Are women in business really lacking confidence? The recent boom in books and videos addressing women’s presumed lack of confidence suggests that women can achieve success if they work on their confidence. This is also the case for women entrepreneurs who are regularly encouraged to be confident. In this paper, we look at how confidence is articulated and how it operates to shape the entrepreneurial self of businesswomen in a triple-layered innovation ecosystem context, comprising women entrepreneurs, innovation hub managers and policy managers. Drawing on interviews, texts, and videos analysis, we show that confidence is engrained in postfeminist neoliberal discourses of masculine entrepreneurship. We contribute to extant research exploring the neoliberal masculine discourse of entrepreneurship by moving beyond the individual subject (the woman entrepreneur), to problematize the context in which confidence is constructed as essential for women entrepreneurs. We also contribute to the literature by showing that confidence is articulated as a discourse that can be resisted, as women entrepreneurs undo confidence by engaging in collective practices of care, of resistance of unkind practices and by collectivizing the need to ‘fix’ the self.
