Empowering Underrepresented Women and Youth in Unleashing Start-Up Potential for Inclusive Growth and Some Leadership Lessons from the Works of Arundhati Roy and Namita Gokhale

J.S. Jehu Raju; V.B. Chithra

doi:10.36948/ijfmr.2026.v08i02.80885

Empowering Underrepresented Women and Youth in Unleashing Start-Up Potential for Inclusive Growth and Some Leadership Lessons from the Works of Arundhati Roy and Namita Gokhale

Author(s)	J.S. Jehu Raju, Dr. V.B. Chithra
Country	India
Abstract	Entrepreneurship is a mindset focused on innovation, opportunity, problem solving and risk taking. There should be making use of resources such as labor, capital and technology to realize business goals. The paper will discuss the types of leadership from micro level to macro level. It will explore the impact of Entrepreneurship in society and in economy at large and the Entrepreneurship journey. Since times immemorial women and youth are poorly represented in this Entrepreneurship journey. The paper tries to identify the strategies to enhance their participation. As of now there are over 5000 startups recognized in India. Startup India was launched in 2016 with the objective to promote startups and Entrepreneurship by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry with the budget of over 10,000 crores. Till now only 8,000 crores are spent. The paper discusses barriers to women leadership in startups right from the grass root problems at village level so that a real time workable implementation of startups could be created to encourage women leadership in startups. This paper discusses funding gaps, the dual burden, networking and mentorship, lack of assets and challenges such as access to financial funding, socio-cultural hurdles, poor self-esteem, institutional hurdles, lack of Entrepreneurial skill education. This paper will also discuss hurdles for youth leadership such as fear of failure, educational system, practical pressure and youth’s immaturity and inexperience. The paper contextually highlights the success stories of global Entrepreneurs and also women Entrepreneurs. It’s important to see Entrepreneurship theories through the lens of feminist theories to advance the field of Entrepreneurship for women. This is the reason why some leadership lessons are included from the great feminists like Arundhati Roy and Namita Gokhale. Given India’s significant enormous population of underprivileged groups the study will focus only the Indian context. When coming to leadership, there is a dismal picture of women and youth in Entrepreneurships and startups. In this connection, this paper will critically examine De Groot’s observation regarding constraints faced by women in the context of society, culture, values and traditions. Further this paper will study comprehensive view of challenges in developing countries especially women and youth based on existing literature. In India, IITs, IIMs, IISc are established to foster women and youth Entrepreneurship. The paper discusses how far these institutions are instrumental in nurturing Entrepreneurial talent among women and youth. The paper discusses some areas where women and youth could find themselves at the helms of the startups. The present paper will take both qualitative and quantitative data to analyze growth-oriented Entrepreneurship.
Keywords	Entrepreneurship, startup, innovation, challenges, opportunity, leadership.
Published In	Volume 8, Issue 2, March-April 2026
Published On	2026-03-30
DOI	https://doi.org/10.36948/ijfmr.2026.v08i02.80885

View / Download PDF File

About IJFMR Fees & Payment Current Issue Publication Archive	Submit Research Paper Track Submission Status Publication Guidelines Publication Ethics Peer Review & Plagiarism	Join as a Reviewer Editors & Reviewers Reviewer Referral Program Get Reviewer Membership Certi.	Website/Journal Policies Usage Policy Content Policies Privacy Policy

Contact Us		+91-9687-828-838	editor@ijfmr.com

International Journal For Multidisciplinary Research

A Widely Indexed Open Access Peer Reviewed Multidisciplinary Bi-monthly Scholarly International Journal

Empowering Underrepresented Women and Youth in Unleashing Start-Up Potential for Inclusive Growth and Some Leadership Lessons from the Works of Arundhati Roy and Namita Gokhale

Share this