‘Evolution from the inside out’: Revisiting the impact of (re)productive resistance among ultra-orthodox female entrepreneurs

Abstract

How can resistance produce substantial social changes without becoming detrimental to those resisting? Drawing on qualitative study of diverse social and business Jewish-ultraorthodox female entrepreneurs (JUFE) in Israel, we demonstrate how JUFE’s resistance turned productive by advancing different issues related to women’s status and rights, leading to greater gender equality in their community. In struggling against their community's patriarchal power, women's resistance acts resulted in multilevel gendered social changes related to embodiment, home equality, economic well-being and women’s rights. JUFE's resistance was intermingled with compliance, thus allowing them to engender change processes in an ultra-religious social environment while maintaining their community membership and belonging. Our contributions is threefold: First, by uncovering resistance forms in social contexts subjected to authoritarian power regimes, we argue that religiosity serves as a resource for women not only in resisting gender power relations, but also in promoting broad, gendered social changes without becoming victimized as social outcasts. Second, we uncover the complex dynamics between diverse aspects of domination, the resistant acts invoked in response, the respective compliant practices intermingled with these acts and the perceived risks involved. Third, by demonstrating how JUFE's resistance led to significant, evolutionary modifications in different aspects of an extant social order, while reproducing the hegemonic power relations and social circumstances it aims to modify, we highlight that resistance may become productive because it is reproductive of the social order it seeks to change, not despite it.

Power and entrepreneurship

“…A focus on interactions can also reveal how power structures shift. Entrepreneurship can be a mechanism for some actors, including female entrepreneurs, to break free from existing power structures, thereby triggering social change and modifying power structures (Baikovich et al, 2021 ). Furthermore, entrepreneurs are resourceful at circumventing burdensome regulation (Shleifer & Vishny, 1993 ) imposed by powerful actors.…”

Fashion as embodied resistance: The case of Jewish ultraorthodox female entrepreneurs

“…In this way, affluent femininity challenges the rabbinical demands prescribing women practice religious spirituality and settle for little rather than spending money on earthy day-to-day issues, such as bodily beauty or other materialistic issues. Consequently, wigs, we argue, became more than a fashionable ornament, as they echo a deeper resistance to the prescribed poverty emerging in recent years in the ultraorthodox community (Baikovich et al, 2022). Zelda explained the change triggered by JUFFEs' acts in the ultraorthodox society:…”

Bodies in‐between: Religious women's‐only spaces and the construction of liminal identities

“…The difficulties that professional women encounter when moving between their gender‐traditional religious communities and the modern workplace have been documented in studies focusing on Muslims (Arifeen & Gatrell, 2013; Berger et al., 2017; Essers & Benschop, 2009; Tariq & Syed, 2017), Jews (Baikovich et al., 2022; Frenkel & Wasserman, 2020; Wasserman & Frenkel, 2020; Wasserman & Gabel, 2019), Christians (Gallagher & Smith, 1999), Hindus, and Buddhists (Narayan & Purkayastha, 2009). Since, in most religions, women's behavior is more tightly monitored, regulated, and restricted than that of men, the mere fact of pursuing a career outside community boundaries may violate religious norms and pose challenges to women's religious and professional identities.…”