Most female entrepreneurs support families, almost all started their own businesses out of a desire to be in charge, and many find obstacles in high taxes and endless bureaucracy. Those are the results of a survey of more than 36,000 businesses by the New York Women’s Agenda and New York City Comptroller Alan Hevesi.

The results show that 83 percent of women entrepreneurs have achieved some form of higher education. Further, 61 percent used personal savings to start the business. They cite feelings of self-worth and wanting to be one's own boss as the biggest motivators. All had something to say about what would make their business more successful. Twenty-three percent would like lower business taxes.

These comments spurred Comptroller Hevesi to call for specific reforms, including one targeted at making the certification process easier for women-owned businesses. He also called for the elimination of the tax on the kind of business that almost 40 percent of these women have created. It is rare, but welcome, to hear of a politician calling for fewer taxes and regulations. Being in business for oneself, after all, is hard work, necessitating financial sacrifice and great investments of time.

It is instructive to notice that the majority of women who felt they could make these sacrifices and investments are those who have already earned money and devoted resources to higher education. What of the poor, for whom the feelings of self-worth and the desire to be one's own boss are just as important as for anyone else? Barriers of bureaucracy and taxes can easily thwart all but the most determined.

This survey of the women entrepreneurs of New York City is a lesson in what it takes to be successful, and which elements of government present the most difficult hurdles. But this lesson is not gender specific. Though the New York City Comptroller and the New York Women’s Agenda both thought it necessary to highlight women, these results could have been found in any group of entrepreneurs. Indeed, it is almost embarrassing that these groups thought that this answer might be different for different genders. Of course, if the usual political rhetoric were true, they wouldn’t be half wrong.

According to the latest popular media perceptions, women’s issues are somehow different than men's issues. Women are concerned about children and health care. Men are concerned about taxes and business. This soft discrimination is not perpetrated by the traditional bad guys, but by the very people who call themselves women's advocates. Women’s groups, such as NOW, are effective at dividing women from men and insinuating that men’s and women’s interests are radically different.

Fortunately, many women, like those in New York’s survey, know the way things really work. The biggest item they didn’t ask for was another committee or survey devoted to discovering issues. They may get more attention than the men, but the pats on the head and posts on special committees aren’t nearly as important to them as getting the government off their backs.