Gender Equity Woman Empowerment Abstract

7/29/2019 Gender Equity Woman Empowerment Abstract

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GENDER EQUITY WOMAN EMPOWERMENT Abstract

Empowerment is a multi-faceted, multi-dimensional and multi-layered concept. Women'sempowerment is a process in which women gain greater share of control over resources -material, human and intellectual like knowledge, information, ideas and financialresourceslike money - and access to money and control over decision-making in the home,

community, society and nation, and to gain `power'. According to the CountryReport of Government of India,"Empowerment means moving fr om a position of enforced powerlessness to one of power".If NGO employees are advocating behavior change for self-empowerment such behaviourmust also be modeled for successful transmission as suggested in the self-efficacy modelsof behavior change. Rural NGOs in India that depend on local populationfor employees

face a limited labor pool who are as likely to be vulnerable to thetraditional socialpr essu res and therefore equa lly marginal ized as their cl i en ts . This mayc ause a gap between

what the employees may be trained to 'preach' and what they may'practice' therebydiminishing their effectiveness to motivate change. We examine theemployees of a

successful rural NGO in India that has received accolades for its workinempowerment to establish if the employees actually walkthe talk. Using threeempower

ment instruments, including one developed for this study, we find t hatemployees indeedwalk the talk and their index of empowerment is related to their tenure in the NGO.Fight for gender equality is not a fight against men. It is a fight against traditionsthat have

chained them a fight against attitudes that are ingrained in t he society it is a fightagainst system a fight against proverbial Laxshman Rekha which isdifferent for men anddifferent for women. The society must r ise to the occasion. Itmust recognize & accept fact

that men and women are equal partners in life. Theyare individual who have their ownidentity.

-Dr. Justice A.S. Anand

IntroductionMan and woman are both equal and both plays a vital role in the creation anddevelopmentof their families in a particular and the society in general. Indeed, thestruggle for legalequality has been one of the major concerns of the womens moveme ntall over the world.In India, since long back, women were considered as an oppressedsection of the society andthey were neglected for centuries. During the national strugglefor independence, Gandhi

gave a call of emancipation of women. He wrote :I amuncompromising in the matter ofwomens rights. The difference in sex and physical formdenotes no difference in status.Woman is the complement of man, and not inferior.Thus, the first task in post -independent India was to provide a constitution to the people,which would not make anydistinctions on the basis of sex. The preamble of constitution promises to secure to all its

citizens- Justice- economical, social, and political. Theconstitution declares that the

equality before the law and the equal protection of lawsshall be available for all .Similarly, there shall be no discrimination against any citizenon the ground of sex . Article

15(1) guarantees equalities of opportunities for all citizensin matters of employment.Article 15(3) provides that the state can make any special provisions for women andchildren. Besides, directive principle of state policy whichconcern women directly andhave a special bearing on their status directly and have aspecial

be aring on thei r status include Ar ticle 39(a ) ri ght to an adequate means of li veli hood; (d)

equal pay for equal wok both men and women, (e) protection of health andstrength ofworkers men, women, children and Article 42 provides for just and humaneconditions of


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work and maternity relief.It is really important to note that though the Constitution of Indiais working since morethan fifty-seven years the raising of the status of women to one of

equality, freedom anddignity is still a question mark.The empowerment of women is one ofthe central issues in the process of development of countries all over the world. Thecontribution of writers and social reformers has beenwell documented. The Government ofIndia has made Empowerment of Women as one of the principal objectives of the Ninth

Five Year Plan (1997-2002) and also declared 2001as the year ofWomen's Empowerment. These issues of gender equality are discussed inWorld Conferences, National andInternational Conferences, etc. Our Constitutionhasconferred and guaranteed equality before law, universal adult franchise and equalopportunities for men and women as fundamental rights. The imperative of gender partnership in

matters of development has been recognised. In order to give a fillip toempowermentof women and appropriate institutional mechanisms and interventionshave been consciously

bu il t in to the deve lopment design .Separate inst itu tions for women and chil d deve lopmen t,departments at the Central andState levels, creation of the National Commission for

Women and also State Commissionfor Women in several States are some of the importantdevelopments for the bettermentand prosperity of women.

