Damsels in distress: Discourses of entrepreneurship in management textbooks

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to provide insight into the discursive foundations of entrepreneurial identity for women in Canada by examining the social positions, representations and spaces they take in introductory business textbooks. We ask three questions: (1) What issues of power and discourses related to gender are subsumed in Canadian textbooks? (2) In what way is gender represented in texts of entrepreneurship in Canadian management education? (3) How are women portrayed in entrepreneurship texts? The data that we draw upon comes from 13 Canadian management textbooks that have been used in introductory business courses to teach students about the functions of business. By narrowing in on content in entrepreneurship education, we use poststructural feminism as a lens to interrogate gendered discourses that influence what and how students are taught about the ideals of entrepreneurship in undergraduate business programs in Canada. Our findings suggest that the entrepreneurship texts studied were overly gendered in masculine terms, serving to privilege the experience of male business while simultaneously marginalizing the representation of women entrepreneurs. We argue that marginalizing women in textbooks may form barriers to their interest and participation in entrepreneurial pursuits, and thereby call on scholars and practitioners to reconsider the importance of equality in materials used in the classroom.