Learning with care: A feminist model of digital literacy for women micro-entrepreneurs (MADEG)
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.22370/pe.2025.19.5372Keywords:
gender digital divide, forced digitalization, digital competencies, feminist epistemologies of care, digital social justiceAbstract
This paper examines the experiences, resistances, and learning processes of micro-entrepreneur women facing forced digitalization, understood as the compelled adoption of digital tools to sustain economic activity under precarious and unequal gendered conditions. Using a qualitative and participatory methodology grounded in feminist care epistemologies and action research, nine co-design sessions were conducted with twenty-two women micro-entrepreneurs from the Valparaíso region (Chile), focusing on diagnosis, digital literacy, collaborative design, and ongoing accompaniment. The study identified structural barriers (infrastructure and time), relational and emotional barriers (fear of failure, digital isolation, caregiving overload), and emergent strategies of collaboration, serendipity, and collective learning. These processes led to the development of the Gender-Responsive Digital Accompaniment Model (MADEG), which proposes a feminist digital pedagogy grounded in affect, reflexivity, and community. Findings reveal that effective digital literacy requires the integration of emotional, relational, and technological-justice dimensions. From a situated perspective, digital inclusion with equity depends not only on access but on care, time, and mediation. The study offers insights for inclusive and sustainable public policies co-created with women and informed by their lived experiences and affective knowledge.
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