TY - JOUR

T1 - Opportunity or burden? Shifting femininities and women’s experiences in a pre-professional business leadership setting

AU - Lommel, Lillan

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © The Author(s) 2024.

PY - 2024/2

Y1 - 2024/2

N2 - In this exploratory study, I analyse women’s experiences in a pre-professional business leadership setting. I adopt a perspective of structural contraints and conceptually draw on the construction of the ‘ideal’ female subject in late modernity and ‘new’ femininities. I argue that, although they are shifting, femininities persist to be a structurally rooted burden for assuming leadership roles for the women in this study. I develop my argument based on four interviews with women from an entrepreneurship programme in the United Kingdom. These women experience a double-bind in being a woman and being a leader and, importantly, anticipate further experience of such double-bind in the future. This creates a tension between their constructions of self, in which the women draw on ‘post-feminist’ discourses, and their experiences of inequalities. This research, hence, improves our understanding of women’s experiences in busines leadership settings by looking at the early-career stage, a perspective which is currently underdeveloped in the literature. This research also links women’s experiences in business leadership settings to the construction of the ‘ideal’ female subject and ‘new’ femininities by drawing on empirical data. The essay builds a starting point for further research by providing initial insights into these topics.

AB - In this exploratory study, I analyse women’s experiences in a pre-professional business leadership setting. I adopt a perspective of structural contraints and conceptually draw on the construction of the ‘ideal’ female subject in late modernity and ‘new’ femininities. I argue that, although they are shifting, femininities persist to be a structurally rooted burden for assuming leadership roles for the women in this study. I develop my argument based on four interviews with women from an entrepreneurship programme in the United Kingdom. These women experience a double-bind in being a woman and being a leader and, importantly, anticipate further experience of such double-bind in the future. This creates a tension between their constructions of self, in which the women draw on ‘post-feminist’ discourses, and their experiences of inequalities. This research, hence, improves our understanding of women’s experiences in busines leadership settings by looking at the early-career stage, a perspective which is currently underdeveloped in the literature. This research also links women’s experiences in business leadership settings to the construction of the ‘ideal’ female subject and ‘new’ femininities by drawing on empirical data. The essay builds a starting point for further research by providing initial insights into these topics.

KW - entrepreneurship

KW - Femininity

KW - leadership

KW - post-feminist discourse

KW - pre-professional business setting

KW - women’s lived experiences

KW - Gender and Diversity

KW - Management studies

KW - Cultural Distribution/Cultural Organization

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85186571839&partnerID=8YFLogxK

UR - https://www.mendeley.com/catalogue/1f3866f5-25f7-3e55-8256-45233aeee9bb/

U2 - 10.1177/13505068241233393

DO - 10.1177/13505068241233393

M3 - Journal articles

AN - SCOPUS:85186571839

VL - 31

SP - 121

EP - 133

JO - European Journal of Women's Studies

JF - European Journal of Women's Studies

SN - 1350-5068

IS - 1

ER -