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All About Patriarchal Segregation of Work Regarding Family? Women Business-Owners in Bangladesh

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Abstract

This research critically analyses patriarchal practices of male family members in terms of social relationships in businesses of women. The extant literature, which seeks to explore the negative influences of the family on women’s entrepreneurship, mostly revolves around the impact of patriarchal segregation of work on businesses. As such, it concentrates almost exclusively on the aspect of material gains through domestic responsibilities and childcare of women at the household sphere. This feminist study takes the debate forward with novel insights on how menfolk of the family dominate, oppress and exploit women by directly getting involved in small businesses of women in a highly patriarchal developing nation, Bangladesh. From the interviews of the women business-owners, it is established that businesses of some women are adversely affected by male relatives’ social practices that are not tied to the domestic modes of production. Thus, the article significantly contributes to the understanding on gender subordination in women’s entrepreneurship from the narrow concentration on material gains of male family members to a more nuanced view of social practices.

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Notes

  1. As per Human Development Report (2015) of the United Nations, in a ‘Gender Inequality Index’, Bangladesh has ranked 142 out of 188 countries.

  2. Through dowry, husbands or in-laws accumulate cash or valuable properties from women’s natal family in many countries, for example, India and Bangladesh.

  3. To maintain confidentiality, pseudonyms of the respondents are employed throughout the paper.

  4. Eid is a Muslim religious event, and, it is the largest festival in Bangladesh (Hasan 2015).

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Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank the consulting editor and the anonymous reviewers of the journal for their constructive roles regarding the article. She also offers thanks to different scholars for their helpful comments in the conferences/seminars where the earlier versions of this paper were presented. Moreover, the author thank The University of Nottingham, The UK, as this study is principally funded by a PhD studentship of that university.

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  1. The University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK

    Jasmine Jaim

  2. Institute of Business Administration, Jahangirnagar University, Dhaka, Bangladesh

    Jasmine Jaim

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Correspondence to Jasmine Jaim.

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Jaim, J. All About Patriarchal Segregation of Work Regarding Family? Women Business-Owners in Bangladesh. J Bus Ethics 175, 231–245 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-020-04619-w

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