The Double Standard Facing Latin America's Women Entrepreneurs
The Double Standard Facing Latin America's Women Entrepreneurs
In Nicaragua, bureaucracy and machismo limit women entrepreneurs from growing their businesses.
Vilma Tellez Ballesteros has been a coffee producer for most of her life, running a successful business from her home in northern Nicaragua for more than two decades. But when she goes to the bank to negotiate loans, she brings her husband with her. “They listen to him,” her daughter, Carmen Davila Tellez, told AQ.
With few ways to access credit and facing a machista culture that often limits business opportunities for women, Tellez’s way of dealing with the bank is not surprising. Although Nicaragua has been lauded for recent efforts to improve...
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