"Deprived of support because we're born women": Emerging Socio-Technical Pathways and Evolving Struggles for Women Entrepreneurs in Bangladesh

Paper Title

'Deprived of support because we're born women': Emerging Socio-Technical Pathways and Evolving Struggles for Women Entrepreneurs in Bangladesh

Publication Info

• Topic area: Gendered challenges in digital entrepreneurship in the Global South
• Keywords: Women entrepreneurs, Bangladesh, digital tools, gender norms, harassment, financial inclusion, supply chains, feminist HCI, design justice, Global South

Background and Problem

• Problem / challenge: Women entrepreneurs in Bangladesh face significant barriers due to patriarchal norms, harassment, and unsuitable digital infrastructures. Existing research does not adequately address how gendered social norms intersect with digital tools across the full business value chain.
• Significance: Addressing these barriers is critical for enabling sustainable entrepreneurship and financial independence for women in the Global South, where economic empowerment is tightly linked to overcoming structural inequalities.
• Motivation and related work: Prior work in HCI and ICTD has explored social commerce, mobile banking, and safety applications but often overlooks the full spectrum of challenges women face, including harassment, financial vulnerabilities, and family constraints. This study builds on feminist HCI and design justice to address these gaps.

Solution

• Proposed approach: A qualitative study of 15 Bangladeshi women entrepreneurs to understand how gendered norms and digital infrastructures shape their business practices, risks, and agency. The study proposes sociotechnical interventions to support safer and more equitable entrepreneurship.
• Novelty:
  1. A situated account of women-led online entrepreneurship in Bangladesh, focusing on end-to-end business value chains.
  2. Analysis of how harassment, cybersecurity threats, and financial vulnerabilities accumulate across platforms and payment channels.
  3. Four proposed classes of digital tools and five design principles tailored to women entrepreneurs in patriarchal contexts.
  4. Integration of feminist HCI and design justice frameworks into the analysis and design recommendations.
• Procedure and key techniques:
  1. Conducted 15 semi-structured interviews with women entrepreneurs in Bangladesh.
  2. Thematic analysis of data to identify challenges across sourcing, production, logistics, customer management, and financial systems.
  3. Proposed design directions and principles based on participant narratives and feminist HCI frameworks.

Results

• Concrete findings:
  • Women entrepreneurs face pervasive harassment (both online and offline), financial exclusion, and supply-chain discrimination.
  • Shared devices and family surveillance limit digital autonomy.
  • Digital tools like Facebook and bKash are central but poorly adapted to women’s needs, exposing them to scams, reputational risks, and logistical inefficiencies.
  • Women rely on informal networks and NGOs for support, but access to training and resources is uneven.
• Advantage over baselines:
  • Highlights the full business chain, unlike prior studies that focus narrowly on digital access or online sales.
  • Proposes actionable design principles and tool directions that explicitly address gendered risks and constraints.
• Experiments / evaluation:
  • Qualitative interviews with 15 women entrepreneurs from diverse locations in Bangladesh.
  • Analysis of their lived experiences with digital tools, supply chains, and societal norms.
• Limitations and future work:
  • Sample limited to digitally active women in an NGO program, not representative of all Bangladeshi women entrepreneurs.
  • Findings are context-specific to Bangladesh; transferability to other regions requires further study.
  • Future work should involve participatory design to co-develop and test proposed interventions.

Summary

This study examines the gendered challenges faced by women entrepreneurs in Bangladesh, highlighting how patriarchal norms, harassment, and unsuitable digital infrastructures constrain their autonomy and business growth. Through interviews with 15 women, the research identifies systemic barriers across the business value chain and proposes four classes of digital tools and five design principles to support safer and more equitable entrepreneurship. These findings contribute to feminist HCI and design justice by centering women’s lived experiences and offering actionable directions for sociotechnical interventions in the Global South.