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This study aims to investigate how women social entrepreneurs in Indonesia use various behaviors to address challenges to their leadership authority created by socioreligious patriarchal norms in this Muslim society.

An exploratory study of six Muslim women social entrepreneurs was conducted using multiround, semistructured interviews in a contrast sample of three women who work with their husbands and three women who work without their husband’s involvement.

The study identifies a variety of leadership behaviors that women entrepreneurs use to mitigate the constraining impact of strong patriarchal religious gender norms. Observations revealed surprisingly effective micro adjustments often based on relationship-specific private negotiations between the entrepreneurs and their husbands.

Future research focused on the husbands’ perspectives and behaviors, as well as extensions to other patriarchal religions and societies, are encouraged.

Recognition of the crucial role of spousal relationships suggests the need for more holistic approaches to support women social entrepreneurship, e.g. by integrating husbands into related outreach programs.

Religious gender stereotypes such as the stronger altruistic orientation of women can help counteract, to a degree, Muslim patriarchal norms when women lead social enterprises. Leadership of social enterprises by women promises to promote more gender equality over time, even if associated private and relationship-specific accommodations are not intended to challenge religious gender norms.

This study contributes to emerging research on the crucial role of spousal relationships for women’s entrepreneurship and the impact of private micro arrangements between spouses to mitigate the constraining impact of Muslim gender norms. Muslim women entrepreneurs approved of the religious gender norms that constrained them, in contrast to the more “feminist” perspectives common in women entrepreneurs in more secular and Christianity-dominated western societies.

This research aims to explore how female immigrants use consumption to challenge and support their husband's position within the context of their patriarchal bargain.

The sample group (n = 20) consisted of ten first-generation Nigerian immigrant married couples living in Britain, who were interviewed together, with the married female then re-interviewed separately.

This paper demonstrates how women transition from being a wife in a consanguine family in Nigeria, which they describe as patriarchal, to becoming one within a nuclear family in the UK, a society to which they attribute gender equality. Nigerian immigrant women alter their ways of thinking and consuming, with implications to their agency and empowerment. In particular, consumption choices demonstrated the limits of these women’s willingness to challenge their patriarchal bargain and instead often colluded with their husbands to maintain his position as the head of the family.

Immigrant women should not be seen as passive receptors of their male partner’s wishes or demands, but instead active participators in purchasing and consumption decisions. Although marketing encourages direct targeting of customers, this approach raises a number of ethical issues for female African immigrants.

Previous research on the consumption behaviour of immigrants is limited in scope and tends to focus on male immigrants, with female immigrants either invisible or stereotyped. Compounding this problem are disciplinary, geographical and linguistic barriers that hinder social scientists' research into the consumption of female migration. This paper works to address these omissions.

Psychiatric patients’ post-treatment identities are one of the potent indicators reflecting the efficacy of the medical intervention. This study aims to explore how psychiatric patients construct their post-treatment social identities through a gender lens.

This study used a descriptive phenomenological approach, and in-depth interviews were undertaken on 29 informants with experience of psychiatric treatment for at least one year and who are in the remission stage. The lived experience of each informant was scrutinised, which covered how psychiatric post-treatment affects and alters their personal life, work and social relationships. Data collected were then analysed using thematic analysis.

The result found two mutually reinforced identities, namely, self-empowerment and resilience emerged from their experience with psychiatric post-treatment. Firstly, self-empowerment themes include acceptance of the disorders, meaningful choices, assertiveness and helping others. Such self-empowerment attributes enabled them to negotiate with the doctors during the treatment and also with their family members and partners. Secondly, psychiatric post-treatment allows them to be resilient; their good feeling of being liberated from the symptoms while allowing them to partake in a normal lifestyle. Meanwhile, gender differences were found to have diverse meaning-making that positively impacted their lives, particularly among female informants.

Firstly, the data collection was only made in two states in North Peninsular Malaysia; hence, it would be biased in this sense to generalize to a larger population. At the same time, a prevalent study could be undertaken to view the pervasiveness of mental illness among Malaysians. Secondly, the study did not investigate the social institutions that are linked to the relief of psychiatric patients in the country. Thus, there is a grey area on how at the systemic level aid is given to the patients and the impact of such action.

A rigour campaign on promoting mental health should be undertaken to create an inclusive environment for the patients. This is consistent with the aspiration of deinstitutionalization and the Shared Prosperity Vision 2030 agenda by the Malaysian government. This is a call for an allotment in special education, training, and funding, employment, housing and other aspects that are significant for their livelihood.

The findings discovered that their social environment primarily caused the depression suffered by the patients. The remark is particularly true for female informants who had very little control over their lives and bodies. Hence, health professionals should consider practicing cultural and gender-sensitive treatment for these patients. Such treatments are to avoid re-discriminating, or re-victimisation feelings to occur during the treatment.

Patients’ post-treatment social identity construction is seldom reported systematically through a gender lens. This study is one of the early efforts on gender lens that allow one to understand how it influences social structures and institutions, especially in the Malaysian realm.