Woman’s entrepreneurship as a gendered niche: the implications for regional development policy

Exploring the false promise of entrepreneurship through a postfeminist critique of the enterprise policy discourse in Sweden and the UK

Richard T Harrison, Claire M Leitch and Maura McAdam

Journal of Economic Geography, 2020, vol. 20, issue 4, 1041-1067

Abstract: In this article, we argue that entrepreneurship is a socio-spatial embedded activity and that the social construction of gender, time, space, economy and culture is manifest in the masculinities that are ascribed a normative role in entrepreneurship development policies. Drawing on feminist approaches to articulate and perform resistance to the hegemonic ‘masculinist’ discourses on entrepreneurship, we argue that women’s entrepreneurship is contextually embedded in institutional and social structures that both limit and provide opportunities for its enactment. Regional economic development policy has focused, inter alia, on stimulating and supporting women’s entrepreneurship through the establishment of women-only entrepreneurial networks to provide support, role models and access to resources. Grounded in feminist geography and based on a detailed qualitative study of network managers and members of formally established women-only networks, we provide evidence of the disconnect between the emancipatory intent and the actual impact of these initiatives. While these networks aim to empower and encourage women into entrepreneurship, in practice, they perpetuate women’s marginalisation and ghettoisation in gendered niches.

Keywords: Women’s entrepreneurship; niche theory; gendered niches; women-only networks; regional entrepreneurship policy; feminist geography (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: L26 L38 O18 R11 R58 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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