"Contested Femininity and Entrepreneurial Imagination: Ruth Handler"

Business historians have widely discussed female entrepreneurship and the role of gender in the evolution of capitalism. However, few contributions have so far directly connected this rich scholarship with mainstream entrepreneurship research. In this paper, we analyze the case of the serial entrepreneur Ruth Handler to criticize and expand Tina Seelig (2015)’s Invention Cycle, an entrepreneurship framework coming out of the Stanford Design Thinking tradition. We use archival material from Handler’s personal collection at the Schlesinger Library to study the progression of Handler’s entrepreneurial process and her experience of engaging with gender and femininity in her ventures. Ruth Handler founded the toy company Mattel with her husband Elliot, and together they transformed it into a global multinational after launching the iconic doll Barbie through the 1960s. In the 1970s, she faced a period of crisis, undergoing a mastectomy to cure her breast cancer and a white-collar scandal that forced her and Elliot out of Mattel. At age 50, she managed to rehabilitate her image, by reinventing herself in a new venture, Nearly Me, supplying prostheses to breast cancer survivors. Based on the empirical analysis, we develop a more historical and gendered perspective of Seelig’s framework, which we criticize as decontextualized and void of historical sensitivity. Moreover, the analysis stresses how different perspectives on femininity shaped and influences the entrepreneur’s self-understanding and her entrepreneurial journey. Handler’s ability to collaborate helped revolutionize the toy-making and breast-prosthesis industries, creating products tailored to women’s and girls’ needs. Yet, her story also shows the complexity of being a woman executive, as well as “selling femininity” through her products. Despite her success, the ventures demonstrated that femininity was often contested, and required constant reinvention to match women’s changing role in society.