Venture accelerators are regarded as crucial and impactful intermediaries within entrepreneurial ecosystems (Brush et al., 2019; Hallen et al., 2020). Whilst they may vary in approach, they share the common goal to expedite the journey of early-stage ventures to market by furnishing them with workspace, educational training, mentorship, specialised knowledge, networking opportunities, and sometimes, financial backing (Cohen and Hochberg, 2014; Hallen et al., 2014). In essence, venture accelerators exist to bolster the entrepreneurial skills and resources of early-stage entrepreneurs (Moritz et al., 2022). Prevailing theoretical presumptions focus upon the entrepreneurial firm as an objective unit of analysis with the support initiatives and physical benefits of acceleration viewed as impartial independent elements. However, the dominant assumption of accelerators as social and physical spaces where programme tenants, accelerator managers, and professional advisors interact in a neutral fashion has been questioned and debated (Marlow and International Journal of Gender and Entrepreneurship The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at: https://www.emerald.com/insight/1756-6266.htm Received 27 April 2024 Revised 17 September 2024 Accepted 1 October 2024 International Journal of Gender and Entrepreneurship ? Emerald Publishing Limited 1756-6266 DOI 10.1108/IJGE-04-2024-0138 McAdam, 2012; MacNeil et al., 2022). Within the domain of entrepreneurship, there exists a normative assumption wherein genderis often equated with femininity (Ahl, 2006; McAdam, 2022), where it often becomes narrowly construed as synonymous with women¡¯s business ownership. This constricted perspective effectively obscures in depth investigations into how masculinity is enacted and subsequently contested or reinforced by men within this sphere (Giazitzoglu and Down, 2017). Positioned as the default standpoint in this dialogue, masculinity undergoes a reduction, losing its discernible identity, becoming relegated to an inherent quality ratherthan an actively performed construct (Hamilton, 2013). Consequently, the gendered positioning of the predominant demographic within entrepreneurship remains largely unexplored. The extent to which self-employed men align themselves with the stereotypically masculine entrepreneurial role, ascribed to them solely by virtue of their gender, also remains largely unexamined (Marlow et al., 2019). In order to address this, we utilise the venture accelerator context to dissect and critically evaluate manifestations of masculinity and its implications for the entrepreneurial discourse.