Feminism in women’s business networks: A freedom-centred perspective

Villeseche, Florence, Meliou, Elina and Jha, Harsh Kumar 2022. Feminism in women’s business networks: A freedom-centred perspective. Human Relations 79 (10) , pp. 1903-1927. 10.1177/00187267221083665

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Abstract

How do women’s business networks (WBNs) help to advance women’s freedom? Drawing on Zerilli’s freedom-centred feminism, our study sets out to answer this question at the intersection of freedom, feminism and work. Critics argue that WBNs promote a postfeminist view of freedom focusing on individual self-realisation and thus participate in rolling back collective, feminist efforts to dismantle structural inequalities. We reconceptualize WBNs as political arenas and argue that making claims about shared interests and concerns in such an arena constitutes a feminist practice of freedom. With an original, inductive and qualitative research design combining topic modeling and dialectical analysis, we examine the claims made in 1,529 posts across four WBN blogs. We identify postfeminist claims and new forms of change and transformation that can help to advance women’s freedom across three ‘dialectics of freedom’: conformity and imagination; performative care and relational care; sameness and openness. Our findings show that uncertain and contradictory ways of defining and engaging with women’s freedom can emerge through claim-making in such arenas. The fragility of the process and its outcomes are, then, what can move feminism forward at work and beyond.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Published Online
Status:	Published
Schools:	Business (Including Economics)
Publisher:	SAGE Publications
ISSN:	0018-7267
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	23 February 2022
Date of Acceptance:	31 January 2022
Last Modified:	11 Oct 2023 21:07
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/147389

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