"But part of it might also be necessity. Let's be realistic. We do have larger families here. And the idea of one breadwinner in the home is, I guess you'd say, getting harder and harder to do. There are more families headed by single parents. Single moms. And to their credit, many single moms are taking initiative and starting their own businesses."

Ze Min Xiao, assistant director of the Women's Business Center at the Salt Lake Chamber, said the notion of "workplace flexibility" is also gaining traction.

"There are so many qualified woman workers in this state," she said. "In order to maintain the flexibility needed — and to make extra money — many start their own businesses."

The desire for workplace flexibility — a concept that can include flexible scheduling, child and elder care and a greater emphasis on physical and psychological wellness — isn't exclusive to women or Utah, according to Xiao. But the state's reputation for its focus on family does "match up" with economic statistics related to women in the workplace, she said.

Reddy, who owns McKinnon-Mulherin with Shauna Bona, provided a perspective that is at once straightforward but that also may hint at something more complicated.

"I don't know that I am entrepreneurial by nature, but I suppose I do like to have a say in things," Reddy said. "I think Shauna and I felt that we could take what we knew and what we had learned at various companies and develop something new and better. For our vision to work and to do it the way we thought best, we had to do it ourselves . . . .

"I think there are a lot of women-owned businesses here and across the country because women want a chance to be in charge, to put their vision to work and to reshape the work world."

The July 23 issue of The Economist magazine, in a special report on women in business, posed some questions that may be just below the surface of that notion: "Why is it proving so difficult for women to reach the top of corporations? Are they simply less ambitious, less excited by the idea of limitless (albeit first-class) travel, late nights and the onerous responsibility imposed by mounting regulation?"

The Economist said the American businesswomen it surveyed "gave three main explanations why so few of them reach 'C-level' — that group of executives who preface their titles with the word 'chief.' "

The women said they are excluded from informal networks — the round of golf or pick-up game, the boozy late nights at a club — in which much business is still conducted.

Second, the magazine said respondents pointed to "a pervasive stereotyping of women's capacity for leadership." And third was a lack of role models for up-and-coming female executives.

Which may be the key components of the long-bemoaned "glass ceiling" — and evidence that it remains. Xiao said there are indications the ceiling is unbroken in Utah.