Media Expressions of Entrepreneurs: Presentations and Discourses of Male and Female Entrepreneurs in Norway”

In the twenty-first century, entrepreneurship is still a male-dominated activity. In spite of growing rates of participation in new venture creation among women, particularly in North America, women are even now substantially underrepresented among entrepreneurs in Western countries (Reynolds et al., 2003). In the Nordic countries, the share of women entrepreneurs is especially low. In Norway, for example, about one-quarter of new business founders are women, a share that has been remarkably stable over the last ten years (Ljunggren, 1998; Kolvereid and Alsos, 2005). As the Scandinavian countries are frequently portrayed as leaders regarding equality between the genders, the low number of women entrepreneurs makes one particularly curious. When formal gender discrimination is essentially removed, gender equality has become politically correct, and there is an apparent push towards creating a gender-equal society amongst politicians and authorities, as well as the “man in the street”. However, this does not seem to be the case with regard to women’s entrepreneurship.

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