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EMPOWERING WOMEN

1) INTRODUCTION

2) The women who blazed the trail

3) Microscopic Minority

4) Sad Plight of Women

5) Empowerment is the only answer

6) What is empowerment

7) Women who proved well due to political empowerment

8) Political Empowerment at the National Level

9) Position in Panchayats

10) Reservation in Parliament and Assemblies a myth ?

11)Social Empowerment

12)Role of NGOs in social empowerment

13) Steps taken by Govt for social empowerment:

14) Empowerment paves way for glory

15) CONCLUSION

INTRODUCTION: There is no chance for the welfare of the world unless the condition ofwomen is improved. It is not possible for a bird to fly on only one wing, said Swami

Vivekananda. But through centuries, societies in the world over have been trying to fly on

only one wing, denying women their rightful place. The greatest champions of womensrights have been great men like Gandhiji, Raja Rammohun Roy, Ishwarachandra

Vidyasagar, Maharshi Karve and ironically those who have systematically exploited anddegraded them have also been of a largely-male dominated society. The very concept of

women empowerment shows that society as such has given a raw deal to women whocomprise nearly fifty percent of the population and women themselves have to come

forward to fight for their rightful place in all walks of life and prevent their exploitation inevery field. Women, who number 498.7 million according to the 2001 census of India,

represent 48.2 percent of the countrys population of 1,027.01 million. Let us analyse theways and means for empowerment of women.

The women who blazed the trail

Quite often we are carried away by the roll call of honour the name of few luminaries who

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have left their footprints on the sands of time or who are fighting lonely battles IndiraGandhi, Sirimao Bandaranaike, the first woman Prime Minister of a country (Sri Lanka) in

the world, Chandrika Kumaratunga, Golda Meir, the first woman Prime Minister of Israel,Margaret Thatcher, the first woman Prime Minister of UK, Vijayalakshmi Pandit, the first

woman President of UN General Assembly and many others. As a supercop, Kiran Bedi evenexcelled her male colleagues in jail reforms for which she was awarded Magsaysay Award.

Now one hears a lot about Nisha Sharma, the UP girl who sent her prospective groom andin-law to jail for making unreasonable dowry demands.

Microscopic Minority: All the names cited here have been empowered women and they

made both the society and womenfolk proud of them. But they form a microscopic minorityin a country where even after more than half a century of Independence, women are still

looked down upon as a lesser species, virtual second-class citizens.

Sad Plight of Women:Attitudes towards women have not changed; in fact, things have

indeed gone from bad to worse after Independence. Despite law, such reprehensiblepractices as female foeticide, female infanticide and child marriage are still prevalent inmany parts of the country. Dowry is a plague that stalks every family having marriageable

daughters and like AIDS it has no cure. Incidence of sexual harassment, eve teasing, sexualabuse of female children and rape are on the rise. Women form a sizeable percentage of the

workforce in the unorganized sector, but most of the labour laws do not cover them. Thosewho have been to the pilgrim centers of Matura, Brindavan and Varanasi would have noticed

the large number of widows living in abject penury. These are the widows dumped here bytheir relatives from West Bengal and other States. In almost every sphere, the female

species is the most vulnerable.

Empowerment is the only answer: Will the empowerment of women mean a difference to

their present status? The answer could be mixed, though the positive side overshadows thenegative side. with all the social attitudes towards women, an empowered woman is in a far

better position than a lay, unlettered and helpless woman. And this empowerment has tocover the political, economic, social and legal fields.

What is empowerment: It is giving lawful power or authority to act. If people wereempowered they would be able to participate in the planning, execution and implementation

of developmental schemes. Apart from Political Empowerment Economic and SocialEmpowerment are crucial. Empowerment and development are closely related.

Empowerment leads to development, which further leads to greater empowerment.

Women who proved well due to political empowerment:As regards political empowermentwe have come a long way. We had an iron lady in Indira Gandhi; women like Sarojini

Naidu, Vijayalakshmi Pandit Rajkumari Amrit Kaur, Dr. Sushila Nayyar, Sucheta Kripalanihave done not a little to mould modern India. There are veteran MPs and Ministers in the

Centre and the States. Ms.Mayawati and Ms.Jayalalithaa, have proved to be astutepoliticians while Ms.Mamata Banerjee has shown that she is still a force in Indian politics, to

be reckoned with.

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Political Empowerment at the National Level

All the same, women empowerment in national and State politics has just been a non-starter. It has taken 56 years and 13 Lok Sabha for the percentage of women members in

the House to move up partially from a mere 4.4 percent in 1952 to 8.8 percent in 2004, afigure that is far below the average of around 15 percent in countries which have elected

legislatures. Though our dismal record is comparable to Brazils 8.6%, Indonesias 8.0%,Russias 7.6%, Japans 7.3%, Sri Lankas 4.4%and Bangladeshs 2.0%. Yet we are farbehind countries like Sweden (45.3%). Cuba (36.0%). Germany (32.2%), China (21.8%),

Pakistan (21.6%), UK (17.9%) and France (12.2%).

Position in Panchayats: Of course, we made a bold beginning in respect of the political

empowerment of women at the grassroots level during the Rajiv Gandhi regime. During hisregime, the 64th Constitutional Amendment Bill for reservation for women in Panchayats

was introduced. Though it failed in the Rajya Sabha, it was reintroduced during NarasimhaRaos regime. In December 1992, Parliament passed the 73rd and 74th Constitutional

Amendments providing for 33% reservation for women in the Panchayat Rajbodies. In the

last decade after the legislation came into force, the women as Presidents and members ofthe Panchayats have played a signal role in local bodies. Women have stormed malebastions of power not only in the village panchayats, but in the municipal councils and

municipal corporations in towns and big cities.

