Women empowerment

 Introduction
Women empowerment is the manifestation of redistribution of power that challenges
patriarchal ideology and male dominance. Process aimed at changing the nature and
direction of systematic forces which marginalize women and other disadvantaged
sections in a given context.

 Meaning of empowerment
Empowerment refers to increasing the spiritual, political, social, or economic strength
of individuals and communities. It often involves the empowered developing
confidence in their own capacities.

 Purposes of empowerment
 Definition
▶ Empowerment: It is the process of increasing the authority and responsibility
of individuals or groups to make choices and to transform those choices into
desired actions and outcomes”.
▶ Women Empowerment refers to increasing the spiritual, political, social,
educational, gender, or economic strength of individuals and communities of
women.
OR
It is the process, and the outcome of the process, by which women challenge
gender-based discrimination against women/men in all the institutions and
structures of society.

 Need of women empowerment

The main problems faced by women in past and present
 Gender discrimination
 Women education
 Female infanticide
 Dowry
 Marriage in same caste and child marriage
 Atrocities on women: With their age, they have been raped, kicked, killed,
subdued & humiliated almost daily.
 Domestic violence
 Acid Throwing
 Sexual harassment
 Trafficking
 Family planning
 Justice system
 Social opinions
 School days…… Child Labour

 What are the main problems for women empowerment?

 Lack of education,
 Financial constraint,
 Family responsibility,
 Low mobility,
 Low ability to bear risk,
 Low need for achievement,
 Absence of ambition for the
 achievement,
 Social status
 Insight of a rural women
 PRE-REQUISITES OF EMPOWERMENT
 Active participation in social economic and political spheres.
 Process of decision making empowerment.
 Desired self-respect.
 Social dignity.
 Involvement of women in decision making process.

 Components of women empowerment

Women's empowerment has five components:
• Women's sense of self-worth;
• Their right to have and to determine choices;
• Their right to have access to opportunities and resources;
• Their right to have the power to control their own lives, both within and
outside the home;
• And their ability to influence the direction of social change to create a more
just social and economic order, nationally and internationally.

 VALUES or SPECIALITY or CHANGES of and Empowered

Women.

1. IMPROVES IN PERSONAL KNOWLEDGE:

o Explore and trust own thoughts, emotion, desires and experiences.
o Recognize positive and negative characteristics.
o Set goals and work toward them.
o Know about positive value assertion.
o Knows self through own creative work.
o Credit self for her thoughts, feelings, and actions, etc.

2. SELF – DEFINING:
o Create her own definition of herself rather than accept others’ definition of
her.
o Views herself as a complete human person.
o Has the courage to try non-traditional behaviors.
o She defines herself as a complete, whole human person, not a helpmate to
man, a mother, a housewife, or server of others’ needs, etc.

3. PERSONAL POWER
o Personally strong, not from dominating others, but from their love, trust and
faith in themselves and other women.
o It involves being active, assertive, and skillful.
o Do not require support from man to survive.
o Self-governing and positive self-image, etc.
4. AUTHENTICITY
o Be honest without shame.
o Ignore criticisms if you are doing something you enjoy.
o Acting on own values, desires, emotions needs, capabilities to do something
positively, etc.

5. CREATIVITY
o Ability to increase diversity in one’s thinking.
o Struggles for authenticity through personal creativity.
o Balance of power conflict, competition, and success in new ways. Especially
important is using anger creatively.
o Makes choices and decisions based on knowledge of alternatives leads to
concrete creative action.
o Achieving personal freedom, personal identity.

6. PHYSICAL STRENGTH
o Strength, vitality, health, stamina, and fearlessness are needed for women to
accomplish their goals.
o Physical power and physical equality with men are also needed.

7. EQUALITY
o The right of women and men to live as free and equal human beings, equality
should exist in all areas of life, such as….
o women’s constitutional rights as citizens
o work
o access to wealth

8. MUTUALITY IN RELATIONSHIPS
o That is women are encouraged to choose relationships based on mutual
respect, understanding, and co-operation and therefore foster mutual growth is
possible.

9. ECONOMIC INDEPENDENCE
o Women must learn to understand economics and how to make money. This
will enable us to be financially self sufficient and therefore economically
independent of men.

10. WOMEN IDENTIFICATION

o To liberate themselves, women must stop selling out their identities as women
by rejecting restrictive gender roles, stereotypes and by claiming all territory
as women’s territory. Make a own positive identification.
 11. FREEDOM FROM OPPRESSION
o Being able to grow and achieve without restrictions in society. This includes
freedom of movement, freedom of choice, freedom from fear of male violence
and freedom to express one’s ideas and opinions without constraint.

12. HAVING POLITICAL POWER IN SOCIETY

o Involved in making decisions shaping society, to exercise their own voice and
to have the power to influence the decisions being made in society.

