Women Entrepreneurs, Islam and the Middle Class

Abstract

The emergence of middle-class Muslim women entrepreneurs known as mompreneurs is an intriguing social phenomenon. In this book, Sakai and Fauzia show that becoming a Muslim mompreneur is a considered response of middle-class Muslim women to modernity. This chapter provides theoretical discussions on middle-class entrepreneurialism and women, and our approach to examining women’s agency. We focus on Indonesia as the largest Muslim-dominant country and cover other countries in the Asia–Pacific. In this book, narratives of women, social media, government policies and responses from Muslim women’s organisations will be examined to analyse women’s perceptions about their gender roles. The authors argue that middle-class Muslim mompreneurs are shifting the gender power balance within the framework of Islam.KeywordsBusinessGender rolesIslamModernityMompreneursMiddle classRole models