Patriarchy repackaged: how a neoliberal economy and conservative gender norms shape entrepreneurial identities in Eastern Europe

ABSTRACT Using positioning analysis we examine how women entrepreneurs construct their entrepreneurial identities in conversations with journalists. The data consists of every interview with women entrepreneurs in every Latvian monthly women’s magazine over a 30-year period. Eleven countries in Eastern Europe, including Latvia, broke away from the communist regime in the 1990s and embraced neoliberal and entrepreneurial values that rely on the use of agency in a free market and where individuals were considered autonomous agents, no longer constrained by gender inequalities and power imbalances. However, an analysis shows that identity constructions by women entrepreneurs have been built on neo-conservative assumptions regarding gender. The default option expressed in the magazines reveals that entrepreneurship is normatively masculine, and the entrepreneurial identity that is on offer for women is either as a ‘secondary entrepreneur’ or a ‘failed woman’. The post-feminist conception of a woman who can have it all, i.e. both a successful business career and a traditional feminine identity with a happy family life, is absent in the interviews. When neoliberalism entered Latvia and merged with neo-conservative gender roles, a specific Eastern European postfeminist regime emerged where neither entrepreneurship nor structural change can be seen as challenging the prevailing patriarchal gender order.


Introduction
Entrepreneurial identities matter.How a person defines themself influences their decisions, actions, and feelings and how they relate to their social world (Alsos et al. 2016;Radu-Lefebvre et al. 2021).Understanding entrepreneurial identities is, therefore, key to understanding entrepreneurial processes and outcomes (Navis and Glynn 2011).Assumptions regarding gender are central to the construction of a person's identity and, thus, to their entrepreneurial identity.Research on women's entrepreneurial identities in Western contexts has convincingly demonstrated how traditional constructions of masculinity and femininity, in combination with the assumption that entrepreneurship is something for men, place women entrepreneurs in a secondary and subordinated position (Ahl 2004;Bruni, Gherardi, and Poggio 2004;Harrison and Leitch 2018;Laguía et al. 2022;Ogbor 2000;Stead 2017;Welter et al. 2017).
However, in conjunction with the sexual revolution of the 1960s and the influx of women in paid work (Goldin 2006), assumptions regarding gender and work are changing.More recent work has interrogated the contemporary neoliberal and post-feminist conception that discriminatory structures have been removed and that women are free to choose an entrepreneurial career on the same terms as men without having to sacrifice either their family or femininity (Gill 2007).Thus far, however, this conception has been found to be largely an unfulfilled promise that is available to a privileged few at best (Ahl and Marlow 2021;Lewis 2014b;Lewis, Rumens, and Simpson 2022).
The above findings are from Western contexts, however.In the present study, we investigate how women entrepreneurs construct their entrepreneurial identity by navigating social assumptions regarding gender and entrepreneurship in a context where such assumptions have taken a different trajectory than in the West.The context is Latvia, one of eleven Central and Eastern European countries that broke away from the communist bloc during the 1990s and joined the European Union in 2004 and 2007.Like many other post-communist countries, Latvia fully embraced a neoliberal market economy.Entrepreneurship was a novel phenomenon that was also enthusiastically embraced.Women's labour force participation and high education levels were taken for granted, and gender equality was assumed to exist in the country and therefore an issue not subject to discussion (Kott 2023).As such, the country purportedly reflected contemporary postfeminist sensibilities.
Given the situation described above, our aim in this paper is to pose and respond to the following research question: How do women entrepreneurs in a post-Communist context construct their entrepreneurial identities, and what normative assumptions regarding gender and entrepreneurship shape this process?To this aim, we examined interviews with women entrepreneurs published in Latvian women's magazines over a 30-year period.These interviews constitute this study's empirical material, which was subjected to a positioning analysis (Czarniawska 2013).This analysis enables researchers to study entrepreneurial identity construction as a process.
The present study contributes to research on entrepreneurial identity construction in three significant ways.First, we contribute knowledge regarding gendered assumptions in a post-Communist context and demonstrate how these assumptions inform women's entrepreneurial identity construction.In so doing, we respond to calls for research into how this process takes form in contexts other than the Western contexts that dominate current entrepreneurship research (Stam and Welter 2020).Second, we illustrate the fluid nature of postfeminist sensibilities that, having crossed borders, have adjusted to a local, neoliberal context that co-exists with neoconservative gender expectations, thus forming a unique Eastern European postfeminist experience.Third, by employing positioning theory as an analytical lens, we show how gendered entrepreneurial identity construction is a context-specific, ongoing negotiation process that is subject to interpretation based on social norms and the individual's ability to comply with these norms.
In the following, we outline our theoretical framework, including entrepreneurial identity, postfeminism, and positioning, and discuss feminism and gender roles in the context of a post-Communist, neoliberal Latvia.We then present the empirical material used in this study (namely, every article on women's entrepreneurship that was published in Latvian women's magazines from 1991-2020) and our method of analysis.This is followed by our findings, discussion, policy implications, observations concerning this study's limitations, and concluding remarks.

Entrepreneurial identities are gendered and have social effects
Research suggests that the way entrepreneurs define themselves plays a critical role throughout the entrepreneurial process (Fauchart and Gruber 2020;Powell and Baker 2018) by informing the entrepreneur's decisions, actions, and feelings (Alsos et al. 2016;Radu-Lefebvre et al. 2021).Consequently, the study of entrepreneurial roles and identities offers tremendous potential for understanding entrepreneurial processes and outcomes (Navis and Glynn 2011).Identities also represent a frame of reference for reading social situations, behaviours, and actions, signifying who we are in relation to others and how we differ from them (Harrison and Leitch 2018).
Entrepreneurial identity is a socially negotiated, ongoing accomplishment (Clarke, Knights, and Jarvis 2012;Harrison and Leitch 2018;Ybema, Vroemisse, and Van Marrewijk 2012).Entrepreneurial identity is further defined as the product of and is realized in narrative accounts of an individual's past, present, and future (Hytti and Linstead 2005;Radu-Lefebvre et al. 2021) or something that is 'produced through dialogues with clients, suppliers, employees, stakeholders, friends, and family in a processual fashion' (Essers and Benschop 2007, 52).From this perspective, entrepreneurial identity is both processual and inseparable from its context (Radu-Lefebvre et al. 2021).
Women or men can be entrepreneurs, which entails that being an entrepreneur incorporates a gender identity.Among human identities, gender identity may function as the most salient structuring process in society and may well be the most important for women (Lindgren and Packendorff 2008).Gender identities are built on assumptions concerning masculinity and femininity, i.e. socially constructed ideas of what a man or a woman is, should be, or behave.Gendered assumptions are widely held in society and influence attitudes and behaviours (Parpart 2014;Wegener, Clark, and Petty 2006).People tend to pursue tasks that are positively associated with their gender while avoiding tasks not associated with it (Makarova, Aeschlimann, and Herzog 2019).Many academic studies have highlighted how our societies and organizations are deeply structured in terms of gender (for example, Marlow 2013;Naldi et al. 2019).Traditional social identities for women are primarily related to the private sphere, related to the identity of mother, wife, sister, or daughter.Associated with these identities, women are expected to take on specific roles and tasks considered to be feminine, such as caring for and nurturing children, maintaining the household, and supporting one's husband (Chasserio, Pailot, and Poroli 2014).
Occupations are often classified as 'masculine' or 'feminine', which tends to affect people's aspirations and inclination to engage in these occupations (Makarova, Aeschlimann, and Herzog 2019;Sczesny, Nater, and Eagly 2018).Gendered expectations have also been found to influence assessments of male-and female-dominated jobs, often causing the former to be valued more highly and provide better wages than the latter (Cohen and Huffman 2003;Karlin, England, and Richardson 2002).Gender identity and related social gender roles are powerful tools for social regulation (Alvesson and Billing 2009;Chasserio, Pailot, and Poroli 2014), leading to significant inequalities in a wide range of social, economic, educational, political, conjugal, financial, and labour-related contexts (Bussey 2011).
Gendered assumptions are also reflected in the context of business ownership (Ahl 2006;Hakim 2000;Harrison and Leitch 2018) since they influence the intentions of men and women who may wish to pursue entrepreneurship, including how entrepreneurship is practiced (Gupta et al. 2005;Sczesny, Nater, and Eagly 2018).Stereotypical beliefs about the traits that entrepreneurship requires, including notions of what are masculine traits, such as assertiveness or aggressiveness, may adversely affect a woman's entry into entrepreneurship (Bussey 2011;Gupta, Turban, and Bhawe 2008) or give rise to 'gendered niches' (Crompton 1997;Harrison and Leitch 2018).For example, women entrepreneurs are more likely than men to have smaller, slower-growing, and less profitable businesses in the service or retail sectors.This state of affairs, in turn, reinforces stereotypical images of men and women in self-employment (Bussey 2011;Gupta et al. 2005;Sczesny, Nater, and Eagly 2018).Gendered assumptions also present tangible, material obstacles to women's entrepreneurship.Scholars have argued that socially constructed ideas about gender and entrepreneurship limit the ability of women to accrue social, cultural, human, and financial capital.Furthermore, such ideas place limitations upon women's ability to generate personal savings, possess credit histories that are attractive to resource providers, or attract the positive interest of loan officers, angel investors, and venture capitalists (Bussey 2011; Gupta et al. 2009; Sczesny, Nater, and Eagly 2018).

