Empreendedorismo e divisão sexual do trabalho: a narrativa do empoderamento feminino e a ocultação das relações sociais de sexo

Abstract

This dissertation aims to understand how the sexual division of labor impacts women's entrepreneurial activity. Starting from the concept of flexible accumulation, we analyze how the process of making work more flexible resulted in an incentive for entrepreneurial action. In the case of women, this incentive gave rise to a development network, whose narrative reinforces the sexual division of labor, placing it, in certain cases, as a differentiator to be explored by women entrepreneurs. The analysis was developed based on the expanded concept of work, considering not only salaried work, but also unpaid domestic work. The data presented was obtained from interviews and content analysis. The historical construction of social relations of sex was a central factor, based on the data collected from the interviews, to point out how the sexual division of labor has an unfavorable impact on women entrepreneurs, although the impact depends on factors such as marital status, class status, and the existence and age of children. We observed that the narrative of female empowerment, when present, hides social relations of sex.