Women’s empowerment is the way of social action in which women elaborates and recreates what it is to be in a circumstance that they previously denied. Empowerment is the process that creates power in the individuals over their own lives, society and community. Feeling entitled to make your own decisions create a sense of empowerment. Women’s empowerment is all about equipping and allowing women to make life-determining decisions through the different problems in society.
Education is a milestone of women empowerment by which they can enable and responds to challenges to confront their traditional roles and change their lives. Hence we can’t neglect the importance of education on women empowerment. Women should be encouraged to educate and have to provide them with great opportunities for education.
Women empowerment and gender equality is essential for our society to ensure the sustainable development of the country. Sustainable development accepts environment protection social and economic development, and without women’s empowerment, women wouldn’t feel equally important for the development as the men feels. Scholars agree that women’s empowerment plays a huge role in development and is one of the significant contribution of development.
FORMS OF EMPOWERMENT
Women economic empowerment is defined as the process by which women increase their right to economic resource and power to make decisions that benefits themselves, their families and their community. Women’s economic empowerment sets a path for poverty reduction and equality for men and women. It also increase women’s agency, access to formal government programs, mobility outside the home, economic independence and purchasing powers.
One recommendation is to provide more formal education opportunity for women that would allow higher bargaining power in the home. They would have more access to higher wages outside home, and as a result, make it easier for women to get a job in the market.
Strengthening women’s access to property inheritance and land right is another method to empower women economically. It would allow better mean of asset accumulation, capital and bargaining power needed to address gender inequalities.
Another popular methodology for women empowerment is MICROCREDIT. Microfinance institution aim to empower women in their community by giving them access to loans that have low interest rate without the requirement of collateral. Microcredit doesn’t relieve women of household obligation, and even if women have credit, they don’t have the time to be as active as the men.
Political empowerment supports creating policies that would best support gender equality and agency for women in both public and private sphere. It can include participation in the household, in schools and the ability to make choices for herself. Some theorist believe that bargaining power and agency in the household must be achieved before one can move onto broader political participation.