by Jennifer Barrett, Newsweek, USA - Women now own at least a 50 percent stake in nearly 10.4 million U.S. firms—about 41 percent of all privately held companies. But less than 3 percent of those women-owned businesses have achieved revenues of $1 million or more, according to the Center for Women's Business Research (CWBR), a nonprofit research institute. That's half the percentage of male-owned businesses that have reached that milestone. For the past two decades the number of majority-women-owned firms has grown at an impressive rate—around two times the rate of all firms, according to the CWBR—yet their revenues continue to lag behind. "There have been barriers in the system and barriers in our heads," says Nell Merlino, co-founder and CEO of Count Me In.