Driving and restraining forces of female Latin American entrepreneurship

Women in Latin America present unique challenges and opportunities due to the family responsibilities they assume because of their gender role. The article focuses on examining the driving forces for Latin American entrepreneurship as empowerment and family support, and the restraining forces as their exclusion from males spheres, labor discrimination, lack of support, and families responsibilities from an intersectionality approach. The study includes the implications of how the entrepreneurial phenomenon develops in the context of women in Latin American. Studies of this type in this context being scarce. Likewise, an analysis of entrepreneurial femininity is carried out to identify the most appropriate Latin context. Equally, an analysis model is proposed that integrates these driving and restrictive forces. The methodology is qualitative, cross-sectional, integrates the case study, semi-structured in-depth interviews, and discourse interpretation. The conclusion presents the women barriers face in startup businesses and how their family responsibilities limit them, being the key support for their development, especially in Latin American when they face a macho atmosphere and a social representation associated with femininity (seems to be contrary to entrepreneurial spirit), the main role of women in the home, without economic support, with financial responsibility for taking care of their families, is shown as a cause for businesses not to grow.