Women Empowerment

Women Empowerment

For centuries women were not treated equal to men in many ways. They were not allowed to own property, they did not have a share in the property of their parents, they had no voting rights and they had no freedom to choose their work or job and so on. Now that we have come out of those dark days of oppression of women, there is a need for strong movement to fight for the rights of women and to ensure that they get all the rights which men have or in other words a movement for the Empowerment of Women.
The origins of the concept of empowerment go back to the civil rights movement in the USA in the 1960s. Since then it has been interpreted differently and filled with new meanings and is today used in such different sectors as business, social work, development discourse etc. The different definitions of empowerment range between defining it as a largely individual process of taking control of and responsibility for one’s life and situation, and defining it as a political process of granting human rights and social justice to disadvantaged groups of people. At the former end of the continuum, where empowerment is defined largely as an individual process, empowerment can be used in the conservative political rhetoric of freeing the government of responsibility for injustices and for granting social security. Instead, the argument makes individuals and communities responsible for their own social security and welfare, without providing the necessary support and resources. The empowerment of women is located within the discourse and agenda of gender equality and is increasingly being taken in the agendas of international development organizations, perhaps more as a means to achieve gender equality than as an end in itself.
One has to view empowerment as taking place on different levels and that change on all levels is necessary if the empowerment of women is really to occur. Empowerment is related at three levels: empowerment on the individual,...