Women Empowerment ( Sociology Optional)

Introduction

  • Women's empowerment (or female empowerment) may be defined in several ways, including accepting women's viewpoints or making an effort to seek them, raising the status of women through education, awareness, literacy, and training.

Economic empowerment

  • Strengthening women's access to property inheritance and land rights is another method used to economically empower women.
  • This would allow them better means of asset accumulation, capital, and bargaining power needed to address gender inequalities.
  • Often, women in developing and underdeveloped countries are legally restricted from their land on the sole basis of gender.
  • Having a right to their land gives women a sort of bargaining power that they would not normally have; they gain more opportunities for economic independence and formal financial institutions.

Political empowerment

  • Political empowerment supports creating policies that would best support gender equality and agency for women in both the public and private spheres.
  • Methods that have been suggested are to create affirmative action policies that have a quota for the number of women in policy making and parliament positions.

Cultural Empowerment

  • It recognises their freedom to take pride in their values, whether they are orthodox or modern in nature.
  • This is not to say that centuries of abuse clothed in the spirit of culture should be allowed to continue, let alone be celebrated.
  • Undoubtedly, traditions cloaked in the idea of empowerment should be objected to in light of feminism.

Feminist approaches to women empowerment

To create women empowerment, feminists commonly use consciousness raising. In addition, feminists, specifically feminist organizers, focus on building relationships as a medium for creating women empowerment.

Barriers to women's empowerment

  • Many of the barriers to women's empowerment and equity are the result of cultural norms. While many women are aware issues posed by gender inequality, others have become accustomed to it.
  • Research shows that the increasing access to the Internet can also result in an increased exploitation of women.
  • Studies show that women face more barriers in the workplace than men. Gender-related barriers involve sexual harassment, unfair hiring practices, career progression, and unequal pay where women are paid less than men are for performing the same job.