The narrative of the world is often shaped and constructed by the people who run the world in any century. In this highly patriarchal world, men happen to be the authors of the world history, geography and politics by default; leaving a large power gap between the two genders. Today, we live in a world which is beginning to see the potential that women’s participation and emancipation holds for the world at large and yet we are only scratching the surface.

In 1691, a Mexican writer and nun Sor Juan Ines de la Cruz defended women’s rights to education by saying- “One can perfectly well philosophise while cooking supper”. Savitri Bai Phule, India’s first modern feminist and teacher appealed to women - “Go, get education”. Education has clearly played a prominent role in women’s empowerment throughout the world, as the earliest social reformers and women rights activists promoted women’s education over anything else.

Women Empowerment is a term which has been defined and re-defined multiple times over the last few decades. UN has a prominent role to play in bringing it to the forefront when they declared 1975-1985 as the Decade for Women. The idea was to bring focus on policies and issues that have an impact over women, such as violence against women, gendered pay gap, property & inheritance rights and human rights among other things. According to World Bank, ‘Empowerment’ is the process of increasing the capacity of individuals or groups to make choices and to transform those choices into desired actions. ‘Women Empowerment’ can therefore be defined as women’s ability to make strategic life choices where they have been denied that previously. It is pertinent to understand the different life choices that can be and should be exercised by women like – reproductive rights, equal wages, education and participation in decision making. A woman exercising a handful of rights like education, financial independence can still not be considered as an ‘empowered woman’ unless she understands her potential. In an online survey conducted by For Girls Global Leadership (4GGL), over 46% women across the globe answered that self-actualisation or self-awareness i.e. the process of knowing who they are paved the way for empowerment.

Women’s Empowerment in the world is linked with decision making and leadership. Women in leadership can help create a more inclusive and sustainable society. The number of women in leadership in India is dismal to say the least, as women occupy merely 14.4% of the total seats in the parliament (a far cry from gender parity). Although Indian legislation ensures a third reservation in the panchayat elections but the women’s reservation bill that reserved 1/3rd seats for women in the lower house (Lok Sabha) is still pending. Additionally, only 3.7% women are CEOs and Managing Directors of NSE listed companies in 2019. More inclusive legal measures must be mandated at workplace to ensure participation of women in leadership. Decision making and self-actualisation are essential but the basis of this is education of women. In recent times, unconventional approaches to women empowerment have been taken up by institutions and governments where sensitisation and education of men about women’s rights is considered equally if not more important. This planet has both men and women, and women empowerment need not be treated as a zero sum game where the men lose the battle, but it must be propagated as a necessary battle against poverty. Secretary General Kofi Annan stated -

“There is no tool for development more effective than the empowerment of women and girls”. ■

Maj Gen Rahul Bhardwaj, VSM (Retd)
rbhardwaj@devalt.org