Despite much research on the subject of entrepreneurship in the West, our familiarity with it in the Middle East, specifically in the informal sector of women's entrepreneurship in Iran, is still minimal. Given this situation, Roksana Bahramitash's book, Gender and Entrepreneurship in Iran, is particularly welcome. As a continuation of her earlier research in Veiled Employment: Islamism and the Political Economy of Women's Employment in Iran (Syracuse University Press, 2011), the newer book focuses on the invisible economy generated in informal sectors such as microentrepreneurship among women of low-income households in southern Tehran. Her main goal is to examine whether women in the informal sector are exploited or empowered. She conducts fieldwork and interviews over ninety women, asking standardized and open-ended questions. In an attempt to develop a gender analysis and to shed light on the nature of female work in the informal sector in comparison with male work, she interviews men involved too.

Bahramitash examines some of the reasons why informal sectors have become an academic blind spot. She discusses important factors such as “the domination of mainstream economics and how development prescriptions are formulated and imposed by international development actors,” the impacts of Orientalism, the ways gender and development discourses have been formulated, and the challenge of carrying on such fieldwork in Iran (3). Bahramitash's main concern, however, is how to realistically conduct research on the subaltern (women from low-income households) without falling into the mainstream Western discourse of portraying Iranian women as victims. To accomplish this, she “document[s] ways in which the invisible subaltern women exercise agency or lack of it, particularly through social networks, social capital, and the informal economy” (19–20). In this way, Bahramitash creates a space to critique the dominant discourses around development, gender, and the informal sector. She emphasizes the centrality of microfinance in the social economy and its prevalence among women in Iran. She explores women's social networks, which have become their access points for economic resources and social economy. Bahramitash considers the negative aspects of women's involvement in the informal sector, including their exploitation, in the beginning chapters. Later, she also examines its positive side, discussing the increase in women's participation in microentrepreneurship and their freedom of choice.

One of the strengths of this book is that it examines counterarguments as well as the author's main arguments. In addition to gender, Bahramitash considers all factors affecting female involvement in the informal sectors of the Iranian economy, such as women's level of education and class, which gives the arguments a multidimensional perspective. Bahramitash's research demystifies the dominant myth of “the traditional family model of the male breadwinner, at least in low-income Tehran,” by illustrating that most women who work in the informal sector are actually married (112). The book ends on another strong note, including the positive example of the Seddighin Foundation, which advocates labor protection and secures insurance for its employees. The author considers the Seddighin Foundation “an important model of how to provide employment and economic empowerment, and . . . how the informal sector can be formalized in the social-economic domain” (188).

Drawing on a broad collection of sources, ranging from her interviews with women and men in the informal sector to documented records, Bahramitash presents an inviting and original discussion of both the exploitation and empowerment that working in the informal sector can bring to women. The organization of the material not only highlights the sources of exploitation but also maintains a clear departure from it. This is done effectively and allows the reader to envisage the multifaceted impacts of one on the other.

Roksana Bahramitash's Gender and Entrepreneurship in Iran delves into the history of the Middle East, particularly Iran. It is also an ethnographic source. While the book will be of significant interest to scholars of business, management, finance, and entrepreneurship, it will also be of interest to scholars of Middle East and Iranian studies. By studying women of low-income strata working in the informal sector, Bahramitash's book is a great addition to earlier works about female entrepreneurship in the world and a major contribution to entrepreneurship in Iran. Her book should be adapted in business, finance, and social science courses dealing with women's employment and their contributions to the social economy in the Middle East or even in the West.