Know the Challenges of Women’s Empowerment at present
Are you interested in women’s empowerment? This is a very important and interesting topic for us to study. Therefore, today we are going to discuss the challenges related to women’s empowerment at present. We hope you can understand the different types of challenges which block women’s development through this article.
Types of challenges to Women’s Empowerment
As per the requirement of the study, we are going to understand six different challenges affecting women’s empowerment. They are as follows.
- Extension Related Challengers for Women’s Empowerment
- Social Challengers for Women’s Empowerment
- Economic Challengers for Women’s Empowerment
- Scientific Challengers for Women’s Empowerment
- Psychological Challengers for Women’s Empowerment
- Political challengers for Women’s Empowerment
Extension-Related Challenges for Women’s Empowerment
As per the research in this field, extension-related challenges are the main barriers to women’s empowerment. Let’s understand what kind of challengers are considered extension-related challengers.
Attend for pieces of training, Workshops, Motivational incentives, Exhibitions, and other opportunities which provide women to improve their soft skills and hard skills. Such opportunities are playing a great role in women’s development. But, women’s participation in the above opportunities is still very low due to many sociocultural barriers. Therefore, empowering women is a hard effort without improving women’s skills, knowledge, exposure, and attitudes as well as developing their network.
Social Challenges for Women’s Empowerment
Social challenges for Women’s Empowerment is focusing on social development. That means improving the well-being of every individual in society up to they can reach their full potential. As each and every society or country in the world considers men’s leadership even at present. Women receive always the second status. Therefore, almost all women in all countries cannot reach their full potential or improve the women’s well-being.
For example, rules and regulations in social organizations work negatively for women or priorities men. Women have fewer opportunities to lead community originations and we can identify gender bias in recognition of work performances.
Economic Challenges for Women’s Empowerment
Economic challenges are very much strong and such situations influence all other aspects as well. I would like to share one fact where women lose job opportunities because of their womanhood. There are organizations in a society where that do not welcome women as their employees or as workers. Why because men provide more work and more profit than women. They believe so. How? Women request leave or half-day leave at least each month because of physical issues. But men do not have such physical issues each month. Therefore, they welcome men as their workers.
On the other hand, women do not receive equal wages for equal work. Though both men and women are working as laborers or workers in the same sector, women always receive less wages than men. This common discrimination against women happens everywhere in the world whether it’s in Europe, Asia, or Africa.
There is always huge bargaining for women’s production than men’s production. Therefore, women cannot receive a reasonable price for their production. Women producers also have so many difficulties for access into resources and market opportunities because of sociocultural barriers. Hence, the women do not have enough opportunities to buy raw materials for their productions and do not have enough opportunities to market their productions for a good price. Therefore, women producers receive less profit margin comparing men.
Scientific Challenges for Women’s Empowerment
Women normally have less access to higher education, science, advanced technology, new machinery, awareness of IT, and new innovations. Therefore, it is a real challenge to make positive changes in developing and empowering women. Men access all these more than women. This is a common condition in each country that can be considered the main challenge to women’s empowerment.
Let’s understand this with an example. If we think about agriculture, the value-added varieties/seeds do a great role in harvest. Advanced agricultural methods are supporting to receive maximum harvest while investing minimum inputs. On the other hand, value-added agricultural products bring a huge profit margin for the producer rather than selling it as raw harvest. When it comes to IT, there are so many marketing opportunities on the internet where a producer can market her products directly to the buyer without any middlemen which can bring her a considerably good profit.
The majority of the women producers are missing all these opportunities as they are less aware of advanced technology and science. Finally, women producers are less updated with technology and science which leads to low-quality products. On the other hand women, producers receive less profit or income through their production than men as a result of all these challenges. This condition equally influences all the sectors where they work such as poultry, dairy, animal husbandry, handmade products, or any products which women produce. Therefore we cannot think of increasing women’s income without treating their root challenges.
