Family business women in the media discourse : The fairytale heiresses and the down-to-earth tomboys

• An alternative way to study a phenomenon is to explore texts in order to learn about discursive constructions within specific areas on a societal level. One example of such as study is Ahl (2002) who examined how the female entrepreneur was constructed in research texts. She found that even though the texts celebrated women’s entrepreneur­ship, they also recreated women’s secondary position in society. In this paper, the area of study is notions of women in family business and we have examined how Swedish media (re)constructs meanings about women in family business. The empirical material in this study is media texts about women in family businesses over a ten year period (1999-2008). This text departs from the general definition of discourse as ‘a particular way of talking about and under­standing the world (or an aspect of the world) ’ (Phillips and Jørgensen, 2006, p. 1). One contradiction found in the media discourse was the difference between the famous heiresses and the everyday woman working hands-on, often in manufacturing industries. Concerning the heiresses, they were sometimes mentioned in the same article as family business women in other countries, thus adding an international flair to the description. The entrepreneurs were instead noted for excelling in business and prizes/positions received as an outcome of their performance. Different ways to portray business women could have implica­tions for other women facing a situation of becoming a family business owner/manager since role modeling can be an important inspiration for choices made by individuals.

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