Navigating masculinity and femininity
Previous research asserts that the search for an entrepreneurial identity involves a complicated act of navigation, where a woman must position herself against conflicting discourses, namely, the discourses of 'masculinity/entrepreneur' and of 'femininity/family care-taker' (Harrison and Leitch 2018).Women's entrepreneurial identities are formed along a continuum that includes (i) accepting conventional norms and social expectations and integrating them in self-identity, (ii) challenging conventional norms by a process of accommodation or transformation, and (iii) redefining and proposing new norms (Chasserio, Pailot, and Poroli 2014).Each scenario demands different coping strategies and practices (Stead 2017).In some instances, women suppress their entrepreneurial identity and embrace their female identity, reflected in the mobilization of multiple highly gendered 'selves'.This is explained in terms of the participants' desire for legitimacy and integrity, prompted by the precariousness of their position as female business owners (Nadin and Broadbridge 2007).García and Welter (2011) observed specific ways of constructing gender identity that result in gendered practices, i.e. how women act as entrepreneurs by 'doing' and 'redoing' gender.Essers and Benschop (2007) proposed three strategies for identity negotiation by female immigrant entrepreneurs.One strategy adheres to conventional images of femininity, the second denounces femininity and/or ethnicity situatedness, and the third resists the masculine connotation of entrepreneurship by disconnecting entrepreneurship from masculinity.Lewis (2014b) identified four entrepreneurial femininities in the research literature on women's entrepreneurship: (i) the individualized femininity, which follows a supposedly gender-neutral (but still masculine) normative script for entrepreneurship; (ii) the maternal femininity (or mumpreneur) that is exhibited by the woman who does motherhood and entrepreneurship at the same time; (iii) the relational femininity that draws on feminine attributes (such as empathy) as success factors; and finally, (iv) the excessive femininity displayed by the woman who does not care to integrate anything masculine whatsoever in her identity, and is therefore not an entrepreneur or not viewed as an entrepreneur.

Postfeminist sensibilities
While traditional notions of 'masculinity' and 'femininity' continue to limit and shape women's entrepreneurial identities and their entrepreneurship, gender norms are also changing.The concept of 'postfeminism' was first introduced in the context of media and cultural studies (Gill 2007;McRobbie 2004McRobbie , 2009) ) and invokes a specific contemporary cultural sensibility.As such, it is an object of study rather than a theoretical lens.Gill (2007) classifies a text, image, or narrative as postfeminist if it: (i) defines femininity as a bodily property and revives notions of sexual difference; (ii) presents women as desiring sexual subjects rather than sex objects; (iii) promotes selfsurveillance, self-discipline, and a makeover paradigm; (iv) promotes consumerism and the commodification of difference; (v) views individualism, choice, and empowerment as the primary routes to women's independence and freedom; or (vi) implies that gender equality has been achieved and feminist activism is thus no longer necessary.
Entrepreneurship scholars have identified the presence of postfeminist elements in a variety of contexts, including research texts (Lewis 2014a), entrepreneurial narratives (Sullivan and Delaney 2017), mumpreneurship (Lewis, Rumens, and Simpson 2022), CEO autobiographies (Adamson 2017;Negra 2014), entrepreneurship policy (Ahl and Marlow 2021;Byrne, Fattoum, and Diaz Garcia 2019), and newspaper media (Nadin, Smith, and Jones 2020).This body of research argues that, instead of navigating between masculinity and femininity (as discussed earlier), the postfeminist woman is mandated to simultaneously enact (conventional) masculinity and femininity if she is to be seen as successful (Lewis and Benschop 2023).The construction of a postfeminist entrepreneurial identity thus involves 'performing and embodying the feminine characteristics of nurture, emotion, passivity and attractiveness alongside the masculine (individualized) traits of economic and emotional independence, assertiveness, rationality and autonomy' (Lewis 2014a(Lewis , 1852)).The postfeminist woman can have it all: a happy family life, a feminine persona, and a successful career on the same terms as a man.
Postfeminism reflects contemporary ideas and ideals of entrepreneurship and neoliberalism that rely on the use of agency in a free market to realize individual potential, enhance one's status, and attain material wealth.As such, it produces a particular, gendered, self-regulating subject through which power operates not from above but from within (Gill 2014).The flip side of the postfeminist discourse that holds that discriminatory structures have been done away with is the argument that individual women are responsible for their own success.If they are not successful, it is because they have just not put in the required effort, which effectively introduces a discourse of blame regarding such women (Ahl and Marlow 2021).Since the Latvian context purportedly reflects postfeminist sensibilities in that it is characterized by a neoliberal market ideology in conjunction with the assumption that gendered discriminatory structures are a thing of the past, we examine not only how women navigate masculinity and femininity as they construct an entrepreneurial identity but also whether they enact both identities at the same time.

