Women Empowerment in India
Section I: Introduction
Women Empowerment is a very broad concept that not only implies gender equality i.e. an equal status to men and women in society but also the ability of women to enjoy their rights, to control and benefit from resources, income, assets etc. and to improve their well being and status in society. The empowerment of women in society is often regarded as a step towards the development of a nation, it promotes not only promotes the well being, rights and abilities of women but also plays a crucial role in determining the capabilities of their children. This in turn helps stimulate economic growth and productivity. There is evidence of positive effects of women’s empowerment from around the world. The World Bank Poverty and Gender Group Report (2012) shows that control of women over resources creates spill over benefits that positively impact the health and education of their children leading to better prospects for our future generations.
It is indeed difficult to define women empowerment in one sentence; different scholars give different interpretations of the term. Batliwala (1995) rightly defines women empowerment as “the process, and the outcome of the process, by which women gain greater control over material and intellectual resources, and challenge the ideology of patriarchy and the gender based discrimination against women in all the institutions and structures of society” while Kabeer (2005) views the empowerment
Women all around the world face hardships, discrimination and stereotypes and are burdened with multiple roles that make their lives very difficult even in developed countries. Women living in developing countries and in rural areas in particular face all of these challenges and more and are forced to live out their lives in a world that is filled with patriarchy and have lives that are unfulfilled or incomplete. All over the world in developing countries women face a lack of education. In this case, Africa, has a large rural population and the gender bias women in rural areas face is shocking. It is the perception that women are inferior to men and therefore men are the sole providers of the families while women are forced to stay at home.
1. Empowerment as a concept aims to decrease the number of people without power (1). Empowerment allows people without power to gain more power and take control over their lives and health (2). The term is more broadly defined as ”the ability of people to gain understanding and control over personal, social, economic and political forces in order to take action to improve their life situations” (1, p156) . Furthermore, empowerment can be seen as the process of reaching an aim of an activity or as the actual goal of an activity.
In the article titled “Making the links: women’s rights and empowerment are key to achieving Millennium Development Goals” Heyzer discusses about the organization called Millennium Development Goals and how it has a Millennium Declaration that have countries commit to promoting gender equality and empowering women as effective ways of alleviating poverty and hunger for females. The United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) is an international women’s bill of rights, which had been ratified by 179 countries in the year 2005, that obligates governments to promote and protect the rights of women (Heyzer 9). In the article called “Situating Empowerment for Millennial Schoolgirls in Gujarat, India and Shaanxi, China” the article discusses about The Spring Bud scholarship program in Shaanxi, China and the Kasturba Balika Vidyala (KGBV) Residential School Program in Gujarat, India, and they both are supported by government sources and international non-governmental organizations to provide schooling for rural girls (Ross, Heidi A., Payal P. Shah, and Lei Wang 24). In the article named “Women, Poverty, and Trauma: An Empowerment Practice Approach” the article acknowledges the work of women-centered clinical interventions in increasing women’s capacity to exercise their rights by understanding them. It tries to empower women through individual and group counseling, mentoring, and advocacy (East, Jean Francis and Susan J.Roll 280).
Aggression inside women has been their survival strategy and they used their aggression as an instrument to achieve their goal and to gain control over their lives and situation. These women used their aggression to attain freedom, equality and justice, leading them towards empowerment. Empowerment and aggression are two sides of the same coin. Loss of control, helplessness causes aggression and attaining control, power to take decision is empowerment. Empowerment means gaining control over live.
With the widespread usage of the word ‘empowerment’, it is becoming increasingly confusing to evaluate what it actually entails and the measurement of empowerment is still debatable. Nanette Page and Cheryl E. Czuba, researchers on human empowerment, once stated that the meaning of the term ‘empowerment’ is often assumed rather than explained or defined. (Page & Czuba 1999) While the word is literally rooted with the idea of ‘power’, empowerment in this essay nevertheless represents a multi-dimensional social process that gives rise of economic, political, social, educational, gender, or spiritual strengthen of individuals and communities. Addressing the issues of women empowerment in Thelma and Louise, this essay adopts the five components defined by the United Nation: woman’s sense of self-worth; their right to have and to determine choices; their right to access to opportunities and recourses; their right to have the power to control their own lives and their ability to influence the direction of social change to create a more just social and economic order.
