Paper short abstract:

Using in-depth interviews with female online entrepreneurs this paper reflects on the interplay of emotion & power in a context of familial patriarchy.Challenging popular romantic assumptions re: family, the paper critically addresses power structures that impede women's contribution to development.

Paper long abstract:

Feminists have cut through a longstanding romantic assumption about family being a site of altruism and love; arguing that there exists instead conflict of interests, intra-household bargains and power dynamics (Hartmann, 1981). Bangladesh is one of the South Asian countries with clearest instance of "classical patriarchy" in its extended households (Kandiyoti, 1988). However, rapid commercialisation of agriculture sector and a growth in urban industrial employment opportunities led to an urban migration of many rural households resulting in a rise of nuclear families. In this situation, although the material basis of classical patriarchy is eroding (Kandiyoti, 1996; Moghdam, 2004), there is a new form of patriarchal domination, which Sarıog˘ lu (2012: 1-12) rightfully conceptualizes as "familial patriarchy". In these nuclear families, "familial patriarchy" maintains a strong gender division of labour where household tasks and childcare responsibilities are women's prime duties. As a result, women either end up staying at home or engage in online entrepreneurship due to its flexible nature of working hour. Drawing from 25 in-depth interviews from an on-going research project with female online entrepreneurs, this paper therefore highlights the contrasting contexts of emotion, power and patriarchy and how they interplay. Affected by the motherly emotion, and a constant fear of familial patriarchy, while many of these entrepreneurs actually started after quitting their high profile jobs, however they did not sit helpless. Rather, they traverse various patriarchal institutional norms and constraints and adopt nuanced styles and strategies to keep their entrepreneurship running and make their voices heard.