By: Ritika Shah

Owning a business can be hard enough, but women entrepreneurs can face additional hurdles, especially if they try to go it alone.

“When you’re too strong as a business owner, you’re a b—-. … And if you’re too weak, then you’re a wimp,” said Carolyn DeVito, owner of two Erika Cole Salon & Spa stores on New York’s Long Island.

Some of it boils down to respect. “There’s a fine line that you can’t or you shouldn’t or you try hard not to cross so that people will respect you without looking at you like, you know, ‘Oh, there goes her hormones again,'” DeVito said.

Sadly, she’s not the only woman in business to have heard that.

A 2007 study by women’s advocacy organization Catalyst found that 52.7 percent of male and female respondents described this “double-bind dilemma.”