“You need to protect the Square and keep it vibrant,” MacDonald said. “And you do that by bringing in independent businesses.”

Numerous women have done just that by choosing Harvard Square as the ideal location to open new businesses or bring their already existing ones.

Brooke Garber, the co-founder and co-owner of Mint Julep clothing boutique, said she always felt a passion for small businesses and entrepreneurship, having grown up in a small town lined with family-owned businesses. Garber and her business partner Stephanie Nist opened their first store in Brookline, Mass., in 2004 and arrived in Harvard Square two years later.

“Harvard Square is a place that really embraces small businesses,” Nist said. “You get such a variety of people, but it also has that small community feel, which is hard to find.”

Rachel A. Wentworth, co-founder and co-owner of lingerie boutique Forty Winks, traveled a similar path to entrepreneurship. Wentworth worked in retail before opening her own store with business partner Meredith W. Donaldson in April of 2010.

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Mary-Catherine Deibel

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Denise Jillson

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Stephanie Nist

“I knew that I wanted to open my own business some day,” Wentworth said. “I always wanted to do my own thing and have control over what I did during the day.”

Having previously worked in a more regimented corporate environment, Nist said that the greatest appeal of owning a business is the flexibility it provides. She added that entrepreneurship has a particularly vital function in the lives of women by allowing them to own a business and also care for their families.

Deibel, who lauded the increase in the percentage of businesswomen in Harvard Square since her arrival in the 1980s, said she sees this expansion of female entrepreneurship as the result of a new mindset.

“I think that women have way more confidence and just expect to own the world right now,” Deibel said.

But owning the world still comes at a different price for men and women. Deibel said the income disparity between men and women still astonishes her, and the gender wage gap is one of multiple reasons why entrepreneurship can be increasingly appealing to women.

“If everybody was getting paid the same amount, there wouldn’t be an issue,” Deibel said. “That’s the reason to be an entrepreneur, since you don’t have to worry about that.”

FACING CHALLENGES TOGETHER

Female entrepreneurs may not grapple with wage discrepancies or a restrictive schedule, but the businesswomen of Harvard Square are not immune to challenges.

Deibel recalled having to contend with the preconceptions of the patriarchal business world for several years after opening her restaurant, as wine salesmen and other vendors often failed to realize that she was the owner.

Despite progress in the gender gap of the business world over the past three decades, recent entrepreneurs Wentworth and Garber echoed Deibel’s sentiments when recounting the obstacles they faced at the outset of starting their businesses.