Abstract:
The success of any economy, South Africa included, lies on the success and number of entrepreneurship ventures. Over the years, women entrepreneurs in various industries have been rising up and taking on the business environment as the male counterparts. However, due to discrimination and biasness that has been shown towards women for so many years, this research set out to identify the challenges that women entrepreneurs in Pietermaritzburg face and to determine whether gender empowerment is truly being practiced. The main challenge of this research was getting an estimated population of women entrepreneurs in Pietermaritzburg as the departments that source this information were not forth coming for a reason that remains unknown. However, this challenge was then sorted by using a different type of data collection method. The data collection method which was used was the snowball sampling method because without having an estimated population, a sample size could not be calculated and neither was a list found with names of women entrepreneurs. Therefore, the participants of this research was based on references. The most significant findings included how motivated the sampled interviewees who were all women entrepreneurs have chosen to overcome the challenges they face. This research contributes to the current way government departments and support groups operate by just towards all entrepreneurs and conducting activities that focus on the business aspect.
