Still Bringing Up the Rear : Why Women Will Always Be ‘Other’ in Entrepreneurship’s Masculine Instrumental Discourse

Joan Lockyer, Cherisse Hoyte and Sunita Dewitt put forward an agenda that demands, rather than encourages, parity between the sexes in terms of entrepreneurial performance. Reconceptualizing entrepreneurship, the authors review the discourse on women’s entrepreneurship by highlighting key aspects of the discourse, including entrepreneurship, instrumentality and women entrepreneurs as ‘Others’. Engaging in this debate, the authors highlight the need to challenge the construction of all three concepts in the field of women’s entrepreneurship and illustrate how the concept of the entrepreneur is limiting for women. They suggest the importance of using a feminist lens in exploring the ‘Otherness’ of women, as a feminist stance on the field of entrepreneurship would help build new theory and clarify the challenges women entrepreneurs face