Postfeminism, Hybrid Mumpreneur Identities and the Reproduction of Masculine Entrepreneurship

Mobilising postfeminism as an analytical device, this article re-examines how womenbusiness owners discursively engage with the identity of the mumpreneur. Drawing oninterviews with female business owners, this article reconceptualises the compatibilitybetween motherhood and entrepreneurship associated with the mumpreneur, in terms of ahybrid identity that interlinks feminine and masculine behaviours connected to home andwork. Study data reveal the discursive practices present in interview accounts – choosingfamily and work, strategic mumpreneurship and enhancing the business without limits –which draw on postfeminist discourses to constitute hybrid entrepreneurial femininitiesassociated with the mumpreneur category. The article contributes to the gender andentrepreneurship literature, in particular, the scholarship on mumpreneurship, by first,showing how engagement with the mumpreneur identity is implicated in the reproduction ofmasculine entrepreneurship. Second, demonstrates how encounters with the mumpreneurcontributes to the creation of a hierarchy of entrepreneurial identities and third considers howthe mumpreneur as a hybrid identity mobilises entrepreneurship in children in genderedways. While the emergence of the mumpreneur as a contemporary entrepreneurial identityhas positively impacted on how women’s entrepreneurship is viewed, our study demonstratesthat it has not disrupted dominant discourses of masculine entrepreneurship or genderedpower relations in the entrepreneurial field.