De-Centering Women: Pedagogical Implications Of Becoming-women Entrepreneurs

The subjectivities of women have been historically homogenised in hegemonic terms and women as a class have been the objects of ideological domination. Using data collected in India, through interviews conducted with media personnel and experts on entrepreneurship, and print media data, this paper examines how women are making attempts to reject patriarchal discourses and practical constraints. I argue that through self-reflexivity, women entrepreneurs are engaged in a continuous process of ‘becoming’ as "bodies" in "action." In Deleuzian terms identity is a multiple act of connection, is rhizomatic, and a dynamic process of ‘becoming’, which implies that we need to distance women from notions of patriarchy and femininity that define and contain them in simplistic terms that limit their opportunities. I argue that critical pedagogy can enable women to shape new meaning systems that go beyond simplistic tracings of patriarchal meaning, towards a new "mapping" of meaning and the formation of diverse and multiple connections. Critical pedagogy is a continuous process of a ‘minoritarian ethics’ to establish the ‘other’ or in a Foucauldian sense, to enact resistance as an ethical experience.