Positioning analysis
In this study, we use a framework of positioning analysis developed by Czarniawska (2013).The framework elucidates different ways, or 'positioning acts', in which women negotiate their entrepreneurial gender identities.In the social sciences, the concepts of 'position' and 'positioning' were first introduced by Hollway (1984) in her analysis of the construction of subjectivity in the context of heterosexual relations.Post-structuralist researchers introduced concepts of 'subjectivity' and 'subject positions' in place of 'identity' since the term identity purportedly conveyed the notion that people possess an essential identity that could be revealed by the analyst.Identity theory has since moved on, and scholars now speak of identities.Furthermore, they argue that identity is contextdependent, socially negotiated, and an ongoing accomplishment.Positioning theory is, therefore, useful for and compatible with the study of the construction of identities.
Focusing on gender differentiation in discourses, Hollway (1984, 236) spoke of 'positioning oneself' and 'taking up positions': Discourses make available positions for subjects to take up.These positions are in relation to other people.Like the subject and object of a sentence . . .women and men are placed in relation to each other through the meanings which a particular discourse makes available.
Positioning is the discursive process that locates selves in conversations as observably and subjectively coherent participants in jointly produced story lines (Bisel and Barge 2011;Davies and Harre 1990;Korobov 2013).Positioning can be understood as the discursive construction of personal stories that render a person's actions intelligible and relatively determinate as social acts within which the participants in the conversation have specific locations.The act of positioning thus refers to the assignment of fluid 'parts' or 'roles' to speakers (Langenhove and van Harré 2010).A position in a conversation, then, is a metaphorical concept, reference to which a person's 'moral' and personal attributes as a speaker are compendiously collected.One can position oneself or be positioned, for example, as powerful or powerless, confident or apologetic, dominant or submissive, definitive or tentative, authorized or unauthorized, and so on.Positions may emerge 'naturally' from the prevailing conversational and social context.However, an initial seizure of the dominant role in a conversation can sometimes force the other speakers into speaking positions they would not have occupied on their own accord.Consequently, initial positionings can be challenged, and speakers sometimes re-positioned.Many semi-independent moral domains exist in the human world, including moral beliefs, stereotypes, and gendered assumptions that are openly expressed or immanent in cultural practices.Incorporating these domains into our analysis enables us to better address the historical and social situations in which people express their thoughts and actions.

Post-communist feminism
The history of Latvia adds interesting contextual dimensions to gender and entrepreneurship research.Latvia is a post-Communist country that regained its independence in the 1990s after half a century of Communist rule.The Communist era included a nationwide imposition of Sovietinspired equality, including high levels of education for women and full labour market participation.Notwithstanding this, little was actually realized in terms of women's emancipation in the country.Women were typically left with the double burden of caring for the family and enjoyed little, if any, participation in upper management roles and politics.The Soviet 'worker-mother' ideal burdened women with the dual responsibilities and contradicting identities of being successful workers and successful mothers (Havelková 2019;Petrova 2019).Latvian national independence came with a strong focus on neoliberal values and saw a return to democracy, a free market system, and an independent press, thus opening up ample opportunities for entrepreneurship.Citizens were eager to bid farewell to five decades of imposed Soviet norms and were keen to adopt new democratic values and identities (Kott 2023).A new society was formed, the country's economy developed, and entrepreneurship was an emerging phenomenon, a phenomenon that was endowed with few preconceptions.Women's high level of work force participation remained, but they also started their own businesses in record numbers.Women in Latvia now constitute 39% of all entrepreneurs in the country, compared to 27% in Sweden and 31% in Estonia (European Commission 2017).This figure has remained stable over last twenty years (Statistics Latvia 2021).Notwithstanding these encouraging figures, women entrepreneurs are concentrated in non-capital-intensive sectors.The largest proportions of Latvian women entrepreneurs are found in the following sectors: health and social work (77%), education (64%), accommodation and food services (62%), and arts, entertainment, and recreation (50%).The smallest proportions of women-owned businesses are in information and communication (23%), transportation and storage (21%), and construction (5%) (Statistics Latvia 2021).Latvian women are also expected to be the primary family carers.According to the latest Eurobarometer survey on gender equality in Latvia, 78% of respondents believe that family life suffers if the woman has a full-time job (European Commission 2017).
While the development of women's entrepreneurship is considered a sign of gender equality, there is surprisingly little public discourse on gender equality and gender roles (Kott 2023).The question remains whether the prevailing state of affairs in Latvia reflects a neoliberal and postfeminism stance (including the perception that gender equality has been achieved and there is no need to discuss it) or whether it reflects a desire to create a distance from such discussions since gender equality is associated with the country's Soviet past.Consequently, we observe that the development of feminism and feminist action has been quite different in the post-Communist context compared to developments in the West.After regaining independence, several post-Communist countries, Latvia included, experienced difficulties in creating a public discourse about women and gender equality (Funk and Mueller 2019;Kott 2023).This was the result of several factors.First, these societies had experienced women's equality as a fait accompli which primarily served to legitimize the Communist system (Havelková 2019;Petrova 2019).Whereas the Western women's movement grappled with the role of capitalism in women's oppression and looked to Socialist theory for new insights, this was not the case in post-Communist countries.The concepts 'left', 'emancipation', 'politics', 'solidarity', 'socialism', and even 'women's equality' are used as descriptive terms that were appropriated by an authoritarian, repressive Communist regime and refer to the disturbing realities that were imposed by that system (Funk and Mueller 2019).The concept of 'feminism' was, and still is, largely perceived negatively in the former Communist bloc.According to Zychowicz (2011), feminism and related terms were 'bad words' in post-communist Ukraine, Estonian feminists were depicted as 'ugly, angry, and ludicrous' (Kott 2023, 8), and women in Estonia who dared to call themselves feminists or raise feminist issues were branded with hostile epithets (Roots 2011).Anti feminism was integral to perestroika in the ex-USSR and other post-Communist countries (Funk and Mueller 2019;Petrova 2019).It arose, in part, as men's objection to women's full employment in paid work and as a 'preventive reaction"' to 1960s and 1970s Western feminism.Anti feminism was also a response by women to their 'double burden' (Petrova 2019).In many countries in the Eastern Europe the right to abortion for women and women's full participation in paid employment outside the home are viewed negatively as symbols of a repressive state (Funk 2019).
At the same time, independence from Soviet rule and the integration of Latvia and the other Baltic countries into the European Union created parallel interpretations of neoliberalism, gender equality, and feminism (Kott 2023).Citizens born shortly before or after independence who grew up with little or no experience of the Soviet system now constitute a unique generation.They learned English at school and could find work or study abroad relatively easily once they reached adulthood, thanks to Latvia joining the EU in 2004.For young, educated women, being a citizen of an EU country provided an escape from systemic misogyny and unfavourable demographics.As such, the neoliberal model imposed on the post-Communist Baltic societies was rapidly and enthusiastically internalized as the norm for much of this generation (Kott 2023).With integration into the European Union, many citizens of the Baltic states internalized the neoliberal values of the West and were thus eager to abandon everything associated with previous Soviet rule since they assumed that doing so was part of their 'schooling in Europeanness' (Dzenovska 2018).Regarding women's issues, Annuk (2019, 414) observes that 'in today's Estonian context, neoliberalism is the intellectual background by default, and therefore there is no discussion about it: you just have to fit in with it'.In general, post-Communist societies have been unresponsive to Western feminism.
In summary, we observe that the Eastern European post-Communist context fully embraces neoliberalism and entrepreneurship yet differs from Western contexts in that it avoids feminism and does not acknowledge gender inequalities.In fact, there has been a feminist backlash and a return to the ideals of traditional, conservative gender roles.Our study of women's entrepreneurial identity construction in this context thus adds a contextual nuance to existing research.

