Gender, risk and finance: why can't a woman be more like a man?

Abstract

Whilst acknowledging that the influence of gender upon women's business ownership is now included as a legitimate addition to the contemporary entrepreneurship research agenda, we question the assumptions which frame this inclusion. We argue that whilst the masculinity of the entrepreneurial discourse has been recognized, this has promoted an almost exclusive focus upon women as the cipher for and personification of the gendered subject. Using explorations of risk and business finance in the context of entrepreneurship, we demonstrate how this presumption ascribes women a discrete but generic theoretical and empirical status associated with weakness and lack. Drawing upon a feminist stance, we suggest that the framing of this contemporary critique, rather than addressing the gender blindness endemic within entrepreneurship, actually generates ontological biases and associated epistemological limitations which perpetuate female disadvantage. These, in turn, constrain the theoretical and empirical reach of the broader field of entrepreneurship research.

Family embeddedness and entrepreneurship experience: a study of Indian migrant women entrepreneurs in Australia

“…the phenomenon of migrant women's entrepreneurship is shaped by the effects of 'gender, ethnicity/migrant' as well as the environment in which they operate (Amine and Staub 2009;Baycan-Levent 2010). Although perceptions are changing, it is widely established that women throughout the world are expected to be the primary care giver for their family and have principal responsibility for looking after children (de Bruin, Brush, and Welter 2006;Amine and Staub 2009;Marlow and Swail 2014). this persisting view of women as primary care givers affects their entrepreneurship experiences in multiple ways.…”

“…First, women's family responsibilities and duties as primary carers encourage them towards part-time work, which tends to be devalued as it does not reflect the masculinized pattern of full-time employment (Marlow and McAdam 2012). Second, women are perceived as less capable as entrepreneurs because entrepreneurial actions are generally associated with men who are seen as the main bread winners for families (de Bruin, Brush, and Welter 2006;Marlow and Swail 2014). Finally, women are also reported to face varying amounts of resistance from society due to 'socially constructed expectations that they will undertake primary responsibility for domestic labour and child care' accompanied by traditional male stereotyping of women (Amine and Staub 2009;Jamali 2009;Marlow and McAdam 2012, 118).…”

“…these include: role complexities and juggling work with family; the encountering of similar problems when they start their business; and the unique challenges faced in the local domestic market as opposed to their male counterparts (Amine and Staub 2009). Among the challenges faced by women, prominent are the problems associated with funding (de Bruin, Brush, and Welter 2006;Jamali 2009;Marlow and Swail 2014), the family-work-life balance issue (Jennings and McDougald 2007;Amine and Staub 2009;Brush and Cooper 2012), human capital constraints (Jamali 2009;Brush and Cooper 2012), negative social acceptance and perceptions about women entrepreneurs (Jamali 2009;Marlow and McAdam 2012) and their lack of social capital. these challenges also resonate with the other multi-faceted problems faced by MWEs.…”

Women entrepreneurs’ financing revisited: taking stock and looking forward

“…First, we are concerned that research and policy on women entrepreneurs' financing remains predicated on the deficit model, the "why a women entrepreneur can't be more like a man?" approach (Marlow and Swail 2014). In particular, policy often still reflects such an implicit deficit model: Women entrepreneurs have small businesses, therefore, they only require small amounts of funding -resulting in (yet) another micro credit fund.…”

Gender in sustainable entrepreneurship: evidence from the UK

“…Although literature does not suggest there is any fixed association between socialized gender and biological sex (Fischer et al, 1993;Fine, 2010), gendered characteristics are employed as a sense-making apparatus (Marlow and Swail, 2014). This construct embodies the subordination of the feminine within the binary hierarchy through the male or female body (Buttner, 1993).…”