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Nigeria presents something of an entrepreneurial paradox. Women in entrepreneurship dominate the economy, yet patriarchal structures dominate society. This article investigates how patriarchal factors impact entrepreneurial processes, in turn, creating unequal expectations of entrepreneurial opportunity.

The study adopts an intersectionality lens to explore how patriarchy is manifest for entrepreneurs. The reflective narratives of 30 entrepreneurs are analysed, provided through semi-structured interviews. An inductive qualitative approach accesses the gendered discourse of entrepreneurship as constructed by entrepreneurs. Within this discourse, the factors of patriarchy are exposed.

Findings reveal a multi-faceted patriarchy, with the informing factors of entrepreneurial gender roles, class and religion. The study explains how the interaction of these factors reinforce patriarchal ideals and create a variety of gendered images of what is acceptable entrepreneurial activity in Nigeria, and for whom.

This study contributes to growing insight on entrepreneurship in Africa and challenges linear arguments of entrepreneurship-as-emancipation for women. In complex and multidimensional contexts, entrepreneurs must navigate the intersection of factors sensitively, ensuring acceptance and fulfilment of societal expectations. The power of intersectionality as a theory of contextualisation is discussed.

Our aim is to better understand access to finance and financial inclusion and how this impacts the development of female-run enterprises in Nigeria. In such a way, we can better understand the gendered context of entrepreneurship and the implications for business growth. This chapter adopts an interpretivist paradigm to explore the social reality within which entrepreneurship is enacted. Qualitative data are interpreted from semi-structured interviews of 10 Nigerian entrepreneurs, five males and five females. Findings reveal that, though structural support may be apparent, the entrepreneurial process of financing a business is characterised, in part, by social expectations of gender. It is through this social view of entrepreneurship that we provide an understanding of what it is to be entrepreneurial in practice. This chapter makes recommendations that in practice while financial institutions and policy makers may assume a ‘one size fits all’ approach to financial inclusion through different programmes currently available for entrepreneurs by the various governmental and non-governmental institutions in Nigeria, the context of gender has implications for the nature of business activity, particularly in a society characterised by patriarchy. This study also makes practical contributions for research and for practice.