Because you're worth it

Platform:Some time ago, I was talking to a group of young girls about their future careers. Most of them were cheerfully optimistic about their prospects. While they may not have decided exactly what it was they wanted to do, they were confident that, whatever field they chose, there would be plenty of opportunities to succeed. This warmed my heart, writes  Sheila O'Flanagan.

Back in the pre-Celtic Tiger days when I was starting out on my career, the choices were limited. The likelihood of getting to the top of your chosen profession as a woman was more aspirational than probable.

Part of the reason for this was the attitude towards women in the workforce; it seems impossible to believe now but until the mid-1970s, women with State and semi-State jobs had to leave when they got married.

The past may be a different country, but it left its mark in more ways than one. Many able women left the workforce never having had a long-term career. For those coming after them, there were very few role models of successful women in senior positions. The women who had succeeded were, by necessity, unmarried, thus giving you a stark choice of career or family but not both.

Having it all - the glittering career, the well-adjusted family and the vibrant social life - is a myth, but the choice is important.

Over the last few months, I've attended a number of different seminars and workshops aimed at women in business. Most recently, I was a participant at the National Women's Enterprise Day in Mullingar on November 21st. The event was organised by county and city enterprise boards in partnership with other State agencies and had the aim of giving women all the information they needed to set up a business or expand their business, so promote female entrepreneurship in a practical and supportive way.

As the organisers pointed out, the three most common causes of failure of businesses run by women are lack of proper financing, lack of experience and lack of training - issues not solely faced by women but perhaps ones that hold us back more than our male colleagues.

The day was very successful with well over 300 delegates attending, all of whom were either running their own businesses or thinking about starting off on their own.

When you attend an event like this, you realise how many women have great business potential, but you also see that many of us have very different ideas of business models than men. There is usually a greater emphasis of businesses to do with health, wellbeing and childcare.

Until recently, I probably would have thought about these as "soft" business ventures, wondering if women are to be perpetually stuck in the "home and beauty" category when it comes to entrepreneurship. Yet, in an age when we're bombarded with messages about lifestyle choices, looking after ourselves has to be a growth industry.

I got another take on it when I attended some of the Science Week lectures last week. I would have loved to attend them all but I chose the talk by US astronaut Joe Edwards (I'd once dreamed of being an astronaut) and the session on the science of beauty, which focused on the myriad claims of the beauty industry and the scientific research behind them.

According to Edwards, women make good astronauts. Back at the start of the space programme, though, the idea of blasting women into orbit with the potential of killing them wasn't acceptable to the US people, so the guys got the gig.

The Science of Beauty panel included Dr Raniero De Stasio, who is the scientific director of L'Oreal UK. I'm hugely sceptical regarding the promises of any beauty product to roll back the years and turn me into a fresh- faced dewy thing all over again, but I did enjoy the discussion and the science behind the products was very interesting.

More interesting, though, was L'Oreal's commitment to women in science. In 1998, it joined forces with Unesco to create the For Women in Science Partnership, which awards grants to promising young women scientists and fellowships to young women at doctoral level to pursue scientific research.

I like the idea of women working in science and I like the idea that beauty companies would have women scientists working for them.

I would like to think that whatever I'm slapping on my face has been developed by a woman (although keeping it out of the sun still seems to be the best anti-ageing move in the view of the scientists).

If you're a woman in science you should check out the L'Oreal awards at www.for womeninscience.com. If you're an entrepreneur, www.nwed. typepad.com has information that might be of interest to you.

Because you're worth it.

www.sheilaoflanagan.net