Digital Entrepreneurship, Gender and Intersectionality by Leung Wing-Fai

Author:Leung Wing-Fai
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9783319975238
Publisher: Springer International Publishing

Many of my interviewees also talked about gender within the specific Taiwanese context. In this case, the entrepreneur invoked her own ethnic origin as well as gender discourse to assert a coping strategy for women entrepreneurs. In turn, these discourses about men and women are used to explain why women usually found companies that provide gender-specific products and services, further restricting the kinds of roles women can play in the tech sector. Female entrepreneurs find themselves in a paradoxical position of challenging their under-representation but then having to accept traditional gendered expectations, as this female game designer suggested: ‘Women who start businesses may seem very rational, so other people would say you’ve lost your femininity , [which is] negative … I can only work hard to prove myself. Despite being a woman, I have chosen to be an entrepreneur.’

Not only is the discourse of gender differences entrenched and proffered by both men and women, women are sometimes expected to ‘make use’ of their attributes. Anita Huang of the government-funded Taiwan Startup Stadium suggested that female co-founders were particularly useful in business for their communication abilities (She Means Business, 21 July 2016, Taipei). She remarked that human resources and management were women’s best skills. Thus, even the female leaders and mentors within the sector propagate the idea of women’s predestined roles. It can be argued that there is a collective consciousness about gender division, and it is reflected in discursive practices.

Another high-profile woman entrepreneur in Taiwan, Cate Xie (co-founder, SkyREC), reported on the discrimination she witnessed while pitching in Japan at the Slush Asia startup event. Unlike in Taiwan, she observed that very few women in Japan have founded startups. She stated that she had met fewer than five Japanese women involved in the sector. Women are also not taken seriously in the wider business world, while men go to ‘after, after party,’ referring to the kind of gendered gathering that I will discuss shortly. She offered advice on how women should interact with investors in this kind of environment and especially how they should adapt their demeanour: ‘Be careful to show stability and maturity and reflect your personal qualities, but don’t talk about yourself too much’ (GIT meeting, 22 June 2016). Xie also said that it was particularly important for businesswomen to think about their appearance in Japan, so she suggested wearing tights and appropriate make-up in order to appear ‘respectful.’ For Taiwanese startups doing business in Japan, she also recommended finding local staff and employing men who can speak Japanese in order to communicate in the male-dominated environment. Instead of challenging the deeply gendered organisation of the startup sector, the advice of this successful female entrepreneur was to adapt one’s own conduct and appearance in order to fit into the male-dominated business world. It is evident that despite the changing gender discourse and the newness of the sector, gender role constructions remain traditional. Women are advised to change their engagement with the sector rather than challenge the gendered practices.

Many

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