Empirical data: four monthly women's magazines published between 1991-2020 in Latvia
Public narratives play a crucial role in coalescing interest around a phenomenon and informing participants and outsiders regarding its form and content (Lewis 2014b).Media representations are an inevitably influential part of our cultural discursive milieu, given their role in shaping, reinforcing, and legitimizing the entrepreneurial identity, thereby informing what it is like to be an entrepreneur in the public imagination (Anderson and Warren 2011;Lewis 2014b).We chose to use women's magazines as our empirical material since we expect these publications to reflect prevailing constructions of gender.Because they were aimed at a general female population, they had the potential to influence women who aspired to become entrepreneurs.The first Latvian independent magazine for women, Santa, appeared in 1991 and was modelled after Western publications of the same genre.The magazine was widely read and was soon followed by the publication of three more magazines (see Table 1).The relatively short history of the independent press in Latvia and the limited number of monthly women's magazines in the country (only four) made it feasible for us to inspect every issue of every women's monthly magazine published in Latvia.Consequently, every issue from 1991 to 2020 is included in this study, thus comprising a total of 789 magazines (Table 1).Each magazine title is still being published.We identified every interview with women entrepreneurs in every issue of each magazine, providing us with a total of 159 articles.Table 2 shows the frequency of interviews with women entrepreneurs appearing in each magazine.Some magazines published interviews with women entrepreneurs in almost every third issue (for example, Una), whilst others did so just once or twice a year (for example, Santa).
Table 3 displays the distribution of the interviews with women entrepreneurs over time.Taking a longitudinal perspective allowed the researchers to capture possible changes in the discourse over time.
Older issues of each magazine were available at the responsible publishing offices' archives, while newer issues were available online.The publishers provided us free access to their archives and electronic databases.A photocopy of each interview was made.The journal articles were published in Latvian and were translated into English using a translation -back-translation method (Hambleton 1993) and a collaborative -iterative translation method (Douglas and Craig 2007) to ensure that the meaning of the original texts was preserved through the translation process.
Every text segment in each article associated with women's identity and perceptions about entrepreneurship or women's entrepreneurship was marked directly in the text and later transferred to a dedicated file.This data file consisted of the women entrepreneurs' names, the magazine's name, its publication date, and the selected text segments.

Methods of analysis
To establish an overview of the material, we classified the material according to an initial set of categories, including the magazine's name, publication date, interviewee name, name of the business, business sector, and the journalist's name.This classification allowed us to determine how frequently women entrepreneurs were featured in the magazines and business sectors they represented.Classifying the data this way also helped us identify differences between journalistic styles.
Having thus organized the material, we subjected it to a positioning analysis.We used the model designed to analyse the negotiation of identities through acts of positioning developed by Czarniawska (2013).We chose this model since it enables the analysis of the actual process of constructing gender identities in a specific context.The model covers interactive positioning, where one person positions another, and reflexive positioning, where one positions oneself.In neither case is positioning necessarily intentional, since it may be built on taken-for-granted assumptions, including assumptions concerning gender.Positioning may also consist of coercive ascription (Czarniawska 2006).One of the most obvious ways of 'doing gender onto others' (an aspect of coercive gendering) is through discriminatory action, which, even if it is coercive, may be perceived by both the target of the action and society as justified by the situation and, therefore, legitimate.Building on Blackledge and Pavlenko (2004), who found that an interactive production of self can go smoothly or fail entirely, and that different identities may be negotiable or nonnegotiable, Czarniawska (2013) develops a model in which positioning is either something someone else does to another person (attributive positioning), or something a person does to themself (selfpositioning).In addition, a position can be accepted or contested/resisted, thus resulting in different entrepreneurial identities.Czarniawska (2013) theorizes eight different outcomes of this kind of negotiation, as detailed in Table 4.While Czarniawska (2013) used her model to analyse a conversation, we have adapted it to our purposes to examine the construction of entrepreneurial identities in published interviews.A published interview is a specific form of negotiation between the journalist and the interviewee, but where the interviewee has limited agency to influence and renegotiate the article text.Although interviews may be perceived as an authentic depiction of the interviewee's identity, the journalist plays an equal role in the construction of the person's identity since the journalist is responsible for conducting the interview, asking specific questions, and later reconstructing the story.We consequently expect the journalists included in this study (who were all women) and the interviewees to have engaged in acts of self-positioning and attributive positioning and to have co-constructed the identities of women entrepreneurs.
In the first step of our analysis, we divided each text fragment in the data file into one of two positioning categories, either attributive positioning or self-positioning, depending on who generated the positioning act, either the journalist or the woman entrepreneur herself.Both positionings may end successfully or be contested, so the next step consisted of categorizing the text fragments as either 'position accepted', or 'position contested or resisted'.In the third and final step of our analysis, we identified the final result of the positioning act in each text fragment and categorized it according to the eight different outcomes of the negotiation, as represented in Table 4.
Having categorized the text fragments according to the eight different possible outcomes, we then analysed each group of outcomes separately, noting down assumptions about men, women, entrepreneurship, or family that were present in each quote.For each group of outcomes, we then identified the underlying assumptions about women and entrepreneurship and the resulting identity construction.We found Czarniawska's (2013) model to be appropriate and useful for the research task at hand.It allowed us to analyse identity construction as a process and see details and nuances in the material that otherwise would have escaped us.

Findings: the positioning of women entrepreneurs in Latvian women's magazines
To see which positioning act was most common, we first counted them (Table 5).While every possible outcome was present, the most common outcome was to accept a position.Fewer interviewees contested or resisted a position.The total number of 166 exceeds the number of analysed interviews because, in several cases, the women demonstrated more than one positioning act, for example, by maintaining one position at first but shifting to another later in the interview.
In the following sections, we discuss the results of each positioning act and its underlying assumptions by using examples from the interview texts.Additional examples from the material Source: Czarniawska (2013, 63).
and our analysis of underlying assumptions can be found in Appendix 1.We begin with instances where the woman entrepreneur accepts a position.According to our framework (Table 5), accepting a position has four possible outcomes, which we discuss and exemplify.We then move on to the situation when a position is contested or resisted and discuss the four different possible outcomes.We have numbered the outcomes '1' through '8' in Table 5 and discuss them in this order.

Attributive positioning accepted -position maintained (1)
In the first positioning act, women are attributed a position, or an entrepreneurial identity.Our first quote is from an interview with a woman entrepreneur who owns a well-known chain of bakeries.
During the interview, the journalist asked the woman entrepreneur whether it is harder for a woman in business than for a man, a question that was asked in almost every interview.
I will ask the question asked of almost every woman who has proven herself in business.Is it harder for a woman in business than for a man?. (Santa, 1996/79) In the above, the journalist attributed to the woman a position that is guided by the assumption that entrepreneurship is something men do, presumably well.The interviewee responded: It is definitely harder -emotionally.The woman lets everything get to her.She worries more.She dives in deeper, especially regarding relationships, even the private problems of employees -the woman understands them better.It is easier for a man -he doesn't care as much.He doesn't even think about it -these things are foreign to him (Santa, 1996/79) The woman entrepreneur accepted the position attributed to her by the journalist without questioning it and agreed that it is definitely harder to be a woman entrepreneur, especially emotionally, since women are more emotional and take everything to heart.She maintained an attributed position that postulates that women are more emotional.Since business requires rationality, she claimed that it is more difficult for a woman to become a successful entrepreneur.Entrepreneurship is assumed to be something men do and is something contradictory to what is expected of a woman.Consequently, it becomes difficult or even impossible to reconcile these two identities with each other.
In another example a journalist interviewed a famous fashion designer and owner of a fashion house.The journalist suggested that her business is financially supported by her (rich) husband, who is also an entrepreneur.The woman entrepreneur is not offended by the assumption that she cannot maintain the business herself and even adds that there is nothing wrong if the man takes care of big material issues and why refuse him this joy?. (Santa, 2015/1) The quotes in this category demonstrate how deeply embedded the woman entrepreneur is in traditional gendered assumptions, i.e. entrepreneurship requiring 'typical male attributes' (being rational, profit-oriented, and uncaring), whilst womanhood represents the opposite attributes.From Source: adapted from Czarniawska (2013, 63).
this perspective, men should protect and provide for the family, and women should be feminine and care for the family.In this case, women's entrepreneurship is 'feminized' according to conventional assumptions regarding femininity.The result is that the woman entrepreneur is left doubting her entrepreneurial skills and abilities and perhaps feels incompetent.This was the most common entrepreneurial identity that we observed in our data.

