Gender Bias – It’s All In Your Head

By now you have probably heard of a scandal that recently erupted last week which involved a well known freelance writer who built her business by pretending to be a man. James, of Men with Pens, posted a confession over at Copyblogger explaining the circumstances which led her to perpetrate the deception.

To grind the gritty details down to a point, through her experiences James came to feel she earned more money and respect pretending to be a man than she did when people knew she was a woman. She felt there was a gender bias being perpetuated in the online community that played a hand in how she was treated by her customers.

Everything I know about Entrepreneurship I learned from Spongebob Squarepants

Now I know what you’re thinking. What does Spongebob Squarepants have to do with entrepreneurship? More importantly, what’s a grown woman like me doing watching kid’s cartoons? Let’s just say I have peculiar tastes in television shows and leave it at that.

Spongebob Squarepants is an animated show that highlights the antics of a quirky little sea sponge that lives in a pineapple in an underwater city called Bikini Bottom. His best friends are a starfish named Patrick Starr, who literally lives under a rock, and a squirrel named Sandy Cheeks, who lives in an underwater bio-dome. The show has been on the air since 1999 and is one of Nickelodeon’s top rated and longest running shows.

Spongebob is what I like to call a clueless newbie. He has no idea how the world works and no plans to change that. For him, life is all about working at a fast food restaurant and chasing jelly fish. So he would seem to be the most unlikely suspect to teach anyone, anything about something as serious as entrepreneurship. But he does. And rather charmingly, I might add.