The Business of Women's Empowerment: Corporate Gender Politics in the Global South

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Although previously denounced for their gender blindness in the past, private businesses have increasingly emerged as vocal proponents of womens empowerment in the Global South. This book critically examines these claims and examines how ideals of female entrepreneurial conduct are transmitted, ideologically anchored and negotiated as well as the kind of societal transformations the initiative opens up for in two national contexts. Drawing from extensive ethnographic fieldwork from Mexico and South Africa, the Coca Cola Companys global program 5by20, has openly stated objective to empower female micro-entrepreneurs in marginalized, informal sectors of the economy. Closer inspection of this sheds light on corporate gender practices are played out in practice and contributes to feminist debates about the relations between neoliberal capitalist expansion and emancipatory strivings and provides unique insights into the premises and effects of corporate solutions to gender inequality in the Global South.

Reviews

The Business of Womens Empowerment fills a huge gap in the literature by beginning to empirically investigate the impacts of corporate initiatives to empower women through entrepreneurship. Moving beyond glossy brochures and filtered messages, the book unravels the complexities of such projects from a bottom-up perspective that shows how corporate projects become a part of womens survival strategies. A page-turner and highly recommended! -- Elisabeth Prgl, Professor of International Relations and Director of the Gender Centre at the Graduate Institute in Geneva

Author Bio

Sofie Tornhill is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Social Studies at Linnaeus University, Sweden.