What Is Women Empowerment?

The issue of gender inequality has been around and debated for decades now. In the West it is mostly considering the wages and job opportunities as in the developing countries the problems are more about lack of women empowerment, their access to services, power of deciding within their family life and breaking traditions and norms that are demeaning and/or undermining. With this issue there is a dilemma of whether the Western views and beliefs on gender equality and women empowerment can and should be applied to developing countries. As seen in the paper, policies and projects that are designed to reduce the problem, can backfire and create even more issues. One of the reasons why women empowerment today is so important is overpopulation,

In his paper he examines several biases, that affect many projects and researches. Although he observes mostly the problem of poverty, his ideas could be also transitioned to the issue of gender inequality. For example, he encourages the bottom-up perspective, meaning he believes, that researchers and fieldworkers should listen and learn from the people they are working with first rather than coming in with their own ideas and enforcing them right away. He also stresses the significance of small-scale projects and policies, that are specifically made for the area’s particular needs. Although it may be costly, one must remember that failed and flawed policies are also expensive and in that case, will have negative outcomes. (Chambers 1981)

When constructing a policy to empower women one must look past the idea of merely providing them with access of resources as they may not have any power over those newly acquired means. According to Trask (2010) “Traditions, norms and gender constructions interact with access to resources and power relations” (Trask 2010, pp. 51) As an illustration, lower-class women in West Bengal do not wish to have unanimous power over capital, instead they seek to be financially helpful for the collective, which would support them in achieving their goals for better opportunities. (Trask 2010, pp.

The issues are deeply rooted, and traditions and norms are substantially different from area to area. With women empowerment there is an additional threat that some policies may make men feel insignificant and minor and therefore be of danger to the women. It is also very important to make sure to have an effective groundwork done, as without one the new policy could make any changes. The issue with the lack of women empowerment is connected to a lot of different aspects of development: poverty, sexism and overpopulation. It is important that the problem gains a great deal of attention and additional research and groundwork done on it. It could be probable that resolving or reducing the inequality with the genders, it could create a ‘snowball’ effect, meaning it could be the start of other developing- related issues to be started to solve on their