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This paper aims to critically analyze media discourses on women owner-managers/entrepreneurs (OMEs) in the Kenyan and Omani newspapers.

A critical discourse analysis is carried out on a total of 408 online media articles (174 articles from Omani newspapers and 234 articles from Kenyan newspapers) on women OMEs over the period 2010-2018. Articles are also classified based on their framing of women’s entrepreneurship.

Five main categories of media discourses are identified, i.e. discourses on government/institutional initiatives; women OMEs’ dependency; women OMEs’ femininity; women OMEs’ societal impact; and normalization of women OMEs. These gendered media discourses and underlying assumptions further perpetuate women OMEs’ subordinate position in society, weaken their social legitimacy and trivialize their roles as managers and leaders in society.

The analysis was limited to online articles published in mainstream media. Future research could focus on offline print media from smaller media distributors or other distribution channels.

Policymakers and media houses need to pay greater attention to the subtle mechanisms reproducing gender stereotypes. Women OMEs should also take a more active role in constructing their identity in the media.

This paper highlights the underlying assumptions of media discourses regarding women’s empowerment that negatively impacts their social legitimacy. This paper also draws attention to media’s role in the trivialization of women OMEs’ leadership and managerial roles and subsequent marginalization of their social status.

This invited paper aims to explore current knowledge and recent trends within published management research to illustrate the development and contribution of research on this topic and to outline promising future research directions.

A systematic literature review of 34 articles between January 2018 and August 2022 has been undertaken, which reflects the increased scholarly attention, in recent years, upon the topic of women entrepreneurs in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).

This review highlights that this topic remains under-explored and that recent research tends to explore STEM women's entrepreneurial activity in different country contexts. The opportunity exists to advance theoretical understandings of how gender is operationalised within gendered contexts and places.

This paper reviews research to date and offers suggested avenues for further research.