 CONSTRAINING FACTORS FOR WOMEN EMPOWERMENT

Heavy work load of women.
Isolation of women from each other.
Illiteracy.
Traditional views limit participation.
No funds.
Disagreements/conflicts among women's groups.
Structural adjustment policies.
Negative and sensational coverage of media

 FACILITATING FACTORS FOR WOMEN EMPOWERMENT

Existence of women's organizations
Availability of support systems
Availability of women-specific
Availability of funds
Feminist leadership
Networking
Favourable media coverage
Favourable policy climate.

 ADVANTAGES OF WOMEN EMPOWERMENT

• Next generation will be empowered because of her.
• If woman will be empowered she will not be a burden on anyone.
• Financial burden of man can be shared with her support.
• Family can be more strong because of both working hands.
• When financial problems will be shared than results of conflict.

 RIGHTS OF WOMEN
 The right to work as a human being.
 The right to the same employment opportunities, including
application of the same criteria for selection.
  The right to free choice of profession and employment, the right to
promotion, job security and all benefits and conditions of service
and right to receive vocational training and retraining.
 The right to equal remuneration.
 The right of social security as well as the right to paid leave.
 The right to protection of health and to safety.

 EMPOWERMENT OF WOMEN
A. Economic Empowerment of women
 Poverty Eradication: by offering them a range of economic and social
options, along with necessary support measures to enhance their
capabilities.
 Micro Credit: strengthening of existing micro-credit mechanisms and
micro-finance institution will be undertaken so that the outreach of
credit is enhanced
 Women and Economy: Their contribution to socio-economic
development as producers and workers will be recognized in the
formal and informal sectors (including home based workers) and
appropriate policies relating to employment and to her working
conditions should be drawn up.
 Globalization: Benefits of the growing global economy have been
unevenly distributed leading to wider economic disparities, the
feminization of poverty, increased gender inequality through often
deteriorating working conditions and unsafe working environment.
 Women and Agriculture: Concentrated efforts should be made to
ensure that benefits of training, extension and various programmes will
reach them in proportion to their numbers.
 Women and Industry: comprehensive support in terms of labour
legislation, social security and other support services to participate in
various industrial sectors
 Support Services: child care facilities, including creches at work
places and educational institutions, homes for the aged and the
disabled
B. social empowerment of women
 Education for women: equal access to education as men and boys
 Healthcare for women
 Participation of women in development of science and technology
 Nutrition of women
 Drinking Water and Sanitation
C. Cultural Empowerment of Women
  There should be a change in the mind set of society on a fundamental
level. Cultural empowerment as such can be achieved only when
women are treated as human beings first and foremost
D. Political empowerment
 Empowering women by increasing awareness regarding the rights of
an employee.
 Work on the communication skills of women
 Encouraging and supporting women entrepreneurs to develop
marketable models of enterprise
 Planning educational and training modules for motivating women to
take up self- empowerment programmes.
 Educating and training women to gainfully engage in markets and
institutions.
 Publicizing the central role of women in the national economies and
celebrating the success stories of women entrepreneurship and women
professionalism in every field.
 Gender training and sensitization of the current structures of the
society represented by the government, non-governmental bodies and
private enterprises.
 Improving the flow and access of credit and finance for women
through financial institutions for female entrepreneurs at the
governmental and non-governmental levels.

 LEGISLATIVE ACTS IN INDIA FOR EMPOWERMENT OF

WOMEN
1. Constitution of India, 1950 :
• Article 14 -equality .
• Article 15- prohibits discrimination of sex.
• Article 16- equality of opportunity for employment.
• The 73rd and 74th amendments to the Constitution of India provided
for reservation of seats
2. Indian Penal Code, 1860
• Section 304(b) -murder of women in connection with demand of
dowry.
• Sections 312 to 318 -miscarriage.
• Section 366-A deals -procuration of minor girls for sexual purpose.
• Section 376 -punishment for rape
• Section 498-A -women to cruelty by her husband or relatives
• S. 509- punishment for uttering words and gesture or act intended to
insult the modesty of a woman
▶ WOMEN EMPOWERMENT PROGRAMMES
→ Goals and objectives:
• Advancement and development of women in every walk of
life.
• Creating an environment through economic and social
policies.
• enjoyment of all human rights and fundamental freedom
• Equal access to participation and decision making
• Equal access to women at all levels
• Strengthening legal systems
• active participation and involvement of both men and
women.
• Mainstreaming a gender perspective in the development
process.
a. Swayamsidha: ( Indira Mahila yojna)
It is an integrated project for the development and empowerment of
women through Self Help Groups (SHGs) with emphasis on covering
service, developing access to micro-enterprises.
About 10 lakh women have taken membership.
b. Swam-Shakti Project:
Earlier known as the Rural Women’s Development and Empowerment
Project, was sanctioned in October 1998 as centrally sponsored scheme to
be implemented in the states of Bihar, Chattisgarh, Gujarat, Haryana,
Jharkhand, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Uttaranchal and Uttar Pradesh.
c. Support to Training and employment Programme for Women
(STEP):
The program seeks to provide updated skills and new knowledge to poor
asset less women in eight traditional sectors of employment, agriculture,
animal husbandry, dairying, fisheries, handlooms, handcrafts, Khadi and
Village industry and sericulture.
d. Swadhar:
This scheme was launched in 2001-2002 as a central sector scheme for
providing holistic and integrated services to women in difficult
circumstances.
e. NATIONAL POLICY FOR THE EMPOWERMENT OF WOMEN
(2001)
The goal - of this Policy is to bring about the advancement, development
and empowerment of women.
f. Rashtriya Mahila Kosh (RMK):
Also known as the National Credit Fund for Women was set up as a
registered society under the Societies Registration Act, 1860 on March
30, 1993.
-Credit support or micro-finance to poor women to start income
generating activities such as in - Dairy , Agriculture ,Shop-keeping
,Vending and Handicrafts.
-In 2003-04, an amount of Rs.25 crore was sanctioned through RMK
benefiting about 32,765 women.

