ABSTRACT
Within this chapter we offer an overview of critical arguments that analyse the influence of gender upon women’s propensity and performance in terms of creating and managing entrepreneurial ventures. Whilst it is now recognised that gendered ascriptions critically influence the entrepreneurial activity of women, the literature has largely focused upon women as a homogeneous category to explain this thesis (Marlow, 2014). Developing a critical discourse exposing the inherent gender bias within the ontological foundations of entrepreneurship theory and practice has been essential to recognising how discriminatory assumptions fundamentally shape understandings of ‘who or what’ is an entrepreneur (Gartner, 1989). Such debate (Ahl and Marlow, 2012; Henry, Fosse and Ahl, 2015) has exposed the normative stereotype of the entrepreneur to be a white, middle-class, middle-aged male, which conceptually and empirically narrows understanding of entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial behaviour. Thus, the critical analysis of the influence of gender upon women’s propensity for, and experiences of, business venturing has been of fundamental and far-reaching importance in challenging the prevailing axioms that have informed contemporary understanding of the phenomenon of entrepreneurship. In addition, this academic focus of enquiry has spilled over into policy debate and development worldwide. Encouraging more women to engage with business venturing is deemed highly desirable to address issues ranging from poverty alleviation in developing nations (Scott, Dolan, Johnston-Louis, Sugden and Wu, 2012), post-conflict empowerment (Tobias, Mair and Barbosa-Leiker, 2013), refugee poverty (Al Dajani and Marlow, 2010) unemployment and flexible working in developed economies (Jayawarna, Rouse and Kitching, 2013), and impediments to advancement faced by women in the corporate context (Patterson and Mavin, 2009; Weyer, 2007). Consequently, the analytical exposure of gendered bias within assumptions underpinning entrepreneurial activities has fuelled an academic debate that has grown in scope and complexity (Calás et al., 2007; Carter et al., 2015; De Bruin et al., 2007; Klyver et al., 2013; Marlow and McAdam, 2013; Mavin and Grandy, 2012) and also prompted a wide-scale policy response: for example, recent UK government initiatives to fund and support women entrepreneurs through 16mentoring programmes and facilitating access to broadband Internet (Government Equalities Office, 2014a and 2014b).