The launching of Rashtriya Mahila Kosh, Indira MahilaYojana, Mahila SamridhiYojana, reserving of one third of the number of seats in

Panchayats and the local bodies are programmes launched with a view to improveandempower women socially, economically and in political frontiers.Empowerment is a

multi-faceted, multi-dimensional and multi-layered concept. Women'sempowerment is apr ocess in which women gain greate r share of cont ro l over resources -material, human and intellectual like knowledge, information, ideas and financialresourceslike money - and access to money and control over decision-making in thehome,

community, society and nation, and to gain `power'. A ccording to theCountryReport of Government of India,"Empowerment means moving fr om a position of enforced powerlessness to one of power".Women constitute almost 50% of the worlds population. As per as their social statusisconcerned, they are not treated as equal to men in all the places, through in thewesterncountries women are treated on par with men in most of the fields, their counterpart

in theeast suffers from many disabilities. The disabilities on the one hand and theinequalities between men and women on the other, have given rise to what is known

Gender problem. Al l one the world and part icular ly in South and East Asia and Afri cathe gender problem has assumed importance during the recent years the gender issue has

be comevi rtual ly a crucia l poin t of argument . It is now widely believed that empowerment

of women i.e., providing equal rights, opportunities and responsibilities to women, will goalong way in removing the existing gender discrimination. Women empowerment incontem

pora ry Indi an so ciety in forms of their work, educ ation , heal th and media images in theforms of t heir work, education, health and media images in the context of lineage,rule ofresidence and household chores, their context of lineage, rule of residence andhouseholdchores, their participation in social and political activities, their legal status interms ofmarriage, divorce and inheritance of property, s eeking wealth care should betaken into

consideration. Empowerment in terms of knowledge and awareness of onesown life an dsociety including legal raise their status with regarded to the lives.Meaning


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Gender Inequalities refers to the obvious or hidden disparities among individuals basedonthe performance of gender. This problem in simple term is known as Gender Biaswhich i n

simple terms means the gender stratification or making difference between a girland a boyi.e. a male or a female. In making biasness among the gender India has 10thrank out of 128countries all over the world which is shameful for us . But this problem isi ncreasingalthough government has banned the pre-natal sex examination. In India (inthe older times)

this problem is mainly seen in the rural areas because many rural peoplethink that the girlchild is burden on them. But now this is also being seen in the urbanareas i.e. in offices,institutions, schools and in society. The afflicted world in which welive is characterised bydeeply unequal sharing of the burden of adversities betweenwomen and men. GenderInequality exists in most part of the world, from Japan toMorocco, or from Uzbekistan toUnited States of America (as stated earlier).However, inequality between men and women

can take very many different for ms.Indeed, gender inequality is not one homogeneousphenomenon , but a collection of di sparate and in te rl inked problems. The issue of gender

inequality is one which hasbe en publ ic ly re verbera ting through society for decades. The problem of inequali ty inempl o

yment being one of the most pressing issues today. In order to examinethissituation one must try to get to the root of the problem and must understand the

sociological factors that cause women to have a much more difficult time getting thesamebe nefi ts , wages, and job opportunit ies as their male counte rpar ts . The society inwhich we

live has been shaped historically by males.Before thinking about the empowerment ofwomen, one needs to understand the

exactmeaning of the word empowerment. According to Cambridge English Dictionaryempowerment means toauthorize. In the context of the people they have to beauthorized to

have control over their lives. When applied in the context of developmentthe particularsegment of population, the poor, the women, the vulnerable, the weak, theoppressed andthe discriminated have to be empowered to have control over their livesto better theirsocioeconomic and political conditions,. But the questions raised are, whoempowers them

and how to empower them? Ideally speaking no one empowers any one,the best way usself empowerment, by the segments of population mentioned above arehandicapped bothstructurally and culturally to empower themselves without any outsidehelp and affirmativeaction by the State and others. But still as long as these segments of population does notmake any effort at self-employment. It would be long and arduoustask and process for theoutsiders to empower them.Since the 1990s women have been identified as key agents

of sustainable developmentand womens equality and empowerment are seen as central to amore holistic approachtowards establishing new patterns and processes of development thatare sustainable. TheWorld Bank has suggested that empowerment of women should be akey aspect of allsocial development programs (World Bank, 2001). Although a considerabledebate onwhat constitutes empowerment exists, in this paper we find it useful to rely on

Kabeers(2001) definition: "The expansion in people's ability to make strategic life choices

in acontext where this ability was previously denied to them." For women in India,thissuggests empowerment i n several realms: personal, familial, economic and

po li ti ca l.Since the 1980s the Government of India has shown increasing concern fo rwomen'sissues through a variety of legislation promoting the education and political

pa rt ic ipat ionof women (Col lier , 1998 ). In te rnat ional organizations li ke the World Bank andUnited Nations have focused on womens issues especial ly the empowerment of poorwomen inrural areas. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, non-governmental organizations

(NGOs)have also taken on an increased role in the area of womens empowerment (Sadik,1988). NGOs, previously catering to womens health and educational needs, have moved b


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eyond this traditional focus to addressing the underlying causes of deprivationsthrough promoting the economic and social empowerment of women. (McNamara: 2003).

