Transformación de la mujer a través de la obra “(mal) educadas”.

Abstract

This research project analyzes the book Mal Educadas by María Florencia Freijo as a central axis to understand the patriarchal mechanisms that have historically conditioned women’s education, identity, and professional development. Through a qualitative, descriptive, and explanatory approach, it examines how gender stereotypes, symbolic violence, and social mandates restrict female autonomy, and how awareness and sorority act as tools of emancipation. The study is grounded in a theoretical framework that encompasses various feminist currents liberal, Marxist, radical, intersectional, and ecofeminist, contextualized within Latin America and Ecuador. It delves into structural issues such as the gender pay gap, occupational segregation (horizontal and vertical), motherhood as a factor of labor discrimination, and female anxiety derived from the double workday and contradictory social expectations. Using qualitative techniques such as interviews, case studies, and focus groups with women of different ages and occupations, testimonies were collected that reveal the internalization of gender roles since childhood, as well as resistance and transformation through education, mutual support, and the critical rereading of personal experiences. In conclusion, Mal Educadas not only denounces oppressive structures but also invites a liberating reconfiguration of identity. The research reinforces the urgency of integrating gender perspectives into education, public policies, and cultural spaces in order to build a fairer and more equitable society. True female emancipation requires both structural changes and an intimate and collective revolution.