When patriarchy and individualism collide: experiences of women entrepreneurial leaders

Purpose Through a feminist lens, the study explores women’s experiences of entrepreneurial leadership in the UK and how the women manage competing and contrary patriarchal and individualism discourses and associated discursive paradox. Design/methodology/approach This study follows social constructionism and Feminist Standpoint Research approach, providing space for women to voice and contextualise lived experiences from multiple standpoints. The study comprises five cases of women entrepreneurs in IT, law, construction, beauty and childcare, using a two-stage semi-structured interview process analysed through discourse analysis. Findings This study provides new insights into the entrenched patriarchal socio-cultural context for women entrepreneurial leaders in the UK. The competing discourses provoke a discursive paradox, which dominates and oppresses women. This is managed through a process of discursive blending, blurring and merging contrary discursive expectations. The women use the individualism discourse to obscure patriarchy’s domination and as a resource to resist patriarchal gender power relations. To blend the discourses, the women use particular tactics: engaging in patriarchal bargains, such as “dressing not to impress”; can sidestep and manoeuvre these bargains and can utilise “patriarchal advantages”, turning gender oppression into benefits by “working it positively”. Originality/value This study addresses the lack of research interrogating patriarchy in the Global North and the absence of understandings of how women entrepreneurial leaders manage the competing and contrary discourses of patriarchy and individualism, which actively shape their experiences. The study illuminates the significance and increasing requirement for feminism to disrupt the ever-increasing power of patriarchy in entrepreneurship.