An Examination of the Relationship between Women Entrepreneurs, Social Gender Role and Leadership Effectiveness (PDF)

Master's Thesis from the year 2011 in the subject Women Studies / Gender Studies, grade: B+, State University of New York at Stony Brook, course: Sociology - Gender Studies, language: English, abstract: No society has ever been comfortable with the natural sex discrepancies between men and women. Evidence shows that apart from the natural sex differences, every society culturally portrays women as different and inferior compared to men (Blessings, 2010; OECD, 2004; Vogel, 2003). Specifically, Brindley (2008) posits that this obvious differentiation amounts to social gender role profiling. Arguably, it is not enough for a man to be male or for a woman to be a female they must be painted as masculine or feminine. Social gender role can therefore be referred to as a kind of cultural sex assigning where women are painted as feminine and men are portrayed as masculine.
Social gender role profiling expects men to learn and practice the assigned male gender roles while women are expected to learn and practice the assigned feminine roles. Vogel (2003) agrees that from an early age, boys are taught that masculinity is superior to femininity while girls are taught that femininity is about being submissive. The society expects men to be aggressive and show a sense of control in all matters they undertake while women are expected to be supportive to men but should not take leading roles in mainstream activities such as politics and entrepreneurship (Appelbaum, Audet and Miller, 2002). Any deviation from these held cultural sex assigning is usually met with outright societal condemnation and the responsible persons are referred to as rebels.
Interestingly, masculine and feminine gender roles strengthen each other in a mutual manner. Since gender role is a psychological profiling system, persons who embrace masculine and feminine roles indirectly perpetuate societal inequality - even some employment opportunities are referred to as girlish (Blessings, 2010). It is interesting that every woman wants to be perceived as feminine through dressing, behaviour and even through the employment opportunities they take (Vogel, 2003). On the other hand, every man wishes to be perceived as true man by way of dressing, behaviour and the nature of economic activities they undertake (Appelbaum et al, 2002). Though there are significant cases of people transgressing into another gender role as is the case with gays and lesbians, the mainstream society is generally considered "straight" (Vogel, 2003).