Thereare many challenges that face NGOs who make it their goal to empower women(Narayan: 2002; Mayoux: 2000; Malhotra and Mather: 1997).Types Of Gender InequalitiesThere are many kinds of gender inequality or gender disparity which are as follows:

1. Natality inequality: In this type of inequality a preference is given for boys over girlsthat many male-dominated societies have, gender inequality can manifest itself in the

form of the parents wanting the n ewborn to be a boy rather than a girl. There was atimewhen this could be no more than a wish (a daydream or a nightmare, depending onone's perspective), but with the availability of modern techniques to determine the gender

of the foetus, sex-selective abortion has become common in many countries. It is particularly prevalent inEast Asia, in China and South Korea in particular, but also

inSingapore and Taiwan, and it is beginning to emerge as a statistically significant phenom

enon in India and South Asia as well.2. Professional or Employment inequality:In terms of employment as well as promotion in work and occupation, women often facegreater handicap than men. Acountry like Japan and India may be quite egalitarian in

matters of demography or basicfacilities, and even, to a great extent, in higher education,and yet progress to elevatedlevels of employment and occupation seems to be much more

pr oblemati c for womenthan for men. The example of employment inequa li ty can beexplained by saying thatmen get p riority in seeking job than women.

3. Ownership inequality: In many societies the ownership of property can also be veryunequal. Even basic assetssuch as homes and land may be very asymmetrically shared.The absence of claims to

pr oper ty can not only redu ce the voice of women, but al so make it harder fo r women to

enter and flourish in commercial, economic and even some socialactivities. This type ofinequality has existed in most parts of the world, though there arealso local variations. Forexample, even though traditional property rights have favouredmen in the bulk of India.4. Household inequality:There are often enough, basic inequalities in gender relationswithin the family or thehousehold, which can take many different forms. Even in cases inwhich there are no overt

signs of anti-female bias in, say, survival or son-preference or education, or even inpr omot ion to higher execut ive posi tions, the family ar rangementscan be quit e unequa l interms of sharing the burden of housework and child care. It is, for example, quite commonin many societies to take it for granted that while men willnaturally work outside the home,women could do it if and only if they could combine itwith various inescapable and

unequally shared household duties. This is sometimes called"division of labour," though

women could be forgiven for seeing it as "accumulation of labour." The reach of thisinequality includes not only unequal relations within the family, but also derivative

inequalities in employment and recognition in the outside world. Also,the established fixityof this type of "division" or "accumulation" of labour can also havefar-reaching effects onthe knowledge and understanding of different types of work in professional circles.5. Special opportunity inequality:Even when there is relatively little difference in basicfacilities including schooling, the

opportunities of higher education may be far fewerfor young women than for young men. Indeed, gender bias in higher education and professi


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onal training can be observed even in some of the r ichest countries in theworld,in India too. Sometimes this type of division has

be en based on the superf ic ia lly innocuous idea that the re spective "provinces" of men andwomen are just different.Role of women in development process

The principal of gender equality was recognized in the United Nations Charter in 1945andthe UN Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, the majority of development plannersdid not fully

address the role of women in development process. In 1975, the first UNConference ofWome n a nd De ve lopme n t wa s he ld a t Me x ic o c i t y unde r t he mot to , Equality,Development and peace. The need to integrate women into development wasinternationally proclaimedin the 1995 Beijing Conference. The Economic Survey (1999-2 000) use d a n en t i r e s ec t i on ongen der ineq ual i ty. I t bega n w ith a r emin der of the commitment made in the ninth

plan document of al locating 30 per cent of resour ces fo r womens development schemesthrough Womens Component Plans. According toMenon and Probhu (2001), there was a strong

plea for investing in womens equality ont he g round tha t t h i s ma de e c onomic se nse a nd

sp ok e o f th e so cia l ra te of re tur n on investment in women being greater that the

corresponding rate for men. AccordingtoPa ten (2002) , wome ns de ve lopme n t c a n be a t t a ine d by improv ing he re s t a tus an d bargaining power in the economy.Sushma Sachay (1998) argues that approaches andstrategic for women empowermentcould be possible by outlining the mechanisms and tools

that ti ll influence for womenempowerment. Decisions making process, multidimensional process thatare enable wornto realize their full identity and powers in all walks of life.

