How is the illusio of gender equality in entrepreneurship sustained? A Bourdieusian Perspective

Abstract

Copyright © 2023 The Authors. Studies of gender and entrepreneurship highlight the problematic emphasis of the gender equality discourse in entrepreneurship that ignores wider structural inequalities but provide a limited explanation of how the allure of this discourse is sustained. To address this lacuna, we draw on Bourdieu's theoretical ideas to theorize and demonstrate how certain women trade-off their capital endowments to compensate for gender inequality in entrepreneurship. Through an analysis of forty-nine biographical interviews with women entrepreneurs in London (UK), we show two forms that the ‘illusio’ of gender equality manifests: ‘illusio of work-life balance’, and ‘illusio of meritocracy’, and reveal how this doxic experience that escapes questioning and allows certain women to continue to play the game, entrenches the illusio of an entrepreneurial field free from gender bias. We thus illustrate the conditions of possibility and the various trade-off mechanisms through which gender inequality in entrepreneurship is reproduced or contested.