Attributive positioning accepted -shifting position (2)
The second positioning act occurs when attributive positioning is accepted by the woman entrepreneur, but she tends to readjust it.This positioning act is most common among women who own a business with their husband.Co-ownership allows these women to be in business and simultaneously maintain their socially-expected femininity.A co-owner of a media company described her position as 'a little emancipated but well cared for . . .an ideal option (Santa, 1995/38)'.This readjustment also occurred when there was explicit (or implicit) pressure on the existing entrepreneurial identity, thus requiring some change.Identity reconfiguration of this sort was observed in cases where the woman entrepreneur's business had grown, or other circumstances forced her to reassess the social and personal constructs of her entrepreneurial identity.The woman starts to question her present identity constructs and examines whether they are in conflict with her growth aspirations, entrepreneurial potential, or current requirements.At the same time, she still constructs her identity around prevailing assumptions that state that femininity and entrepreneurship are incompatible.For example, the journalist called the interviewee a 'businesswoman', but she [the interviewee] refused this label by saying: No, I do not feel like a businesswoman.Maybe I will feel like that over time, but for the moment, I do not want to be associated with such an image.I believe the businesswoman is a shark.(Santa, 2014 /1) The woman entrepreneur quoted above recognized the incompatibility of dominant gendered assumptions regarding entrepreneurship and womanhood and disassociated herself from the attributed position since she found it unfeminine, akin to being 'a shark'.The image of a shark is supposedly associated with masculine attributes such as aggressiveness and mercilessness.But then, after some thought, she shifted her position, questioning whether her present identity would suit her goals and aspirations as she felt she had the necessary features and drive for entrepreneurship.She wanted her business to grow: Although . . .I am aware that I have these features and drive.Now, I think that I want more employees.I want to grow.I do not want to stop at what I've already achieved.In order to achieve that, I have to psychologically become a businesswoman; otherwise, I cannot lead a bigger organisation.You can lead a small and family-type team, being creative and friendly at a place where people work and enjoy themselves and are happy if they manage to earn some profit.This isn't my model anymore.I have one leg in a businesswoman's world.(Santa, 2014/1) In our dataset, shifting an attributed position was less common than maintaining one.Furthermore, shifting a position included a complicated act of navigation between masculinity and femininity and prevailing assumptions about femininity and entrepreneurship as being incompatible, thus creating an internal struggle for the interviewees.Other quotes in this category indicate similar endeavours; if a woman is to succeed in business, she must 'hide her femininity', or grow 'in a feminine way'.Her entrepreneurial identity is thus shaped by conflicting ideas of womanhood and entrepreneurship.

Self-positioning accepted -managing position (3)
As the analytical framework used in this study suggests, there are situations when a woman can position herself in relation to her perceptions of womanhood and entrepreneurship and evaluate whether she successfully complies with the defined position ('managing position') or whether she does not ('losing position').The women entrepreneurs in the 'managing position' category accepted the conventional gendered assumption of entrepreneurship as masculine, requiring assertiveness and aggressiveness.They also acknowledged its dissonance with femininity and womanhood.These women accepted and complied with these norms but still privileged the feminine identity.For example, in an interview with a well-known woman entrepreneur who owns a boutique shoe shop, the interviewee was eager to position herself as a woman, first and foremost, since she found it incompatible with the position of a businesswoman.We note how this woman distanced herself from a traditional perception of an entrepreneur (as someone who is calculating) by camouflaging her business premises with an expensive interior and accessories, thus trying to assert her femininity and womanhood.
By the way, one more sign that I am not a real entrepreneur -I didn't skimp on things when I was setting up the shop.(Lilit, 2005/7) Another example is from an interview with a woman entrepreneur who owns a small home décor shop called 'Interior for Romantics'.The small size of her business, the industry she is in, and her management style signal that her business is 'feminine' and has been developed according to social assumptions regarding female entrepreneurship.
To cry like that . . .like a woman . . .I can do so only among my small ladies' team -we have a great relationship.
On the other hand, it makes it harder to command and dismiss, but that is my nature -I am used to trusting the people around me completely.(Perle, 2018/1) Other quotes in this category characterize women as emotional, as managing their business in a softer, more feminine way, and suggest that women should not be interested in making money.The perceptions of the women entrepreneurs who fall into this group conform to traditional norms of womanhood and the normative, masculine entrepreneurship model.Their resulting identity construction is that of a woman as a secondary, feminized, and not quite sufficient to the task of being an entrepreneur.

Self-positioning accepted -losing position (4)
As in the previous category, the women who are 'losing a position' subscribe to both the traditional womanhood model and to the model of entrepreneurship as normatively male.However, these women found these two positions utterly incompatible with each other, thereby making it impossible to be both a woman and an entrepreneur.The following quote is from an interview with a woman entrepreneur who has created a well-known chocolate brand.It is a well-established business that has grown internationally.Although she has managed to create a successful business and (most probably) possesses the necessary entrepreneurial skills, this woman entrepreneur remains dissatisfied with the entrepreneurial side of her life since she finds it incompatible with her preferred identity as a wife and mother.
I'm not a businesswoman.Not in my heart, not in my soul, not in my behaviour.To put on a business suit is a problem for me, and to wear one all day is the highest form of punishment.Sometimes, I think . . .if I could, I would stay at home with the kids and cook meals for my husband.Make fruit salad, jams, chocolate, and soap like I did at the beginning, when the business was just starting.(Una, 2008/8) The quote illustrates that juggling the two identities was very difficult and demanding for the woman entrepreneur.She found it impossible to perform well on both fronts.The perceived social pressure was too high, and she wished to find an escape into the domain of traditional womanhood.She did not express the capacity to reconfigure her female or her entrepreneurial identity to fit her own requirements, finding the forces defining womanhood and entrepreneurship too powerful to be reconciled.She admitted the impossibility of reconciliation of these contradicting demands and felt that she had lost her position.As a consequence of this conflict, she suppressed her entrepreneurial identity while fully embracing her feminine identity.
Another woman, who has developed a much-loved and successful cosmetics brand, admitted that she wished to leave entrepreneurship since it did not make her happy.She claimed that a woman's only source of happiness is family and children.
The main and the biggest mistake is not to understand clearly if a woman needs this kind of crazy life.Because when you start a business, there is no going back.What would I like to do the most now?Stay at home and take care of the kids . . .and finish my medical degree (Lilit, 2005/7) The women entrepreneurs in this category felt it impossible to cultivate a career and take care of children.They thus saw themselves as failing as entrepreneurs, alternatively failing as women.

