Abstract
Despite the commonly accepted notion that digital entrepreneurship works as a pathway for women to navigate the barriers they experience in the physical world, female digital entrepreneurship (FDE) as a liberating pathway for women is not rigorously explored in the literature. Therefore, this paper focuses on understanding how FDE works as a liberating pathway for women to overcome the constraints they experience in the physical world in an economically constrained, strong patriarchal context. Data collected from in-depth interviews with 25 female digital entrepreneurs were analysed through thematic analysis. The findings substantiate that the emancipatory potential offered by FDE is not a wonder drug. It was found that an array of digital affordances, namely extending reach affordances, learning affordances, opportunity creation affordances, networking affordances, and flexibility affordances, enable women to be liberated from the constraints they experience in the brick-and-mortar world. This study will enrich the understanding of the emancipatory potential of digital entrepreneurship in a more contextualised manner.