ABSTRACT
This chapter offers an overview of critical arguments which analyse and evaluate the influence of gender on women's entrepreneurial propensity and performance. It presents a summary of foundational arguments regarding the relationship between gender, women and entrepreneurial activity while challenging the acontextual and universalistic assumptions embedded within this debate. The need to move beyond a simple association between a universal gendered subject and her acontextual experiences of entrepreneurship is pressing. It responds to the calls in the literature and use women, gender and entrepreneurship as a lens to recognise the importance of context, intersectionality and positionality. The chapter explores the notion of context and how this influences the enactment of gender and women's entrepreneurial activity. It also explores notions of intersectionality and positionality; and then provides an empirical example illustrating these constructs in action and concludes by reviewing the implications of our arguments.