Attributive positioning contested -refusing definition (5)
The women entrepreneurs who fell under the next positioning category refused the positions offered by the journalist.Interviewing a famous hair salon owner, the journalist attributed a masculine gendered position to the woman by reporting that others had said that she (the entrepreneur) had 'jaws like a shark' but simultaneously assuming that such a characterization would bother her since such a position would be the opposite of a conventional feminine identity.
You have been called a lady with guts . . .that you have jaws like a shark.Doesn't that bother you?. (Santa, 1996/79) In contrast to the previous situations described above, the woman entrepreneur simply refused the validity of these traditionally gendered assumptions.
That's a terminology issue.We know housewives or wives of their husbands, and we know the other image.The concept of 'a normal woman' is quite ambiguous.(Santa, 1996/79) Another interview featured a journalist who implied that men are better at entrepreneurship as it requires risk-taking and, apparently, men take more risks.Based on her experience, the woman entrepreneur refused to accept the assumption that men take more risks and are consequently better at entrepreneurship.She expressed her own perception that men in business just show off more than women and that this is why they are considered to be better at entrepreneurship.
(Journalist): It is claimed that men risk more in business.
(Woman): Total bullshit.Men talk more and pretend that they are more important.If I would like to go out during office hours to talk with somebody about fashion or something else, I would say exactly as it is -I will go out for a coffee.Whereas men would invent some grand excuses instead of just saying that they go out for a beer.(Santa, 1999/85) The women entrepreneurs in this group seem to perceive less dissonance between the discourses of womanhood and entrepreneurship compared to the previous groups.They felt less embedded in traditional, binary understandings of gender.Although well aware of existing discourses, this group refused to accept the normative model of entrepreneurship or even consciously defied the stereotypical definitions of masculine norms of entrepreneurship.Their perception of business norms was more gender neutral, and they perceived entrepreneurship as something women could perform as well as men.

Attributive positioning contested -re-positioning (6)
This positioning act is similar to 'refusing definition', but in this case, not only is a position refused, but the woman also actually re-positions herself.Women who engage in this positioning act still subscribe to the existence of gender differences, but (as the quotes below show) they turn feminine traits into advantages.In the following example, a journalist interviewed a well-known woman entrepreneur who owns a cosmetics wholesale business.The journalist attributed a gendered position to the entrepreneur that assumed that because men and women are different from each other, there are 'masculine' or 'feminine' businesses.From this, a woman's business should necessarily be a feminine one.
There are ongoing discussions in art about female and male art.The same division is present in business.Women are more in the service, cosmetics, and fashion industry.Do you think your business is feminine?. (Santa, 1999/85) As her response shows, while the woman entrepreneur is aware of gendered discourse, she questioned the validity of the traditional division of 'feminine' and 'masculine' businesses.
There is nothing feminine about it.Some of my competitors are men who distribute bulk cosmetics, and their turnover is smaller.
I don't care what I sell (ok, maybe not tractors).I'm interested in the process as such.I've been thinking that I could work in banking because that also involves sales.If I wanted to brag, I would say that women are much better at many things -they are more intuitive.(Santa, 1999/85) This woman entrepreneur disapproved of the idea that men are better at entrepreneurship.Instead, she emphasized the possession of a feminine gendered trait, intuition, as an advantage in business.
Another journalist interviewed a clothing shop owner and asked her whether managing a business makes a woman more masculine.The entrepreneur opposed this attribution and implied that the opposite was true: Yes, I am trying to control my man at home from time to time, but I would do it anyways, also if I was a housewife.(Una, 2005/9) The women entrepreneurs in this group not only disagreed with the attributed normative models but actively re-positioned themselves.The women in this group appear to have perceived no dissonance between the construction of identities of 'womanhood' and 'entrepreneurship' since their own assumptions were regulated by a different understanding of these concepts.This stance, however, was very rare since we found only three text excerpts in this category in our dataset.

Self-positioning resisted -performance faulted (7)
We now turn to self-positioning acts that were contested or resisted.In the 'performance faulted' category, the woman entrepreneurs were aware of the prevailing traditional norms regarding womanhood and entrepreneurship.Still, according to them, it was impossible to be successful at both since these identities cannot be combined.Consequently, these entrepreneurs considered their performance as 'faulted' by the prevailing standards.
A famous linen producer admitted that she found it impossible to perform well both as an entrepreneur and a woman, and by choosing entrepreneurship, her womanhood was irrevocably lost, and no man would tolerate that.
For me, it's impossible to combine this work with the family and husband who expects dinner on the table . . . the work of a manager doesn't benefit artists or a woman.It has a profound effect on one's character, and not in a flattering way.I understand this, but I don't think anything can be done about it.(Perle, 2018/7) A well-known architect and owner of an architectural firm admitted that she was comfortable with her life without a family.However, a 'woman's instinct' or social expectations nagged at her, suggesting that something was wrong with her chosen life model.Consequently, she felt that she had failed in this aspect.
I feel good alone and can manage things, but a woman's instinct wants me to choose a different model of happiness.(Santa, 2011/1) The women entrepreneurs in this group understood that they could not simultaneously abide by the socially accepted standards of womanhood and entrepreneurship.They consequently viewed their performance as 'faulted'.The entrepreneur quoted above expressed regret regarding her situation, although she was not ready to comply with the traditional norms.Most women entrepreneurs in this group were single and reasoned that they had to forego family life in order to be entrepreneurs.

Self-positioning resisted -performance unrecognized (8)
The self-positioning resisted -performance unrecognized situation occurs when definitions of merit differ between negotiating parties.In an interview with a well-known wholesaler of catering products, the journalist asked the entrepreneur a question that was clearly based on traditional gendered norms of entrepreneurship, expecting the woman to comply with these norms.However, the woman entrepreneur perceived the question as suggesting that it is easier for women to do business because they can exploit their feminine qualities.The interviewee wasted no time in providing her own definition of doing business.
I would say women do not have any advantages or privileges.Some ladies tell me that they put on a finer blouse and get a better deal.But what is one deal?On a global scale?. (Santa, 2019/3) The next quote is taken from an interview with the founder of a publishing house.She complained that while women can work as hard as men, society does not recognize their endeavours, nor does it give women the same merits as men.
There are talented men, and there are talented women.If only we had the same conditions in life . . .(Santa, 1994/1) The other quotes in this category all centre on how gendered expectations make it impossible for women in business to enjoy success.If a woman entrepreneur is successful, then she is seen as a wannabe man and a failure as a woman, unfeminine, and is accused of not taking care of their family.Such women do not see an identity as a woman entrepreneur as either available of acceptable.

