The Business of Women's Empowerment

Although previously denounced for their gender blindness in the past, private businesses have increasingly emerged as vocal proponents of women’s empowerment in the Global South. This book critically examines these claims and examines how ideals of female entrepreneurial conduct are transmitted, ideologically anchored and negotiated as well as the kind of societal transformations the initiative opens up for in two national contexts. Drawing from extensive ethnographic fieldwork from Mexico and South Africa, the Coca Cola Company’s global program “5by20”, has openly stated objective to empower female micro-entrepreneurs in marginalized, informal sectors of the economy. Closer inspection of this sheds light on corporate gender practices are played out in practice and contributes to feminist debates about the relations between neoliberal capitalist expansion and emancipatory strivings and provides unique insights into the premises and effects of corporate solutions to gender inequality in the Global South.