As a ConceptGender Inequalities refers to the obvious or hidden disparities among individuals basedon

the perfor mance of gender. This pr oblem in simple term is known as Gender Bias which insimple terms means the gender stratification or making difference between a girland a boy i.e. a maleor a female . In making b iasness among the gende r India has 10th rank out of 128 countries allover the world which is shameful for us . But this problem isincreasing although government has

ba nned the pre-na ta l sex examinat ion. In Indi a (in the older times) this problem is mainly seen inthe rural areas because many rural peoplethink that the girl child is burden on them. But now thisis also being seen in the urbanareas i.e. in offices, institutions, schools and in society.Ho wever ,i ne qua l i t y be twe e n me n a nd wome n c a n t a ke ve ry ma ny d i f fe re n t fo rms . Inde e d ,ge nde r i ne qua l i t y i s no t one homoge ne ous phe nome non , bu t a c o l l e c t i ono f disparate and interlinked problems. The issue of gender inequality is one which has

been publ i c l y r eve rber a t i ng th r ough s oc i e ty f or de cades . The pro bl em o f i ne qua l i ty i ne mployme n t be ing one o f t he mos t p re s s ing i s sue s t oda y . In o rde r t oe xa mi ne t hi ss i t u a t i o n o n e m u s t t r y t o g e tt o t h e r o o t o f t h e p r o b l e m a n d m u s t u n d e r s t a n d t h e s oci ological f actors t hatcause women to have a much more difficult time getting thesame benefits, wages, and job

opportunities as their male counterparts. The society inwhich we live has been shaped

historically by males. However, in many parts of theworld, women receive less attentionand health care than men do, and particularly girlsoften receive very much less

su pp or t th an bo ys . As a re su lt of th is ge nd er bi as , th emortality rates of females oftenexceed those of males in these countries. The concept of missing women was devised to give someide a of the enormi ty of the phe nomenon of women's adversity in mortality by focussing on thewomen who are simply not there, dueto unusually high mort alit y compared with male mortalityrates. In some regions in the


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world, inequality between women and men directly involves matters of life and death,andtakes the brutal form of unusually high mortality rates of women and a

consequent preponderance of men in the total population, as opposed to the preponderance ofwomenfound in societies with little or no gender bias in health care and nutrition.Mortalityinequality has been observed extensively in North Afr ica and in Asia, includingChinaand South Asia.Empowering may be understood as e nabling people, especially women

to acquire and possess power resources, in order to make decision on their own or resistdecisions thatare made by others that affect them. A p erson may said to be powerful whenhe/she hascontrol over a large portion of power resources in society. The extent of

possession of va rious resources such as pe rsonal weal th , such as land skil ls , educat ion,information,knowledge, social status, position held, leadership trains, capabilities ofmobilization.The Nati onal Pol i cy o n E ducat ion (198 6) s ugge sted cert a in s t r a teg ies t

o em po we r women. Accordingly, women becomeempowe red through col lec tive ref lec tions anddecision making enable them to become agency of

social change. The global conferenceon Women Empowerment (1988), highlighted empowerment as thebest way of makingown partners in deve lopmen t the deve lopment of women and chil dren in

RuralAreas( D W C R A ) p r o g r a m w a s i n i t i a t e d a s a s u b s c h e m e o f t h e n a t i o n a l w i

d e p o v e r t y alleviation program i.e., the Integrated Rural Development Program (IRDP). Itaims at imparting self reliance to rural areas through income generating skill s along withgrouporganization skills. Keeping this in view the year 2001 was celebrated as The

WomensEmpowerment Year. Human resource development and empowerment of women unlockthedoor for modernization of society,. Instated of remaining as passive beneficiaries,womenmust become active partner. Participation and control over resources of power areconsidered as the

critical indicators in the process of development discharged womenespecially in ruralareas, possess the least proportion of these resources and as a resultthey are powerless and

dependent on the powerful and wealthy.