Summary and discussion
Our research has interrogated how women entrepreneurs in a post-Communist context construct their entrepreneurial identities and what normative assumptions regarding gender and entrepreneurship inform this process.We found that each positioning act resulted in a specific identity construction that was informed by certain assumptions about women, men, family, and entrepreneurship.By closely examining the identity construction and the underlying assumptions associated with each positioning act, we summarize the results of our analysis in Table 6.
Six of the eight positioning acts described above and nine of ten quotes in the material were informed by the same underlying assumptions regarding essential gender differences, including traditional constructions of masculinity and femininity.Men were constructed as 'strong', 'rational', 'competitive', 'providers', and so on, and women were seen as 'weaker', 'relational', 'caring', 'familyoriented', and 'concerned with their physical appearance'.It was important for women to not be perceived as masculine, or unfeminine.Entrepreneurship was seen as something for men and incompatible with womanhood.Women were assumed to be less capable as entrepreneurs than men, and the businesswoman epithet was shunned since such a person was seen as calculating, heartless, and lonely.Even successful entrepreneurs were under the impression that they needed support and advice from men, thus suggesting that they could not succeed alone.Constructing an entrepreneurial identity thus involved a complicated act of navigation between conflicting assumptions regarding femininity and masculinity/entrepreneurship.These assumptions guided and limited the identity constructions of women entrepreneurs so that the identities on offer were ultimately either a feminine, secondary entrepreneur, or an entrepreneur who chooses business before family and femininity and, therefore, fails as a woman.
A minority of the interviewed women held a different view.While the journalists solicited the same gendered assumptions in all positioning acts, the women in positioning acts five and six did not comply with these assumptions.They refused or reversed gender stereotypes and argued that success depends on hard work, not gender.This stereotypical discourse of entrepreneurship and femininity as conflicting was thus not all-encompassing.However, while evading gender norms and objecting to being typecast, these women stated what they were not, but they failed to offer an alternative identity construction.In particular, we noted that none of the women entrepreneurs expressed a postfeminist identity, i.e. the successful woman entrepreneur who, unencumbered by gender discrimination, can have it all: a successful career, a happy family, a home life, and a great sex life, which -at least as an aspirational object -has been found in contemporary analyses of women entrepreneurs in the West (Gill 2017;Lewis, Benschop, and Simpson 2017).Gill et al. (2017) characterize postfeminism as a dynamic constellation of beliefs, ideas, and practices that evolve and undergo transformation.As postfeminism spreads to other cultures, it is appropriated, reshaped, and adapted to existing local discourses.We found elements of the postfeminist discourse in our material, for example, (i) the neoliberal emphasis on 'making it on one's own' on market terms; (ii) the celebration of femininity; and (iii) the idea that structural impediments that hold women back are a thing of the past.However, the discourse spread to a context (post-Soviet Latvia) where neo-conservative understandings of gender prevail (or have been revived).As a result, the idea that women can simultaneously enact masculinity and femininity, and have it all did not take hold.Our analyses suggest that while trying to escape the omnipotent, genderless image of a Soviet-era worker-mother model, many women entrepreneurs fell into another extreme category, one that includes a fragile, feminine image of a woman who stays at home, takes care of her appearance, cares for her family and children, and positions her husband as the main family provider, thus accepting the traditional patriarchal gender order.These findings are stable over time in the sense that we saw no change in how women were positioned or positioned themselves over the 30year period despite widely accepted neoliberal values in Latvian society.Our analyses illustrate the transformative and adaptive nature of postfeminist sensibilities.As they spread to Eastern Europe, neoliberal and postfeminist values became entangled with neo-conservative social norms and now manifest a unique form of Eastern European, post-Communist postfeminism.A woman entrepreneur is a secondary, feminized, and not quite sufficient entrepreneur.
• Essential gender differences; traditional constructions of masculinity and femininity.
• Entrepreneurship is male- gendered and incompatible with womanhood.

Attributive positioning accepted -shifting position
A woman can very well be an entrepreneur if she does it in a feminine way (so as not to be seen as a shark), and she should take help and support from men. 3 Self-positioning acceptedmanaging position A woman entrepreneur is a secondary, feminized, and not quite sufficient entrepreneur.

Self-positioning accepted -losing position
A woman entrepreneur will fail because it is impossible to perform well as an entrepreneur and as a woman because these two roles are in conflict with each other.

Positioning contested or resisted: 5
Attributive positioning contested -refusing definition Women and men can be equally talented, and success depends on hard work, not gender.
• No necessary gender differ- ences; non-essentialist view of gender, and/or • Refusal/reversal of gender stereotypes 6 Attributive positioning contested -repositioning Women and men can be equally talented, and success depends on hard work, not gender.Feminine traits may be advantages in business.7 Self-positioning resistedperformance faulted A woman cannot combine entrepreneurship and womanhood/family; she must choose one or the other.
• Essential gender differences; traditional constructions of masculinity and femininity.
• Entrepreneurship is male gen- dered and incompatible with womanhood.
8 Self-positioning resistedperformance unrecognized A woman cannot combine entrepreneurship and womanhood/family, so there is no socially accepted identity available for a woman entrepreneur.
While the postfeminist discourse in the West has been characterized as a false promise since women are, in fact, still held back by structural impediments (Ahl and Marlow 2021), it is at least, a promise.There remains a belief that women can succeed on the same terms as men while maintaining their femininity, and some individuals have achieved this.In Latvia, not even a promise can be said to exist.Combining masculine and feminine values is not culturally accepted.Neither is structural change for gender equality supported because of the prevailing perception that gender equality exists.This state of affairs results in the marginalization of women entrepreneurs and the continued reproduction of women's secondary position in society.
However, it should be noted that our analysis concerns the discursive space that currently exists for constructing a female entrepreneurial identity in Latvia.Women may, of course, become successful entrepreneurs despite it, as demonstrated by many of the entrepreneurs who were interviewed.However, they experienced difficulties reconciling their identities as simultaneously women and entrepreneurs, which prompted them to recreate a gendered discourse.This discourse may, in turn, deter other women from becoming entrepreneurs.

Contributions
This paper makes three contributions to research on entrepreneurship and gender.First, we have analysed entrepreneurial identity constructions in a post-Communist context, which is new to entrepreneurship.We have also presented an understanding of gender equality that differs from that in the West.Post-Communist Latvia, like other post-Communist Eastern European countries, has fully embraced the ideology of a neoliberal market economy but maintains and even requires the enactment of traditional femininity, thus creating an environment where entrepreneurship is in conflict with womanhood.Second, the paper illustrates the fluid and transformative nature of postfeminist sensibilities and their ability to mutate and adapt to a local context.Postfeminist sensibilities have spread to Latvia and interacted with neo-conservative gender roles.The result of this interaction has been to maintain the status quo of gendered subordination.Third, by using positioning theory as our analytical lens, we demonstrate how gendered entrepreneurial identity construction is a context-specific, ongoing negotiation process that is subject to social assumptions and norms.

Policy implications
The findings presented in this paper demonstrate the resilience inherent to the gender order.Gender equality was assumed during the Communist era.Consequently, when a free-market system was introduced in post-Communist countries, citizens saw no need for specific measures aimed at improving gender equality.Instead, neo-conservative gender roles were revived.This development could result from persevering Communist-era gender equality perceptions in Eastern European countries.Or it could be a sign of the idea that independence in these countries automatically introduced equality and modern Western values into society with no further action required (Funk and Mueller 2019;Kott 2023).Nevertheless, a double standard that upholds a patriarchal gender order prevails.Against this background, it seems that gender inequality needs to be addressed before one considers implementing tailored-made entrepreneurship support programmes.We suggest that the underlying assumptions regarding essential gender differences be addressed, including traditional, even neo-conservative constructions of masculinity and femininity and assumptions of entrepreneurship as normatively male and incompatible with womanhood.Current policy initiatives are usually aimed at increasing the number of women entrepreneurs, but more women in business does not automatically change gendered assumptions.In fact, even where the number of women entrepreneurs is on the increase, they are still, as the case in Latvia, primarily found in low-value, 'feminized ghettos'.We believe that challenging the persistent gendered division of unpaid labour is the most expedient route to changing gendered assumptions.The identity of a woman as primarily wife, mother, and care-taker will probably not change until a masculine identity as the primary care-taker and homemaker is just as normal and acceptable in society.For this to happen, policy must extend beyond entrepreneurship policy and focus on education, family policy (including parental leave systems and day-care), gender discrimination legislation, and so on.This would necessitate breaking down barriers between policy areas and for policy to fully embrace the feminist motto that 'the private is political'.

