International Women’s Day is a day to celebrate the social, cultural and political achievements of women. 

Given the current ever-changing political world, it’s important to celebrate, educate and raise awareness about gender equality now more than ever.  

With that in mind, I spoke to some of York’s female business owners to find out about their entrepreneurial journey and get their take on what it’s like to be part of a male dominated industry. 

Alex Hall is the owner and founder of ‘Born of Botanics’ on 14 Stonegate York.

Before starting her business, Alex worked a corporate job for 20 years and started making candles as a hobby, shortly after that, her candles featured in a regional magazine.

She went onto make a label for a Michelin Star restaurant, and a candle for an ex-Mulberry director and before she knew it, she was in business!

Hall said that the corporate world she was in prior to starting her business was “extremely male dominated.”

Hall’s advice to women wanting to start their own business is: “Just do it, you know, you’ll only regret the things you didn’t do, always take the risk, always try, worst case scenario, you can always go out and get another job but always give it a go!”

Rebecca Hargreaves is the founder and owner of York Podiatry Ltd, Arabesque House, Monks Cross Drive.

In 2005, Rebecca was made redundant from her post when the podiatry service at the Boots store she worked at closed.

Unlike her colleagues who she had worked with, Rebecca didn’t have NHS experience and wanted to stay in the private sector so after speaking to a friend, she decided to start her own practice.

Speaking on being made redundant, Rebecca said: “I always wanted to have my own practice so it was the perfect opportunity.”

She continued, saying: “It came earlier than I envisaged but it was a leap of faith and I took it.”

Rebecca said that she initially faced a lot of struggles.

When she first started, she found out she was pregnant but that didn’t stop her because she and her friend still went ahead with opening the practice.

She said that “navigating being pregnant in the early stages was really difficult but we got there.”

Finding a location for her new practice proved challenging at the beginning of her entrepreneurial journey too but it was her “network of women who helped find the location in the end.”

Rebecca has now been running her practice for 17 years.

Tracie Jarvis-Post is the Director of Made in Yorkshire and JP Interiors.

Tracie Jarvis-Post graduated from York St John University in 1992 and went straight into running her own business.

After graduating, she intended to travel however a business opportunity arose which she said was “too good an opportunity to pass on” and she “had nothing to lose” so went for it.

She found that there weren’t many jobs in the corporate world at the time so just went with the flow and started creating her own products, which led to her starting her first business in 1993.

When asked about the gender pay gap, Jarvis-Post said that she has never had to experience this since she is her own boss but explained that “when you first set up a business, you operate on very small funds.”

Tracie was sponsored by The Prince’s Youth Business Trust at the beginning of her entrepreneurial journey and was recognised by the Trust, winning a few business and regional business competitions.

She was then asked by the Trust to be a mentor which was the first time she had experienced being in the corporate world with men.

When she arrived at her first meeting, she said that “everyone in the room was male apart from myself, I was the only female in the group.”

Tracie said that being the only woman in the room “was intimidating to start with” but when she realised why they’d invited her, she could see that they needed her experience and fresh perspective on the business world.

She said that her self belief, the fact that she knew what she was doing and the confidence she had in her own business ideas gave her reassurance that she was meant to be in the room.

When asked what advice she would give to women starting a business, Jarvis-Post says: “you’ve got to kind of fake it ’til you make it. The more success you have, that confidence starts to build naturally so present yourself as you want to be perceived.”

“I have felt proud being a woman in business all these years.”