WOMEN EMPOWERMENT – Do we really understand it?

The whole world is talking about Women Empowerment these days. We can see millions of women taking up major corporate roles. There are countries where women are defending the borders too. There are women on highest of political levels in different parts of the globe.

But do we really understand the term “Women Empowerment”?
Empowerment means to bestow certain powers to someone who did not possess it before. We have given the rights of equality to women but do we really treat them equal? Some decades ago, women did not have the right to cast their votes in some countries. There are a few countries which still do not allow women to vote and choose a government. There are still cases of wife beatings reported every day from all corners of the world. Majority of women still do not go out alone from their homes. Most women still have to bear the brunt of their families and in-laws. Then what empowerment are we talking about? Yes there are several countries which have made laws for the protection of women. But the implementation and flow has been such that the women who really need these laws, do not use them but in turn these laws are misused by the women who do not need them. How does an illiterate woman from a far off village know what law has been instilled for her? So where is the empowerment?

Opportunities of jobs and education have been created for women in plenty but how will a women take it if she is not allowed by the family to go out of her house? Is this empowerment?

Women empowerment in the real sense means to uplift the society first. Change the perspective of the orthodox families about women. Women empowerment means to abolish eve-teasing and sexual advances. Women Empowerment means to clean the atmosphere of a workplace so that a woman can work in comfort. Women empowerment means to spread the awareness to the women in villages about laws which favor them. Women empowerment is to stop the urban women from taking undue advantage of the laws made for women. Women empowerment means talking about person in terms and not about women. Women Empowerment does not mean to insult women by giving them extra facilities. It rather means to encourage and convince them to come on the same platform as men. Women empowerment should not be used as an election manifesto. It should be used to bring about a change in the society. Women Empowerment cannot be completed without educating and developing the thought process of the common man. This would take ages to accomplish as it is a Herculean task to change and develop the thought process of the society. To empower women, we first need to set them free. To set them free, we first need to free our minds.

One written document cannot empower women, but it can surely start the revolution that is required.

Linus Orakles
http://www.authorclub.info/