Understanding the value of Women’s Empowerment

Once, the HE Tebelelo Seretse, the Ambassador of Botswana to the United States mention this. “When you empower a man, you empower an individual. When you empower a woman, you empower a nation.” So, we can understand how important this factor in our society is. Therefore, today we are going to discuss women’s empowerment.

Empowerment

Let’s understand the meaning of “empowerment” first. Empowerment means exercising “control over someone’s life.” So, there are two types of aspects of empowerment. The first aspect is control over resources such as financial, physical, and human aspects. The second is control over someone’s ideology. That can be his or her beliefs, values, and attitudes. 

Women Empowerment

In the year of 1994, there was a debate on Gender Justice, women’s empowerment, and women’s welfare in the International arena. The above debate was held at United Nations Conference in Cairo. Latterly, the United Nations’ 4th International Conference was held in Beijing. That happened in the year 1995 and finally, they gave birth to the word “Women’s Empowerment”. 

Women represent nearly half of the population or a little more in each and every country. Therefore, how can we think about developing a country without empowering its women? Women’s Empowerment or Empowerment of Women is a globally respected and appreciated concept which becomes more popular at present. Today each and every country is focusing and working on encouraging and improving the quality of women’s life and economic well-being of women.

As per the real meaning of empowerment, we have to concern about the following sectors to empower women in our society.

• Social participation
• Identity in the process of decision making
• Economic Independence
• Market Intelligence
• Political Participation
• Information seeking Behavior
• Maintenance of Health
• Leadership and awards
• Practice science and technology

Importance of Women’s Empowerment

It is not a secret that women in each country receive low status and treatment comparing men in the same society. Therefore, the Socioeconomic conditions of women are always less comparing the conditions of men. As each and every society is having a patriarchal society, discussing equal rights for women is violating the norms of the culture or society. Therefore taking towards a society where there is gender equality is a big challenge all over the world. Even though women have to contribute to development while they are facing many inequalities in society.    

On the other hand, each and every country and governments also accept and recognize that women’s development and empowerment will help them to achieve the Millennium Development Goals.

Vulnerability of Women and the Need for Women’s Empowerment

Nearly 80% of transnational human trafficking victims are women and girls. As per the reports, 72% of the world’s 33million refugees are women and children. According to the reports of the United Nations, 6 out of 10 women in the world are facing much violence such as being beaten, coerced into sex, or abused by their partner at least once in their lifetime. When it comes to rape cases, one out of five women is a victim of rape or a victim of attempted rape in her lifetime. Let’s look at women at work.  Nearly, 40% to 50% of women has been faced sexual harassment at their workplace in Europe.   

Economic Inequalities and need for Women’s Empowerment

Women in the world are facing wage discrimination and exploitation. Women receive smaller salaries than men in each country though both of them are doing the same work. This is a common inequality almost in each country. On the other hand, women own fewer assets compared to men in each society. Do you believe that there are countries where women do not have the right to own land? Therefore, women are poorer than men, receiving lower wages and having lower earnings comparing the conditions of men in society. The most important fact that we must know is, as per the reports of the United Nations, 70% of the world’s poor people are women.

All these economic situations and conditions lead to many other issues such as poor standards of health and malnutrition among women. Women also have a lower level of access to resources.

United Nations Approach on Women’s Empowerment

United Nations are working on eliminating all forms of discrimination against women and the United Nations also works on equal rights. To practice and consider women’s empowerment at the global level, The UN Women and UN Global Compact have taken an initiative. That is called “The Women’s Empowerment Principles”. The above document has introduced in the year of 2011.

The Seven Principles of UN Women for Women’s Empowerment

As we discuss earlier, the seven principles are as follows

• Leadership promotes gender equality
• Equal Opportunity inclusion and nondiscrimination
• Health Safety and freedom from violence
• Education and Training
• Enterprise Development, supply chain, and marketing practices
• Community Leadership and Engagement
• Transparency, measuring, and reporting

(Please note that this information in this sub-topic has been taken from the United Nation’s entity for gender equality and the empowerment of women, “women empowerment principles”, 2nd edition 2011)

Summary of the Content

This article has given the basic knowledge about women empowerment for a newcomer to sociology in a very simple manner. Accordingly, you will understand the meaning of empowerment and women’s empowerment. You will also understand the importance of women’s empowerment too. You will also be aware of how vulnerable women are in the world and the economic inequalities of women too. We have given the information of some publications if you prefer to read more about women’s empowerment at the end of this article.

Special Note

Thank you for reading us. We hope that we could provide you with a basic understanding of the Empowerment of women in a very simple way. Do share your ideas and experiences too which is experiencing in your society. Such information will provide extra knowledge for our readers. If you are a person who prefers to collect more information on this topic do read our next articles. We will continuously talk about women’s empowerment on this website in the future. Furthermore, read the publications below if you need to get some advanced knowledge on this topic. These sources will help you, especially in your higher studies.

Further Readings     

• Country Gender Assessment, Asian Development Bank, Philippines 2015
• Narasimhan, Sujuntala, “Empowering Women”, Sage Publications, New Delhi, India 1999
• Sarkar, I, “Women in Changing Society”, Serials Publications, New Delhi, India 2008
• United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empower of Women, “Women Empowerment Principles”, 02^nd edition, 2011
• World Development Indicators, Women in Development, World Bank Report, 2015
• The official Website of UN women. Click here.

Related Posts

• If you prefer to read about gender and gender roles. please read our previous article. click here.                                                          

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Challengers for Women’s Empowerment