Focusing On IndiaWhile there is something to cheer in the developments I have just been discussing, andthere

is considerable evidence of a weakened hold of gender disparity in several fields inth e subc ont ine nt ,

th er e i s als o, ala s, so me evi den ce of a mov eme nt in th e c on tr ary direction, at least inone aspect of gender inequality, namely, natality inequality. This has been brought out part icularlysharply by the early results of the 2001 decennial nationalCensus of India, which are nowavailable. Early results indicate that even though theoverall female to male ratio has

improved slightly for the country as a whole (with acorresponding reduction of thepr opor ti on of "miss ing women" ), the female -male rat io for children has had a substantial decline.For India as a whole, the female-male ratio of the popula tion under age 6 has fal len f rom 94.5gir ls for hundred boys in 1991 to 92.7girls per hundred boys in 2001.While there has been no suchdecline in some parts of the country (most notably Kerala),it has fal len very sharply in others, suc h

as Punjab , Haryana, Gujarat and Maharashtra, which are among the richer Indian States. Takingtogether all the evidence that exists, it is

clear that this change reflects not a rise in female child mortality, but a fall in female births

vis--vis male births, and is almost certainly connected with increased availabilityand use of genderdetermination of foetuses. Fearing that sex-selective abortion mightoccur in India, the IndianParliament banned some years ago the use of sex determinationtech nique s f o rfoe tuse s , except when i t i s a b y-produ c t of o the r necessa ry medica l inves tigat ion.But it appears that the enforcement of this law has been comprehensivelyneglected. This

face o f gender i nequality cannot, therefore, be removed , at l east in theshort run, by theenhancement of women's empowerment and agency, since that agency isit se lf an integral part of the


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cause of natality inequality. Policy initiatives have to takeadequate note of the fact that thepa ttern of gender inequal ity seems to be sh if ting in India, right at this time, from mortality

inequality (the female life expectancy at birth is by now two years higher than male life expectancy inIndia) to natality inequality. Indeed,there is clear evidence that traditional routes of changing genderinequality, through using public policy to influence female education and female economic participation,may notserve as a path to the removal of natality inequality.A sharp pointer in that direction comes from

countries in East Asia, which all havehighleve ls of female educa t ion and eco nomic par t i c ipa t ion . Despi te th ese achievemen ts , compared with the biologically common ratio across the world of 95 girls being born

per hundred boys , Singapore and Taiwan have 92 gi rl s, South Korea only 88 , and Chinaamere 86. In fact, South Korea's overall female-male ratio for children is also a meagre 88girls for 100

boys and China's 85 girl s for 100 boys . In compar ison, the Indi an ra tio of 92 .7 gi rl s or 100

boys (t hough lower than it s previous fi gure of 94 .5 ) st il l looks farlessunfavourable.However, there are more grounds for concern tha n may be sugges ted by the

current all-India average. First, there are substantial variations within India, and the all-Indiaaveragehides the fact that t here are States i n India where t he female-male ratio fo r children

isvery much lower than the Indian average. Second, it has to be asked whether withthespread of sex-selective abortion, India may catch up with - and perhaps even go beyond -Korea and

China. There is, in fact, strong evidence that this is happening in a big way in parts of the country.Thereis, however, something of a social and cultural d ivide across India , splitti ng the country intotwo nearly contiguous halves, in the extent of anti-female bias in natality and post-natality mortality.

Since more boys are born than girls everywhere in the world, evenwithout sex-specific abortion, we canuse as a classificatory benchmark the female-maleratio among children in advanced industrial countries.The female-male ratio for the 0-5age group is 94.8 in Germany, 95.0 in the U.K., and 95.7 in the U.S.,

and perhaps we cansens ibl y pick the Germa n ra t io of 94.8 as the cut -of f poin t belo wwhich we shouldsuspect anti-female intervention. The use of this dividing line produces a

remarkablegeographi ca l sp l i t o f India . T here a re the S ta tes in the nor th and th ewe s t wher e t he female-male ratio of children is consistently below the benchmark figure, led byPunjab,Haryana , De lhi an d Guj a ra t ( wi th r a t ios be tween 79.3 a nd 87 . 8) , an d a l so

i nc lu di ng ,a m o n g o t h e r s , H i m a c h a l P r a d e s h , M a d h y a P r a d e s h , R a j a s t h a n ,

U t t a r P r a d e s h , M a h ar a s h tr a , J a mm u a n d Ka s h mi r , a n d Bi h a r ( a ti n y e x ce p t i on i sDa dra a nd Na gar Haveli, with less than a quarter million people altogether).On the other s ide ofthe divide, the States in the east and the south tend to have female-male ratios that areabove the benchmark line of 94.8 girls per 100 boys: with Kerala,

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Gender Equity Woman Empowerment Abstract