You're Overlooking This Hidden Workforce — And It's Costing You Moms aren't just great multitaskers. They're leaders. It's time we started treating them that way.

By Asia Solnyshkina Edited by Micah Zimmerman

Key Takeaways

  • Moms are skilled, resilient workers — not a hiring risk.
  • Internalized bias prevents us from seeing caregiving as leadership.
  • Hiring women and moms strengthens teams and drives business success.

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

What if I told you that there's a huge pool of potential employees who have mastered multitasking, are remarkably resilient, emotionally intelligent and well-trained? And they rarely complain? Also, they are easy to find. Sounds like a dream, right?

Those people are moms. Moms are patient and hard-working. We, women, are expecting it from ourselves.

Women remain underrepresented in leadership (still less than 30% in C-suite roles in the US). Women are often sidelined not because of a lack of skill or ambition, but by systemic and internalized barriers.

The invisible weight

As a mom of two, for many years, I lived with the illusion that feminism had already won. They gave me, as a woman, all the rights to work and build my own career, right? I didn't understand why it felt so hard.

I thought that I was the problem, and nobody else felt how I felt. I didn't recognize how deeply internalized misogyny shaped my own perception of myself. How I self-censored that I was a startup founder, a strategist and a product builder. But I always wanted to have kids, and just as I began raising my neurodivergent daughter, I fully understood how invisible, unpaid labor reshapes your view of worth and self-worth.

In a recent piece I wrote for Entrepreneur, I described how building a support system for my daughter mirrored the structure of my startup: managing a team, setting milestones and adapting quickly to change. Yet no one sees a mother creating a schedule for her child caregivers as a founder. And that's the problem. We don't frame caregiving (even for neurotypical children) — deeply complex, managerial work — as leadership because we've been taught not to.

Related: On Momternships: Do Working Moms Really Need to Start From Scratch?

Internalized misogyny: The quiet enforcer

Patriarchy is not over, it's simply gone underground — and women often enforce it themselves. Internalized misogyny tells us to downplay our success, to self-edit our voices, to view nurturing as separate from leadership, not a strength of it.

I was at a tech conference in Las Vegas, and noticed something weird. There was no line in front of the women's restroom. Meanwhile, the men queued up. Usually, it's the other way around. That small observation hit me hard. Women are still so few in my industry.

And let's talk about expectations: women are expected to perform in their jobs, maintain the household, raise children and stay emotionally available. And on top of it all, keep manicured hands. The double burden is real, and it's draining.

Why it's a business issue, not just a social one

It's not just unfair. It's inefficient. Businesses lose when they ignore how gendered expectations exclude half the talent pool. Even in 2025, women are less likely to apply for leadership roles if job descriptions skew masculine. And when AI image generators are asked to create a "CEO," the result is always a white, middle-aged man (try it!). That bias isn't the machine's fault. It reflects the data (and the bias) we've fed it, which means if we want to change the output, we need to change the input.

That includes our own minds.

Related: How Moms Build Empires with Love and Grit

Why I hire women and moms specifically

At my company, 80% of the team are women, and most are moms. I hire them not as a favor, but because they're some of the strongest professionals I've ever worked with. Motherhood teaches you how to prioritize fast, manage chaos and keep moving no matter what because you have no time to waste.

Mothers are disciplined, emotionally intelligent and deeply committed. My own mom told me, "I wouldn't have built my career without you." And I feel the same. My kids didn't slow me down; they gave me a whole new sense of purpose. I see that same fire in the women I hire. And when they're supported, they shine.

What can businesses do right now?

This isn't about rewriting your entire corporate structure overnight. But here's what you can start doing today to unlock an incredible workforce:

  • Audit your job postings for gendered language. Research shows that ads emphasizing traits like "aggressive" and "competitive" attract dramatically fewer female applicants than those highlighting "enthusiasm" and "innovation."
  • Offer flexibility not just as a benefit, but as a baseline. Women offered high flexibility are far more productive and loyal — 66 % say they'd stay with a flexible employer three‑plus years, compared with just 19 % when flexibility is absent. 
  • Mentor — and sponsor — upward. A lack of influential sponsors, not skills, is a primary reason women stall before the C‑suite.
  • Challenge the bias. Whether in AI tools, team feedback, or hiring panels, be proactive in asking, "Who's missing here?"

Because when we include more women, we don't just create equity. We build better businesses.

Asia Solnyshkina

Entrepreneur Leadership Network® Contributor

CEO of ProSense.Digital

Asia Solnyshkina is a tech entrepreneur, product strategist, and founder of ProSense—a remote-first software agency working across Latin America, the Middle East, and the CIS. She leads award-winning digital projects, balancing global growth with advocacy as a mom of a child with a rare disease.

Want to be an Entrepreneur Leadership Network contributor? Apply now to join.

Business News

McKinsey Is Using AI to Create PowerPoints and Take Over Junior Employee Tasks: 'Technology Could Do That'

Over 75% of McKinsey employees now use the internal AI tool Lilli, which safely handles confidential information.

Business News

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman Says AI Agents Are Like a Team of 'Junior Employees'

AI is already replacing entry-level hiring at some Big Tech companies.

Business News

'Pre-Boarding Scam': Customers Furious at Southwest Airlines After 20 Passengers Ask For Wheelchair Assistance to Board

A viral tweet is slamming the airline's wheelchair policy for boarding and disembarking.

Business Ideas

70 Small Business Ideas to Start in 2025

We put together a list of the best, most profitable small business ideas for entrepreneurs to pursue in 2025.

Business News

Microsoft Is Laying Off More Workers as AI Continues to Trim Workforces

The tech giant laid off another 305 workers this week after cutting more than 6,000 roles in May.

Business News

A Hot Chicken Chain Founded in 2017 Was Just Acquired for $1 Billion: 'One of the Great Entrepreneurial Journeys of our Time'

Four childhood friends took Dave's Hot Chicken from portable fryers in a parking lot to a billion-dollar restaurant acquisition.