Women Enpowerment

WOMEN ENPOWERMENT
Gender equality is, first and foremost, a human right. A woman is entitled to live in dignity
and freedom. Empowering women is also an indispensable tool for advancing development
and reducing poverty. Empowered women contribute to the health and productivity of
whole families and communities and improved prospects for the next generation.
The importance of gender equality is underscored by its inclusion as one of the eight
Millennium Development Goals. Gender equality is acknowledged as being a key to
achieving the other seven goals. Yet discrimination against women – including gender-based
violence, economic discrimination, reproductive health inequities, and harmful traditional
practices – remains the most pervasive and persistent form of inequality.
Since the beginning of civilization, there has been bulk evidence of women being considered
inferior to men. Almost every country, no matter how progressive has a history of ill-treating
women. This has eventually nudged women to retrospect their status in society and has
even led women from all over the world to be rebellious to reach the status they have
today. Since then, women have been vocal about gender equality and have continuously
made efforts to empower themselves to achieve that equality. The empowerment and
autonomy of women and the improvement of their political, social, economic, and health
status is a highly important end in itself.
In addition, it is essential for the achievement of sustainable development. The full

participation and partnership of both women and men is required in productive and
reproductive life, including shared responsibilities for the care and nurturing of children and
maintenance of the household. In all parts of the world, women are facing threats to their
lives, health and well-being as a result of being overburdened with work and of their lack of
power and influence.
In most regions of the world, women receive less formal education than men, and at the
same time, women’s knowledge, abilities and coping mechanisms often go unrecognized.
The power relations that impede women’s attainment of healthy and fulfilling lives operate
at many levels of society, from the most personal to the highly public.
Education is one of the most important means of empowering women with the knowledge,
skills and self-confidence necessary to participate fully in the development process. More
than 40 years ago, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights asserted that “everyone has
the right to education”. But despite notable efforts by countries around the globe that have
appreciably expanded access to basic education, there are approximately 960 million
illiterate adults in the world, of who two-thirds are women. More than one-third of the
world’s adults, most of them women, have no access to printed knowledge, to new skills or
to technologies that would improve the quality of their lives and help them shape and adapt
to social and economic change.
Countries should act to establish mechanisms for women’s equal participation and equitable
representation at all levels of the political process and public life in each community and
society and enabling women to articulate their concerns and needs. Government and
organizations should try eliminating all practices that discriminate against women; assisting
women to establish and realize their rights, including those that relate to reproductive and
sexual health. Adopting appropriate measures to improve women’s ability to earn income
beyond traditional occupations, achieve economic self-reliance, and ensure women’s equal
access to the labor market and social security systems.
Also, violence and safety is a major threat to women in society. Domestic violence, rapes,
etc are alarmingly increasing day by day. More so, because women are afraid to speak up.
Similarly, the women who do the same work get paid less than their male counterparts. It is
downright unfair and sexist to pay someone less for the same work because of their gender.
Thus, we see how women’s empowerment is the need of the hour. We need to empower
these women to speak up for themselves and never be a victim of injustice.
There have been several organizations and institutions advocating for women, promoting
legal and policy reforms and gender-sensitive data collection, and supporting projects that
improve women’s health and expand their choices in life. Even governments of various
nations are tirelessly trying to promote education for womenfolk. These are clear
indications that all the forces that conform to a society have been collectively supporting
empowering women. However, many adversities are blocking the ways to attain a complete
gender unbiased society.
Moreover, today there are different denotations of the term “Women Empowerment”
which have led to different sects of belief. Empowerment holds different meanings to
different psyches and this divergence, this comprehension of facts against fiction, this way
of interpretation that people of various sects, associations and understanding is making the
basic understanding of “women empowerment” more complex. However, it is important for
every woman to remember that they must acquire empowerment themselves rather than
have it given to them by an external party and women should believe in having the
capability to make important decisions in their lives while also being able to act on them.
Empowerment and disempowerment are relative; therefore, empowerment is a process,
not a product. There has been immense progress to uplift women financially, politically and
socially, but it is still an open-ended process. In the light of many ongoing, a clear vision
emerges, a vision of the empowerment of each deserving one. Even though a new age
woman is far more empowered but her progress skids to a halt when cases of violence or
any unprecedented regressive evil emerges. So, when one evaluates whether women
empowerment is a myth or reality, it is not that easy as women empowerment at times
seems to be an illusion that has been made into reality by some but remains uncharted
territory to many. We, as a society, need to applaud every effort made so far to bring to
parity the gender debate and need to understand why this battle is not overrated and is
completely important to be justified. Empowering a woman today will lead to a progressive
society for tomorrow and this silver lining should be our motivation in analyzing any gender
equality discussion.

Women Enpowerment

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WOMEN ENPOWERMENT

In addition, it is essential for the achievement of sustainable development. The full

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