Feminism, Post-Feminism, and Emerging Femininities in Entrepreneurship

Set within the context of a consideration of the cultural phenomenon of postfeminism, the focus of this chapter is an exploration of the issue of femininity and entrepreneurship, which unlike masculinity and its relationship with entrepreneurial activity, has had relatively little research attention directed at it. Drawing on three postfeminine factors—individualism, choice, and empowerment; notions of ‘natural’ sexual difference; retreat to the home—the chapter identifies four emerging entrepreneurial femininities including individualized entrepreneurial femininity, maternal entrepreneurial femininity, relational entrepreneurial femininity, and excessive entrepreneurial femininity. The chapter argues that these are embedded within a historically specific postfeminist context and incorporate transformations in popularly available understandings of femaleness and women’s positioning in the contemporary world of work.