Rendering sexism invisible in workplace narratives. A narrative analysis of female entrepreneurs’ stories of not being talked to by men

Abstract

Entrepreneurism is widely regarded as being one way in which women can sidestep the sexism of male‐dominated institutionalized work environments and enter into a world in which men and women operate on a level playing field. Yet, in a corpus of stories of female entrepreneurs’ experiences, we noted that being ignored by men was a constant theme. Taking a social constructionist and narrative approach to identity, we analyse the gendered identity work that female entrepreneurs do in these stories and we seek to explicate the process through which female entrepreneurs do not evaluate being ignored by men as sexism‐in‐action. Using positioning theory as an analytical tool, we analyse these stories at three different levels: the here‐and‐now interaction between interviewer and storyteller; the there‐and‐then identity work of the characters in the storyworld; and the wider societal Discourses that the storytellers enact, and which are enacted by such identity work. Findings indicate that despite making gendered difference, inferiority and lack of agency relevant, the stories are not evaluated as sexism‐in‐action because the female entrepreneurs enact a postfeminist and neoliberal Discourse of freedom, autonomy and choice, rather than a feminist Discourse of discrimination and sexism.

Determinants of female entrepreneurship success across Saudi Arabia

“…Despite all these initiatives of the KSA government, female entrepreneurs encounter an apparent style of discrimination in their fights to contribute in the economic development of their own nation. This stems from the many confronts females handle in regard to entrepreneurship, most of the difficulties being founded on the ground of their gender (Jones & Clifton, 2017;Smith-Hunter, 2006). Among many challenges are restricted access to financial funds to support females establish their own businesses, less support from community, and control of the business by male partners who act as a barrier to the success of females.…”

Managing menopause at work: The contradictory nature of identity talk

“…This article draws on individual identity narrative (Brown, 2015; Caza et al, 2018; Ibarra, 1999; Jones & Clifton, 2018) but also considers the nuances of identity formation through a discursive self, or identity talk (Ybema et al, 2009). The individual narrative of identity was driven by participants’ social and organizational contexts (Bowman et al, 2017; Warhurst & Nickson, 2009).…”

“…Identity talk, as a form of discursive articulation, encourages an ongoing iteration between the social self and self‐definition, between what is performed or displayed and what is perceived (Ybema et al, 2009). Identity talk is the performance of identity (Jones & Clifton, 2018). The role of language becomes part of one's identity (Caza et al, 2018; Ybema et al, 2009), informing how the body is presented to others and understood by the self.…”

“…It is this positioning of self through the body in relation to others that offers workers with “imagined referents as symbolic rallying points” (Ybema et al, 2009). Identity construction and negotiation at work are “chaotic, sometimes contradictory collections” of self (Alvesson et al, 2008; Jones & Clifton, 2018). Identity talk is a form of identity construction, which in turn was identified as part of identity work process (Sveningsson & Alvesson, 2003), as such, this article positions identity talk as a form of identity work.…”

The family spirit: making sense of organisational internationalisation through founder's stories

“…Baynham and De Fina argue that narrative is a rich source of data on identity work because narrative as a genre "both performs and condenses actions and assessments, evaluations and arguments about actions, giving a kind of intensifying affective focus to the recounting of the everyday" (2016:40). The 'small stories' perspective on identity shares its basic premises with other social constructionist approaches to identity work (Bucholtz and Hall, 2005;Holmes and Stubbe, 2015), as also discussed by Clifton (2014) and Jones and Clifton (2017). First of all, identity is seen as created and recreated in local interactive practices.…”