Limitations and future research suggestions
A possible limitation of the study is its focus on glossy monthly women's magazines.One might say that a focus on womanhood and femininity is central to these magazines' business concept.Studies of other media channels would show whether the entrepreneurial identities portrayed there differ from each other (and the present study) depending on the image and target audience of the media in question and the views and assumptions of the editorial and journalist teams.A study on identity constructions involving women entrepreneurs outside of the magazine interview situation might also reveal a different picture.Notwithstanding this suggestion, such a picture would remain co-created since it would have been told to someone and interpreted by the researcher.More research that questions the actual gendered assumptions and their influence on women's position in society in the post-Communist Eastern European context is thus called for.

Conclusion
This study has analysed how women entrepreneurs construct their identities in a post-Communist context and has identified the normative assumptions regarding gender and entrepreneurship that shape this process.We found that assumptions regarding (i) essential gender differences, including traditional constructions of masculinity and femininity, and (ii) entrepreneurship as normatively male and incompatible with womanhood guided and limited the identity constructions of women entrepreneurs.The identities on offer to women were ultimately either a feminine, secondary entrepreneur, or an entrepreneur who chooses business before family and femininity and, therefore, is someone who fails as a woman.The post-feminist conception of a woman who can be successful on the market on the same terms as men while maintaining her femininity was not present in the interviews we examined.Instead, neo-conservative gender roles combined with the perception that gender equality prevailed alongside the idea that structural change is not needed.This state of affairs has created a situation where neither market activity nor activism are seen as possible avenues to correct gender inequalities.This results in the continued reproduction of women's subordination.Our study further demonstrates the resilience of the gender order since the turn from Communism to free enterprise has not changed the position of women.The prevailing gender order has withstood radical changes in the Latvian political and economic systems.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.Men should provide for the family and take care of their wives Essential gender differences: • Traditional masculinity (men as providers and protectors) • Traditional femininity (emo- tional, caring, dependent, etc) Entrepreneurship not compatible with womanhood: • Entrepreneurship as male • Women inferior to men as entrepreneurs (they must hide their femininity, act against their nature) Men are expected to be smarter than women Essential gender differences: • Traditional masculinity (men are smart, strong, and fighters) • Traditional femininity (women should take care of the family, even if working) Entrepreneurship not compatible with womanhood: • Entrepreneurship as male • The woman entrepreneur is disadvantaged compared to a man There are talented men, and there are talented women.If only we had the same conditions on life . . .(Santa, 1994/3).
With equal talent, men will still be valued higher

Table 1 .
Monthly women's magazines in Latvia.

Table 2 .
Frequency of interviews featuring women entrepreneurs in women's magazines.

Table 3 .
Number of interviews with women entrepreneurs per time period.

Table 4 .
Types of positioning acts and their possible results.

Table 5 .
Number and types of positioning.
I don't consider myself a salesperson.I think I'm a creative person.Because my goal is not to sell.Of course, I would not want to finance my hobby the way I'm doing it now.But my goal is not to make big money.Maybe that's why the word businesswoman doesn't suit me.(Lilit, 2005/7)

Table 6 .
Identity constructions and their underlying assumptions.

Table A4 .
Self-positioning accepted/Losing position (showing 5 out of 13 text excerpts)

Table A5 .
Attributive positioning contested/Refusing definition (showing 6 of 12 text excerpts) Men talk more and pretend that they are more important.IfI would like to go out during office hours to talk with somebody about fashion or something else I would say exactly as it is -I will go out for a coffee.Whereas men would invent some grand excuses instead of just saying that they are going out for a beer (Santa, 1999/85).The idea that men take more risks is bullshit -they just pretend (Journalist): One marriage, three children four grandchildren?Do you think it is important if you are a man or a woman in business?(Woman entrepreneur): Our company, is of course, a success story.We have had many successes, but, of course, the bases is our will and our intensive work, to use these opportunities (Una, 2003/5).Success depends on hard work, not on gender (Journalist): You are an architect.Architects are mostly men? (Women entrepreneur): In this aspect, I am quite manly.I am logical and can be authoritative.But is the question of character, not gender, women are surgeons too (Santa, 2011/1).My work has even improved my relationships.I felt useless and not on the same level as my husband, now when I work I understand why he is busy all the time (Santa, 1998/69).

Table A6 .
Attributive positioning contested/Re-positioning (3 text excerpts in total) Quote Assumptions articulated in quote Underlying assumptions Yes, I am trying to control my man at home from time to time, but I would do it anyways, even if I would be a house-wife (Una, 2005/9).aware that I am a woman.As well as that my brain works as good as one of a man, I can voice my though and use my voice as laud as he -I have no doubt about it.(Santa, 2004/2).There are ongoing discussions in art about female and male art.The same division is present in business.Women are more in the service, cosmetics, and fashion industry.Do you think your business is feminine?(Women entrepreneur): There is nothing feminine about itsome of my competitors are men that distribute bulk cosmetics, and their turnover is smaller.I don't care what I sell (ok, maybe not tractors), I'm interested in the process as such.I've been thinking that I could work in banking because that also involves sales.If I wanted to brag, I would say that women are much better at many thingsmore intuitive (Santa, 1999/85).

Table A7 .
Self-positioning contested/Performance faulted (showing 5 of 17 text excerpts) Quote Assumptions articulated in quote Underlying assumptions For me, it's impossible to combine this work with the family and husband who expects dinner on the table . . . the work of a manager doesn't benefit artists or a woman.It has a profound effect on character, and not in a flattering way.I understand this, but I don't think anything can be done about it (Perle, 2018/7).alone and can manage things, but my woman's instinct wanted me to choose a different model of happiness (Santa, 2011/1).It is impossible to perform well as an entrepreneur and as a woman I have heard assumptions that when the woman starts to work she loses femininity.And then I think of myself, I am not only working but also managing others, and I understand that I probably do not have femininity at all . . .something really disappears . .., from that princess role (Una, 2019/1).It is impossible to perform well as an entrepreneur and as a woman I do not think that this life dynamics is compatible with the family and husband who expects meal on the table . . . the manager's work is totally incompatible with taking care of family . . .The manager position does not have a good influence on women's character . . .I understand it and there is nothing to be changed (Santa, 2018/11).

Table A8 .
Self -positioning contested/Performance unrecognized (showing 5 of 7 text excerpts)QuoteAssumptions articulated in quote Underlying assumptions I always wanted the man to be smarter and stronger than me, I though, he could help.But as absurd it is, it always turned out wrong (Perle, 2019/8).
do not know what the society wants from a woman.Do they know that?If you work, you are being accused that you do not take care of the family.Or, if you do not work at all, nobody knows what you are really doing (Una, 2019/8).myself to be in business and it is still difficult to get used to the fact that men do not see a woman in me but a man that they need to fight with (Lilit, 2015/11).Femininity is incompatible with entrepreneurship I would say women do not have any advantages or privileges.Some ladies tell me that they put on a finer blouse and get a better deal.But what is one deal?On a global scale?(Santa, 2019/3).