Independant means that she works by herself, and not with a stable of other women.   OTOH not every woman is a web wizard, nor does every woman want to answer the phone, so they hire consultants to handle those duties.   Using your logic, it could be argued that the phone company is her employee since they are providing a service of the phone line.

That does not make the woman an agency, nor does it take away from her being an independant woman.   It just means that some of the things that she is not good at are performed by others she is paying to do so.  They are most certainly not her employees.

I consider a woman independant if she is free to change her rates/hours, etc., and keeps all the money she makes (except for her expenses)