▶ UNIFEM is the women’s fund at the United Nations.

It provides financial and technical assistance to innovative programs and
strategies to foster women’s empowerment and gender equality.
• UNIFEM has identified four strategic areas that are of critical concern for
the achievement of gender equality and women's empowerment :
• Reducing feminized poverty
• Ending violence against women
• Reversing the spread of HIV/AIDS among women and girls
• Achieving gender equality in democratic governance in times of
peace as well as war
▶ National policy for the empowerment of women ,2001
→ Goals and objectives:
(i) Creating an environment through positive economic and social
policies for full development of women to enable them to realize their full
potential.
(ii) The de-jure and de-facto enjoyment of all human rights and
fundamental freedom by women on equal basis with men in all spheres –
political, economic, social, cultural and civil
(iii) Equal access to participation and decision making of women in
social, political and economic life of the nation
iv) Equal access to women to health care, quality education at all levels,
career and vocational guidance, employment, equal remuneration,
occupational health and safety, social security and public office etc.
 (v) Strengthening legal systems aimed at elimination of all forms of
discrimination against women
(vi) Changing societal attitudes and community practices by active
participation and involvement of both men and women.
(vii) Mainstreaming a gender perspective in the development process.
(viii) Elimination of discrimination and all forms of violence against
women and the girl child;
(ix) Building and strengthening partnerships with civil society.

▶ The National Mission for Empowerment of Women

• was launched by the Government of India (GoI) on International
Women’s Day in 2010
• strengthen the inter-sector convergence; facilitate the process of
coordinating all the women’s welfare and socio-economic
development programmes across ministries and departments.
▶ Mission Poorna Shakti
→ Focus Area of the Mission
• Access to health, drinking water, sanitation and hygiene facilities
for women .
• Coverage of all girls especially those belonging to vulnerable
groups in schools from primary to class 12 .
• Higher and Professional education for girls/women.
• Skill development, Micro credit, Vocational Training,
Entrepreneurship, SHG development .
• Gender sensitization and dissemination of information.
• Taking steps to prevent crime against women and taking steps for a
safe environment for women .
  Summary
Today I covered women empowerment its definition, needs, prerequisites,
components of women empowerment, problems, values of women empowerment and
national programme for women empowerment.
 CONCLUSION
Women represent half the world’s population, and gender inequality exists in every
nation on the planet. Until women are given the same opportunities that men are,
entire societies will be destined to perform below their true potentials .The greatest
need of the hour is change of social attitude to women.

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Net references
1. Women empowerment;[online];cited on 29th July 2017;Available from URL:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women's_empowerment
2. Women empowerment challenges;[online];cited on 29th July 2017;Available from
URL: https://www.iaspaper.net/women-empowerment-in-india
3. Women empowerment in India;[online];cited on 29th July 2017;Available from
URL: www.ripublication.com/ijepa/ijepav1n3_1.pdf

Journals
1. Raju madhavan. “ A Conceptual Study on Women Empowerment-Facts and
Realities”;Isor journal,[online];cited on 29th July 2017;Available from URL:
http://www.academia.edu/4814541/A_Conceptual_Study_on_Women_Empowerment-
Facts_and_Realities
2. Dr. (Smt.) Rajeshwari M. Shettar. “A Study on Issues and Challenges of Women
Empowerment in India”; IOSR Journal of Business and Management;[online];
Volume 17, Issue 4.Ver. I (Apr. 2015),cited on 29th July 2017;Available from URL:
http://www.iosrjournals.org/iosr-jbm/papers/Vol17-issue4/Version-1/B017411319.pdf