Women elected to Panchayats and municipal councils because of reservation policy are nowasserting themselves, says Sudha Mohan, who teaches urban studies at Mumbai

Universitys Department of Civics and Politics. Although women are still under-representedin the national political arena, the 73rd and 74th Constitutional Amendments have increased

their access to decision-making at the local level. This has resulted in practical changes,according to actress and Rajya Sabha member, Shabana Azmi. For instance, she said,

women in local government tended to take up basic issues like water, health facilities and

education even as their male counterparts seemed more interested in building marriagehalls and community centers.Large-scale entry of women in local self-government

institutions in rural and urban India has changed the face and tenor of the elected bodies.For instance, for a change one can feel the predominant presence of women in the

Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation(BMC). This civic body had approximately five womencorporators before the 1992 elections. In 2002, 78 women entered the 227 members house

because of the reservation policy.

Reservation in Parliament and Assemblies a myth ? Right from 1996, the women of India

have been waiting for the clearance of the Womens Reservation Bill that would give themone-third reservation in Parliament and the State Legislatures. The Bill was introduced

several times since then, but because of the lack of sheer political will, it still remains in thegestation phase. Can we ever expect the menfolk who dominate Parliament and State

Legislatures with a more than ninety percent majority to surrender their privileges andpositions overnight? On some plea or the other, the move is scuttled again and again. The

ball started rolling from the days of the Gujral regime, got stuck up during the Deve Gowdarule and started moving again after the advent of Vajpayee government. There have been

ugly scenes in the Lok Sabha when irate members tore up the Bill or snatched it from theMinister introducing the Bill. Nonetheless, almost all parties, even those opposed to the Bill

in its present form, do agree that women should be given greater representation in

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Parliament and the State Legislatures. Ultimately, what form the Bill will take in future whenit comes to the Lok Sabha remains to be seen.

Social Empowerment: Political empowerment of women is only a part of the overall

mainstreaming of women. At the political level only a microscopic minority of women, at thehelm of affairs, can effect the change in the life of women. It is the economic and socialempowerment of women that needs to be given greater importance. This could be achieved

a lot though education. Education of women means greater awareness of their role in

society. Awareness of their rights, better knowledge of housekeeping and betterperformance of their roles as a housewife and mother. Education and training have opened

up the avenues of employment and self-employment in the organized sector. As neverbefore women are working in diverse fields as doctors, engineers, IAS officers, IPS officers,

bank officials and in a wide range of sectors in the unorganized sector. In agriculture, mostof the operations are run by women.

Role of NGOs in social empowerment:Non-governmental organizations are playing asignificant role in the empowerment of disadvantages women. Just a few years afterIndependence, the Government set up the Central Social Welfare Board, an apex body of

the voluntary sector that aids more than 10,000 NGOs across the country, helping womenstand on their own through such programmes as socio-economic programme, vocational

training and other similar programmes.

Steps taken by Govt for social empowerment: The Department of Women and ChildDevelopment has been implementing special programmes for the holistic development and

empowerment of women with major focus to improve their socio-economic status. There

has been policy shifts from time to time based on the shifts in emphasis. While the focusearlier was welfare and development of women, now the focus is on womens

empowerment. In fact, the year 2001 was declared as Womens Empowerment Year tobring greater focus on the programmes for women.A programme of Support to Training-

cum-Employment for Women (STEP) was launched in 1987 to strengthen and improve theskills for employment opportunities for women below the poverty line, in traditional sectors

of agriculture, small animal husbandry, dairying, fisheries, handlooms, handicrafts, cottage

and village industries, sericulture, social forestry and wasteland development where womenare employed on a large scale. The scheme was essentially designed for the marginalized

and assetless women, female-headed households and other poor women. Other majorgovernment programmes to empower poor women have been the Swayamsidha launched in

March 2001 and the Swa-Shakti Project (earlier known as Rural Womens Development andEmpowerment Project), launched in October 1998. All these projects are designed to

empower the lower socio-economic groups in the country.WOMEN DEV CORPN IN STATES

Empowerment paves way for glory: Here give some good points through your analysis

Conclusion: Empowerment by itself may not place women on an equal footing with men.The greatest need of the hour is change of social attitude to women. Take the classic case

of dowry. Dowry is still rampant in a virulent form even among the highly educated a girlmay be, dowry is still demanded. We have seen the case of Nisha and she and her parent

too were willing to pay the dowry. Only when the demands crossed the limits, she fought

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back. How many girls are there who can toe her line? Womens empowerment means a lot,but the ultimate goal of the equalization of man and woman would materialize only when

her complementary role is recognized by the society.

Introduction:Definition

Civilization and women

Women in Islam and current scenarioGlobally analysis of women current scenario

Problems Faced by womenMain Factors

(i)Physical strength and sense of superiority of man(ii)so called religious scholars

(iii)Feudalistic and socialistic system of the governmentWomen Hudood ordinance1979

Patriarchal behaviour of man

Anti-women practice billDamage done and Repair undertakenWomen's protection act amends the ordinance to ensure justice

Recommendations for the empowerment of women(i)Economic Empowerment

(ii)Legal Support(iii)Political Support

Worth of legislation as against social moor, customs and prejudicesConclusion