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Empowerment refers to increasing the spiritual, political, social and economic strength, of individuals and communities. It often involves the developing of confidence in their own capacities. Empowerment of women must not only involve those who are highly educated and skilled but also those at the bottom of socio-economic pyramid. Empowerment is the process that allows one to gain the knowledge, skill and attitudes needed to cope with the changing world and the circumstances in which he lives.
Empowerment in the context of women’s development is a way of defining, challenging and overcoming barriers in a woman’s life through which she increases her ability to shape her life and environment. It is an active, multidimensional process which should enable women to realise their full identity and power in all spheres of life. Two basic concepts of women empowerment:
- Empowerment is a multi-faceted, multi-dimensional and multi –layered approach.
Multi faceted:Woman is considered as an individual and member in family and society.
Multi-dimensional: Social, economic and economic status decide the status of empowerment.
Multi-layered: Various factors like health, nutrition, culture, traditions etc., influence the empowerment of women.
- Women’s empowerment is a process in which women gain greater share of control over .
- Human and intellectual like knowledge, information, ideas.
- Memory.
- Decision – making in the home, community.
- Society and nation to gain ‘power’.
According to the Country Report of Government of India, “Empowerment means moving from a position of enforced powerlessness to one of power”.
Kabeer (2001) defines empowerment as ‘The expansion in people’s ability to make strategic life choices in a context where this ability was previously denied to them’. This definition first well within the referral to empowerment as “the expansion of freedom of choice and action to shape one’s life” in the World Bank’s Empowerment Sourcebook.
Women must be empowered by enhancing their awareness, knowledge, skills and technology use efficiency so that agricultural production multiplies at a faster pace, environmental degradation is reduced and conservation of resources is practised earnestly, thereby, facilitating overall development of the society. All this signifies the importance of having a full understanding of the role and contribution of farm women so that the extension services may accordingly be devised and geared to fully integrate them in agriculture by better serving their specific needs and interests. It is the concern for the integration in the process of agricultural development, which has today become instrumental for policy debates, research initiative and organisational efforts from women’s perspective.
Empowerment can be at two levels
- Personal Level
A sense of the self or self efficacy wherein individuals have the confidence and capacity to look at internalized oppression. In addition personal empowerment gives individuals the ability to negotiate unequal relationships and influence decision-making.
- Collective Level
Where individuals work together for example through self help groups and co-operatives or at a larger scale through networks, alliances and social movements to achieve a more extensive impact than each would have done alone. Group efforts involve collective awareness and capacity building by providing spaces for women to come together and understand their situation.
Indicators of women empowerment
The access of women particularly those belonging to weaker sections SC/ST/OBC and minorities who are in majority in several areas in the informal, unorganized sector of education and health and whose productive resources are inadequate. They remain largely marginalized poor and socially excluded. This clearly brings out the need of empowerment. Empowering women means control over their bodies and becoming economically independent, controlling resources like land and property and reduction of burden of work. There are some indicators by which one can measure the empowerment among women. The indicators are mobility, decision making power, autonomy, ownership of household assets, freedom from domination, awareness, participation in public protests and political campaigns, contribution to family income, reproductive rights, exposure to information and participation in development programme. Beijing conference 1995 had identified certain qualitative and quantitative indicators of women empowerment. These are as follows:
Qualitative Indicators of Empowerment:
- Increase in self-esteem, individual and collective confidence;
- Increase in articulation, knowledge and awareness on health, nutrition reproductive rights, law and literacy;
- Increase and decrease in personal leisure time and time for child care;
- Increase on decrease of work loads in new programmes;
- Change in roles and responsibility in family and community;
- Visible increase on decrease in violence on women and girls;
- Responses to changes in social customs like child marriage, dowry, discrimination against widows;
- Visible changes in women’s participation level attending meeting, participating and demanding participation;
- Increase in bargaining and negotiating power at home, in community and the collective;
- Increase access to and ability to gather information;
- Formation of women collectives;
- Positive changes in social attitudes;
- Awareness and recognition of women’s economic contribution within and outside the household;
- Women’s decision-making over her work and income.
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