The scientific reproduction of gender inequality : a discourse analysis of research texts on women's entrepreneurship Upplaga 1

Departing from a social constructionist understanding of gender, this book examines how the female entrepreneur is constructed in research articles. It finds that even if the texts celebrate women's entrepreneurship, they do it in such a way as to recreate women's secondary position in society. Despite research results to the contrary, many texts insist that the genders are different and construct three kinds of arguments in support of this. One is making a mountain out of a molehill, i.e. stressing small differences while ignoring similarities. Another is the self-selected woman, which proclaims women entrepreneurs as unusual women. The third is called the good mother and consists of molding an alternative, feminine model of entrepreneurship while leaving the dominant, male gendered model intact. These arguments reproduce the idea of essential gender differences and the idea of the woman as the weaker sex. Through a detailed analysis of underlying assumptions and taken for granted research practices, this book explains how research reproduces gender inegulities, and by the same token enables alternative ways of researching gender issues. Helene Ahl is a research fellow at Jonkoping International Business School, and at the School of Education and Communication at Jonkoping University. She lectures within the fields of organization theory and gender theory. Her current research interests are within feminist analysis and organizational learning.