Anomaly Shanghai asks could a mum be a manager on International Women’s Day

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Unreasonable.jpgFor the second year running, Anomaly Shanghai has marked International Women’s Day with a provocative piece of content.

Having spoken with many women, they identified that a key barrier to women starting up their own companies, was the fact that they are often forced to make a choice between starting a family, or starting a business. Investors will even go so far as to not invest in them if they are concerned that they will not be “fully” committed to the business.

“When we talked to the investors, they were concerned if we were going to have kids.” said Cheng Tingjue, co-founder of All Moving Space that transforms neglected urban space into commercial estates.

“Many companies – especially in the IT industry –  have “wolf culture” and tend to hire men rather than women,” said Diani, founder of Oxygen, a online platform for selective lingerie.

“Gender expectations in China make it tougher for mothers to balance business and family life,” said Sherry Poon, founder of Eco Design Fair.

Anomaly.jpgunreasonable 2.jpgThe unfortunate reality is that as we get older, we are often forced to become ever more reasonable, adapting to the world around us. Meanwhile, our younger selves were much more unreasonable and didn’t see challenges, just possibilities. To that end, Anomaly interviewed many young women who still have that unreasonable spirit, who don’t see gender as a barrier, and see opportunities, not obstacles.

The result of those interviews is a short film that reminds and inspires us to be more unreasonable.

“The Unreasonable platform exists to inspire everyone to be more unreasonable in their daily life. We believe it’s important for women, for society as a whole, and future generations, that there are women creating progress,” said Richard Summers, Partner of Anomaly Shanghai. “That’s why this International Women’s Day, we are challenging the assumption that is rife in the investment and entrepreneur community that a mother can’t be a manager.”

Last year, Anomaly “hacked” the infamous “unreasonable man” quote by George Bernard Shaw, changing it to instead read, “The reasonable woman adapts herself to the world: the unreasonable woman persists in trying to adapt the world to herself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable woman.”