CHAPTER ONE 1.1 BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY The concept of women empowerment seems to have been used in the 1980s by third world feminists ‘to address the issue of gender differences that exist in the control and distribution of resources’ (Datta & Kornberg, 2002). There is however lack of consensus on its major characteristics. According to Datta and Kornberg (2002), women empowerment refers to ‘strategies that women use to increase their control of resources and generate decision making capacity’. Other authors like Batliwala (1994) however have a wider definition.
Empowered men and women are in a better position for contributing towards productivity of the entire family, they also support in improving prospects specifically for the future generation. On the other hand, gender equality is fundamentally related to sus¬tainable development and globally accepted as a necessity for the promotion of human rights Furthermore, gender equality is achieved when women and men enjoy the same rights and opportunities across all sectors of
Empowerment requires the full interest of individuals in the formulation, implementation, and assessment of decisions regarding the working and the prosperity of society. Far too long women have endured discrimination throughout the world. Obstacles to women’s equality with men in all backgrounds did not vanish even there are many constitutional and legal provisions were made for women to made them strong and equal. Women stayed neglected in the standard of the predominant procedure of development; just minor gains were accomplished.
Title Several critics seem to assume that for one to endorse the values of female empowerment, they must represent the image of overt liberation over those who seek persecution covertly. However, that is not the case; female empowerment describes a woman’s struggle for liberation from societal bounds. Liberations can manifest as words or actions made to reinstate one 's rights and control. These efforts are found in the narrating persona of Melissa Febos “Whip Smart,” as well as Sylvia Plath’s "Daddy." These works depict fights against oppression by particular males as well as against the systematic oppression of patriarchal society.
Gender Equality Gender equality – a brief introduction Human rights are for all human beings, men as well as women. This means that women are entitled to the same human rights as men. However, all over the world women have historically often been discriminated against in many ways, due to the fact that they are born as female and not male. Even though there have been some improvements, unfortunately, this kind of discrimination still exist in our societies.
The past would suggest that female empowerment has been perpetually suppressed by the patriarchy, and this is evidenced by centuries worth of literature. The beginnings of feminist literature began when A Vindication of the Rights of Woman was written in 1792 by Mary Wollstonecraft who sought for equality between the two sexes. The establishment of the term ‘feminism’ did not occur until the 1896 women’s congress held in Berlin when Eugénie Potonié-Pierre and the women’s group Solidarité reported on the position of women in France and established the concept. Soon after, the term circulated around the globe, and France became known for pioneering the course on women’s studies. Modern feminism, however, emerged and was only fully established in the late nineteenth century to the early twentieth century as a result of industrialization, liberalism, and socialism.
Women empowerment is a multi-dimensional process involving the transformation of the economical, political, social, psychological and legal circumstances of the powerless, aiming to dismantle cultural, traditional and social norms, which undervalue, disempower and dispossess women. This definition has been reinforced in practice by NGOs’ endeavours to encourage women the develop themselves and contribute more meaningfully to
Due the constant pressure by the society and belief system women are pressed down and this leads to gender inequality and discrimination. Women in India are backward economically, socially and politically. Woman are underestimated by man in all aspects of life. Education of women is realized for the development of the society. Without educating womenfolk one cannot think of prosperous future generation.
Article 14 of the Constitution of India stipulates that “the state not deny to any person equality before the law or the equal protection of the laws within the territory of India. Protection prohibition of discrimination on grounds of religion race, caste, sex or place of birth.” Therefore this law should imply that all Indian women have and can practice the same rights as men. However these laws, while legally set in stone, are not socially acknowledged much of the time.
As a young girl, my mother always taught me to be independent. On a daily basis she reminded me of my rights as not only an American citizen, but as a (future) independent woman. Female empowerment has always been a topic of interest throughout my life. Having a mother who worked her way to America and built her life up from her monthly allowance she had made selling chocolate bars on the street in a province in the Philippines, I soon realized that I owed it to my mom to work hard and take advantage of the resources that she was not given. As a female American citizen, I recognize all of the opportunities that are simply handed to me on a silver platter.