Doing gender in the student entrepreneurship society programme

Abstract

<p>Entrepreneurship is often considered a gender-neutral phenomenon. However, recent studies have revealed that entrepreneurs construct the idea of an entrepreneur as a masculine male figure. One of the obstacles to studying and understanding the maleness of entrepreneurship is that it is being predominantly examined through the lens of masculine norms and values. In this chapter, a female author applies autoethnography to analyse and present her experience of participating in a student entrepreneurship society programme. The author unfolds her personal path from assuming the gender neutrality of entrepreneurship towards gender awareness and discusses a gender subtext, which remains invisible in entrepreneurship discourse. Gender blindness can partly explain the feeling of being a <em>dis-entrepreneur</em>, which the author experienced in the student entrepreneurship society programme.</p>