All About Patriarchal Segregation of Work Regarding Family? Women Business-Owners in Bangladesh
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ORIGINAL PAPER
All About Patriarchal Segregation of Work Regarding Family? Women Business‑Owners in Bangladesh Jasmine Jaim1,2 Received: 1 August 2019 / Accepted: 5 September 2020 © Springer Nature B.V. 2020
Abstract This research critically analyses patriarchal practices of male family members in terms of social relationships in businesses of women. The extant literature, which seeks to explore the negative influences of the family on women’s entrepreneurship, mostly revolves around the impact of patriarchal segregation of work on businesses. As such, it concentrates almost exclusively on the aspect of material gains through domestic responsibilities and childcare of women at the household sphere. This feminist study takes the debate forward with novel insights on how menfolk of the family dominate, oppress and exploit women by directly getting involved in small businesses of women in a highly patriarchal developing nation, Bangladesh. From the interviews of the women business-owners, it is established that businesses of some women are adversely affected by male relatives’ social practices that are not tied to the domestic modes of production. Thus, the article significantly contributes to the understanding on gender subordination in women’s entrepreneurship from the narrow concentration on material gains of male family members to a more nuanced view of social practices. Keywords Women’s entrepreneurship · Women business-owners · Gender subordination · Patriarchy · Patriarchal segregation of work · Family · Developing nations
Introduction Since the early 1990s, the influence of gender upon women’s entrepreneurship has received much scholarly attention (Marlow et al. 2009). Specifically, considering the family as the major source of patriarchy (Bradley 2012), several studies (Kuratko and Hodgetts 1992; Mattis 2004; Parker 2009; McGowan et al. 2012) explore and explain the adverse impact of traditional familial responsibilities on businesses of women. According to the patriarchal segregation of work, women have to perform domestic responsibilities and child-rearing roles (Bradley 2012). For such social expectations, they confront impediments in initiating and operating their ventures, for instance, the time constraint for carrying out business activities (Ahl 2006, 2015). Thus, patriarchal practices of male family members regarding women’s
* Jasmine Jaim [email protected] 1
The University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK
Institute of Business Administration, Jahangirnagar University, Dhaka, Bangladesh
2
businesses are evident through emphasising on maintaining their domestic activities. Nonetheless, by concentrating almost solely on the sexual division of labour, the literature tends to ignore investigating into the ethical concern regarding perverse attitudes of male family members in businesses of women. It is yet to know whether male relatives have any negative interference directly in women’s businesses irrespective of their concern regarding the societal expectation of homemaking roles. More specif
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