Abstract
While women's entrepreneurship preserves its traditional entrepreneurial mission from a neo-liberal perspective, it has also been accepted as an essential tool in ensuring equality and empowering women with a gender perspective. It is seen that supranational institutions are trying to realize these two perspectives together, at least working in this direction. This study aims to conceptualize “women's entrepreneurship” and bring it to the agenda in Turkey form a gender perspective. Evaluating the literature on women's entrepreneurship from a historical perspective and examining the fundamental inequalities embedded in entrepreneurship, especially in a developing economy such as Turkey that still has structural gaps, is the study's main contribution.
TopIntroduction
Globalization and economic and social change have brought about a severe change in the definition and scope of the concept of entrepreneurship today (Seckin-Halac, 2017, pp. 4). Gartner (1989) opposed the description of the entrepreneur with individual/psychological characteristics and emphasized that the entrepreneur should be considered something that the individual does rather than something they are. While entrepreneurship is viewed as an umbrella concept, entrepreneurship studies are regarded as only one of the dimensions of entrepreneurship that continues grounded on growth and employment (Haas & Hwang, 2010). In addition, it has begun to be widely accepted that different goals, motivations, and obligations expand the definitions of entrepreneurship.
Entrepreneurship is today considered a field of research that seeks answers to the following questions (Shane & Venkatraman, 2000): How and why some (as an individual or a group) may recognize opportunities and decide that it is doable and turn it to their advantage (profit), while others do not? Furthermore, how do these opportunities ultimately reach the point of product, firm, industry, or wealth creation? However, in today's conditions, the idea that entrepreneurship does not only emerge with opportunities but rather that necessity pushes people to become entrepreneurs is also accepted in many countries.
Women's entrepreneurship has emerged and been widely supported in many countries within the framework of neo-liberal approaches, such as economic growth, employment increase, and poverty reduction. Furthermore, women are not the real subject of those discussions (Ecevit, 2007, pp. 47). On the other hand, women's entrepreneurship is supported within the empowerment approach by aiming to raise awareness beyond economic empowerment, political organization, and closing gender inequality (Bölükbaş 2006, pp. viii). Regardless of which perspective it focuses on, the common goal has become to increase women's entrepreneurship. It has been understood that more comprehensive studies are needed on the factors determining women's entrepreneurship, how women's entrepreneurship should be supported, and comparisons between countries in order to make detailed analyzes in the global competitive environment.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Gender Equality: Refers the state of having the same rights, status, and opportunities as others, regardless of one's gender therefore considered necessary foundation for a peaceful, prosperous and sustainable world by UN ( https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/gender-equality/ ).
Gender: Implies socially constructed phenomena not residing inside the human as being a man or women, rather bringing about redefinitions of subjectivities and subject positions over time.
Work-Life Balance: Is a phenomenon used to describe a balanced division between working and non-working activities.
Social Role: Are a socially established pattern of behavior that is required of people in certain social positions or from certain social groups https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007%2F978-3-319-16999-6_2469-1 AU66: The URL https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007%2F978-3-319-16999-6_2469-1 has been redirected to https://idp.springer.com/authorize?response_type=cookie&client_id=springerlink&redirect_uri=http%3A%2F%2Flink.springer.com%2Freferenceworkentry%2F10.1007%252F978-3-319-16999-6_2469-1. Please verify the URL. ).
Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD): Is an international organization with an aim of bringing prosperity, equality, opportunity, and well-being around the world through building better policies.
Gender Gap: Refers a relative gap in any area between women and men in terms of their levels of participation, access, rights, remuneration or benefits in society.
Social Constructivism: Is epistemological perspective argues that reality is not a phenomenon waiting to be discovered but is created in a meaningful social interaction.
Female Entrepreneurship: Indicates a type of entrepreneurial activity that is engaged by women through organizing and managing an enterprise.