Heavy Wings of Journey: Exploring the Gendered Challenges and Resilience among Women Entrepreneurs in Vavuniya

Abstract

Women’s participation in entrepreneurship is gradually increasing in many patriarchal societies as well. However, this growing presence should not simplify or romanticize the entrepreneurial journeys of women. Rather, there is a need to critically explore the gendered challenges that women entrepreneurs have to face within the journey and the forms of resilience women develop while navigating them. Vavuniya, a prominent district in the Northern Province of Sri Lanka, represents a socio-culturally conservative space where traditional gender roles and gender narratives strongly regulate the social mobility and employment of women. Although women entrepreneurs are increasingly emerging in Vavuniya, once a venture becomes successful, such success is often interpreted as a form of ‘healing’ for the hardships endured. As a result, the challenges seem unexplored and less critically examined. As most of the crucial challenges that women entrepreneurs undergo are gendered in nature, this study aims to uncover the common yet often unnoticed gendered challenges faced by women entrepreneurs and to explore how resilience is built through their experiences. This study adopts a qualitative, interpretive approach and employs narrative inquiry to explore the lived experiences of selected aspiring women entrepreneurs from Vavuniya. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews, enriched through the narrative storytelling of the selected entrepreneurs. The data were thematically analyzed with the support of qualitative data analysis software MAXQDA, through which five key themes were identified. The findings reveal that women entrepreneurs’ journeys are heavily shaped by socially assigned gender roles, where the women’s primary responsibility lies in domestic labor. It cannot be omitted but can be replaced by another woman in the family or, occasionally, by another man. This makes entrepreneurial engagement secondary, thereby intensifying the weight of the entrepreneurial journey. Secondly, this study identifies dominant gender narratives that normalize discrimination against women and question the competence and confidence of women as entrepreneurs. Beyond these direct gendered challenges, this study also found that women face broader economic and market pressures that are distinctly gendered or arise from the roots of gendered narratives. In response to these challenges, women showed resilience through entrepreneurial mindsets such as self-confidence, independence, risk-taking, and perseverance. Finally, this study presents the everyday practices of resilience, such as undertaking critical decision-making, creating alternative styles of doing business, and fostering women’s solidarity. Beyond its empirical contributions, this study offers practical and critical implications by recognizing and valuing the less-explored gendered hardships of women entrepreneurs. Further, the study stands in support of women entrepreneurs by highlighting their resilience while questioning discriminatory narratives and the unfair entrepreneurial journeys imposed on women through rigid gender roles. On the whole this study recommends for an entrepreneurial ecosystem with more equal and equitable spaces for women entrepreneurship.