What do we mean by empowerment?

• Do we mean something different from human rights?

• Whose rights are we talking about?

• For whom are there problems of empowerment and rights in the US?

Paula England’s definitions

• What do we mean by power?• England prefers a definition that is not that

of an intangible, unmeasurable phenomenon• Therefore, she refers to resources that enable

one to reach one’s goals– money and material property– favorable laws and institutional rules– informal norms

Relative and absolute power• England is interested both in relative power

(women’s power relative to men) and absolute power

• Others contrast “power to” and “power over”

• - “power to” refers to the ability to choose to do things - e.g. go to the market

• - “power over” refers to whether one prevails when there is a difference in choice - e.g. can your husband stop you from going

Human rights and empowerment in the U.S. and around the world

• Who is less empowered?

• - women

• - minorities– Blacks, Native Americans in the U.S.– Muslims in the Balkans– Jews in the Holocaust

• - gays and lesbians

Marriage• There are some resources that empower single

women, others those who are married• Why is this important?• Bargaining: resources available to single

women are important to those who are married• If women can command resources outside of

marriage, they may have greater power within the marriage

Roles within marriage

• Women’s roles are frequently ones that they cannot take away from their husbands if the marriage ends - e.g. child-rearing services

• Men can withdraw provision of certain things - money

• This inequality means that women have less credible “threat points” - it may be more costly to them to end the marriage

Divorce

• “bargaining power” within marriage very much depends on rules and institutions that affect post-married women differently from either married women or single women

• Some societies make divorce impossible

• Separated or abandoned women frequently have few rights

Economic Resources

• Clearly, women are empowered if they have financial resources over which they have control

• They are also empowered to the extent that they are paid fairly for their work

• Can they • own a home?

• Have a bank account?

• Inherit a fair share of family wealth?

Laws and Institutional Rules

• Right to vote

• Hiring policies

• Most differential laws favor men, but exceptions include:

• -- earlier retirement

• -- public safety net -- since women are more likely to be in need of the safety net

Differential benefits

• Dependent children

• Disability benefits generally go to those who have had salaries -- and are generally more generous

• Social security in the U.S. -- frequently a woman could obtain greater benefits from her husband’s work than her own -- no return for her work

Costs of childrearing

• Policies that help with childrearing usually benefit women more than men

• But policies that make it a public good to raise healthy citizens are not common

• US is probably the least helpful of all developed countries in this regard

• Responsibility for elderly has become public; for children, it’s the family

Religious institutions

• Frequently explicitly treat men and women differently

• Some argue for male power over women

• When state and religion are fused, as in some Islamic countries, this means that public policies are affected - e.g Afganistan, where women cannot work outside home, schools have been closed, etc.

Organizations

• Child care

• Hiring and promotion policies

• Pay

• Parenting leaves

• Comparable worth laws

Informal norms held by others

• England specifically excludes internalized norms -- because they set goals, whereas she is interested in reaching goals

• norms of disparate treatment of males and females

• non-reciprocal norms

• sometimes favor women -- sinking ship: women and children first

Favorable norms

• Cooperation

• Equal access to health and nutrition

• Men hold egalitarian norms

• Value altruism and cooperation over toughness and competitiveness

• Male participation in childrearing

Negative norms

• Competitiveness

• Violence

• Norms that favor youth and beauty place double burden on older women

Changes can backfire

• Feminists fought for changes in divorce laws• Women were more empowered because it was

easier for them to work• Laws were intended to distribute property more

equally in divorce• Women worse off; men better off financially after

divorce• Increasing non-marital fertility and feminization of

poverty

Developing countries

• England’s views are relevant for developed countries

• She doesn’t go far enough in thinking about the restrictions on women in the developing world -- where the control of family can be far greater and more inhibiting, as we have seen

Garment workers in Bangladesh

• Sajeda Amin and her colleagues argue that most women in Bangladesh never had a chance to be adolescents - to experience a time when they are making a gradual transition from childhood to adulthood

• Women went from home of father to home of father-in-law --- from being a child to being a daughter-in-law

Adolescence

• Offers young people an opportunity within and outside the home to experience a period of independence as a biological but not as a social adult

• Young women can experience adolescence

• -- through educational opportunity

• -- through work outside the home

Garment work

• Upon marriage, women may return to a more traditional role

• Experience of self-reliance -- both financial and through living arrangements -- may carry over to their later lives

• May improve their later reproductive decision-making and reproductive health

Work opportunities

• In the past, there were few opportunities outside the home

• There is no question that women are hired in the garment industry because they are cheap labor

• The issue is whether the women benefit from new opportunity

The stereotype of the woman worker

• Weak social and economic position

• Supplementary wage earner

• docile

• willing to do repetitive tasks

• manual dexterity

What happens to women

• One view is that employment can intensify their inequality

• Another is that it can benefit them, no matter why the employment began

• One way is through postponement of marriage and childbearing

• Another is through new roles

Garment worker studyCase studies

• Factories of varying size in four areas of Dhaka

• Stratified by marital status and type of work

• 22 focal case studies

• Interviews during repeated home visits

• Open-ended, semi-structured

Garment worker studySurvey

• 13 randomly selected garment factories

• 301 helpers and operators

• 50 supervisors

• All female supervisors

• snowball sample of 705 additional helpers and operators

• 512 non-garment workers - from sending and non-sending communities

Why did they work?

• Household strategy - families supported their going to work

• reliance on relatives or others from community

• Decision rarely imposed

• Accept responsibility to help support family

• Some made personal decisions

Benefits and problems• Managing income

• Rarely retain control over income -- rather turn it over to family

• Perceive household interests as their own

• Stigma - in early days it was considered deviant behavior

• Still some problems

• Considered “modern,” technical, superior to other kinds of work

Social life

• Sanctions against relationship with men remain

• Networks are needed for information, but there remains a strong norm of separation of sexes

• Work is considered part of a transition phase in life

• Many leave work upon marriage

Education vs. work

• Girls need some education in order to obtain these jobs

• As teenagers, few girls are in school, so work is not competing with schooling

• Rather it is competing with early marriage and may serve to improve their opportunities to delay marriage