Psychological Challenges for Women’s Empowerment
One of the hardest efforts is understanding the psychological barriers in someone’s mind as these barriers cannot be visible easily. Therefore, understanding common barriers to women’s minds which block their development is not an easy task. Therefore the contribution of professionals to fill this gap is highly important to improve women’s well-being.
As per the studies in sociology, family support for overcoming psychological challenges is very much important for women. On the other hand, women are participating more in development activities without any hesitation of these women can receive family support. That means, women are more considerate about what family thinks about their activities. As women are more likely to sacrifice their likes and dislikes for family choices, the majority of women leave such activities where they cannot get family support.
Women always can start the decision-making stage from home. They can take such decisions on financial issues as a start. Such interventions can lead her to be a good leader in the future. Women in business, women in politics, or women in management have started their decision-making capacity from the family. Hence, psychological support for women to empower in the beginning is really important for women empowerment.
Political challenges for Women’s Empowerment
Representation of women in politics is very low compared to men in each society. Because society still believes that the leader or the decision-maker must be a man. Therefore, there are large numbers of challenges for women to enter into political activities, sustain in politics, and become a leader finally. In such a situation, the contribution of power authorities to women’s empowerment is very law.
We cannot observe that no government allocates considerable funds to empower women and improve women leaders or community associations for women in the world. The majority of the allocations are commonly received as development projects and all these funds lead by men. Finally, the majority of the beneficiaries are also men.
Look at the members of parliament. No country could complete or reach 50% representation of women in their parliament. Women’s political participation and women’s participation in elections is very low even in developed countries. The countries like Sweden, Canada, and other women-friendly countries have increased the number of women at work but not women in power.
There are many countries where that have introduced some changes to their low and regulations with the hope of increasing female participation in politics. But, the practical challenges to entering into politics, surviving in politics, and overcoming these challenges are more powerful. Therefore, such regulations are not happening in practical life. All these data can let you understand how dangerous and hard to overcome political barriers and how hard is women’s empowerment in our society regardless of country or region.
Conclusion
The challenges, difficulties, and sociocultural barriers faced by women are common everywhere. We may categorize them for understanding and study purposes. But, we have to understand that these challenges are interrelated with each other. One influence another and link with the other. Therefore, necessary scientific research in the field of Sociology is very much important to minimize these problems. We cannot think about women’s empowerment in the world without understanding the root courses and treatment for them. Accordingly overall program with practical activities which brings the solutions to the roots will be helpful for our women. Let’s work for a better world for women.
Summary of the Content
This article is a continuation of our previous article which is headed “Understanding the Value of Women’s Empowerment”. So, we are discussing the challenges to women’s empowerment. As we mentioned above, we basically focused on six different challenges for women’s empowerment. They are Extension Related Challenges, Social Challenges, Economic Challenges, Scientific Challenges, Psychological Challenges, and Political challenges for Women’s Empowerment. We have mentioned further reading information for the readers who prefer to study more on this topic. Moreover, we have linked the previous articles which are related to this topic if you want to get a broader idea of women’s empowerment.
Special Note
Thank you for reading us. Do read our previous articles too which are related to this topic to get a broader idea about women’s empowerment. If you are facing any challenges as a woman, please share them with us. Our readers will like such comments. Because they can collect more knowledge through your comments. Do comment on your favorite topics related to gender studies. We are hoping to write more on gender in the future. Therefore, we will try our best to cover your requirements too. If you observe any mistake here, do share your ideas and suggestions too. We would be accepting thankfully and we try our best to improve.
Further Readings
- Narasimhan, Sujuntala, “Empowering Women”, Sage Publications, New Delhi, India 1999
- Sarkar, I, “Women in Changing Society”, Serials Publications, New Delhi, India 2008
- Murthy , Narasimha M.S, “Rural Entrepreneurship and Women Empowerment”- A Ghanaian Perspective, Mohit Publications, New Delhi 2012
- UN Women Official website. Click here.
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- Understanding the Value of Women’s Empowerment
- Understanding Gender Roles and Latest Trends
