Queer theory and entrepreneurial discourses: gender inequalities and alternative forms of analysis toward entrepreneuring

Abstract

Abstract Traditionally, entrepreneurial discourses present entrepreneurship as gender-neutral, positioning the male entrepreneur as “normal” and the female as the “other.” These discourses contribute to a reproduction of whom may become the successful entrepreneur, showing relations of inequalities and logic of binary comparison among men and women. Supported by poststructuralist feminist approaches about gender and entrepreneurship using queer theory, this conceptual paper aims to problematize how gender inequalities are exacerbated by the relations of power in entrepreneurship and what are the resistance possibilities that may reduce such inequalities? Propositions for possible remedy is an alternative way to understand the identity of the female entrepreneur and the analysis of the entrepreneurial practices, allowing entrepreneurship to be viewed as organizing, queering identities, and queering entrepreneurship based on entrepreneuring.