia she often calls herself "mum entrepreneur."

For her, the phrase has special meaning. She would never have considered starting her own business until she became a mum, she said. After maternity leave, her employer shut down the company, leaving her out of work.

"I put the focus on being a mum more than an entrepreneur, because one followed the other," she explained.

Holwerda is proud of being a mother and so the term, however it is used, doesn't get to her. "I guess I've got pretty thick skin — it doesn't bother me," she said.

"When they describe you as a mumpreneur and they put that down as someone who is running a little mummy business on the side, it's their perception, not mine ... I am confident in who I am and what I do."

A smart marketing tactic

Although she has two kids, one and two years old, Danijela FitzGibbon, 34, who runs a wedding styling company in western Sydney, Wedding Decorations by Jelena, said mumpreneur describes a subset of business founders.

"Whenever I've heard it used, it's referred to women who have started businesses relating to their kids," she told Mashable Australia. Women who have gone on maternity leave and seen a gap in the market for children's clothes and launched a small business from their home, for example.

She doesn't find it sexist, and also thinks it can be useful as a marketing tool. Other mothers, in particular, might be inclined to support entrepreneurs who are demonstrably juggling similar responsibilities or whose motherhood gives them insight into children's needs.

"If it's empowering stay at home mums, and if it's giving them a leg up to grow their business, I don't see the harm in it," she said. "More power to them."

Unwelcome in the tech scene

For Sophie Hose, 39, founder of the customisable fashion startup Tahlo Group, the term has always been jarring. Based in Melbourne with two kids, two and four years old, Hose said she has heard mumpreneur used regularly for many years, but mainly among other mothers.

Hose suggested the term became popular around 10 years ago as part of a generation of women who were senior and respected in business, who then took time out to begin a family. "There was a wave of women doing great stuff while on maternity leave," she said. "But now it's kind of standard. It reflects a phenomena that has hugely moved on."



As the former general manager of startup incubator Blue Chilli in Melbourne, Hose suggested the word is rarely used in the technology scene. "In the tech startup space, it's invisible," she said. "I think it's universally considered that whether someone is a mum or not has nothing to do with it."

Nevertheless, she supported other women if they desired to use the term. "It's all about your identity and how you feel. Personally, I reject it," she explained.

Where are the dadpreneurs?

Ultimately, terms such as mummy blogger or mumpreneur have no male equivalent and that's what is most infuriating. Hose called it a "Pandora’s Box." "If mumpreneur is valid, where is dadpreneur?" she asked.

FitzGibbon, on the other hand, chalked up the lack of dadpreneurs to the still limited number of men choosing to stay at home and the still smaller number running startups related to their kids — an issue in itself.

Ultimately, people should use language in a way that's valuable to them. If some find the unique status of being both a mother and an entrepreneur opens doors, that's certainly a path they shouldn't be denied. As Hose suggested, mumpreneur often suggests a company is built on "mum values."

"In most contexts that is a negative — unless your target audience is parents buying certain types of products for their kids and 'mum values' build instant trust," she said.

For others, being forced into a box that defines them by only one part of their life will never be okay — entrepreneur, founder or CEO will be the only acceptable terms. At the very least, women should use the term with the full knowledge of its potential downside.

And in the meantime, we should start calling fathers who manage to do utterly normal things like hold down a job and pick up the kids from school a captain of nursery and see how it works for them.

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