Women Empowerment For Nation Building

Abstract

Education among women is the most powerful tool of attaining power in society. It helps in reducing inequalities and functions as a means for improving their status within the family. As we all know that education is must for everyone but unfortunately, in this male dominating society, the education of women has been neglected for a long time. Empowering women is an important end in itself and as women acquire the same status, opportunities and social, economic and legal rights as men, as they acquire the right to health and gender based violence, human well-being will be enhanced. The present study explores the role of education in women empowerment and the status of women education in India. It shows that the education is most important part in the life of every woman.

Introduction

Empowerment is instrumentally important for achieving positive development outcomes and well-being of life which lies in the doing and being what one value and have reason to value i.e. agency. Sen make a strong claim for increasing the agency of the individual to enable them to be an effective agent of their own well being and development. The concept of empowerment is very complex in itself indeed very fuzzy also; different scholars hold different definition of empowerment according to the need of their work. Women’s agency, autonomy and empowerment are widely used idea in development literature and capability approach. But there exists substantial ambiguity in conception of these ideas. While women’s well being and women’s agency is sufficiently distinguished from each other, there seems to be a large overlap between agency and empowerment and between agency and autonomy.

Literature Review

Noreen and Khalid (2012) explored the possibilities and opportunities for women empowerment and how the participants in the study understand the role of higher education in empowerment of women at home and at work. They found out that the women should continue higher education and career by strategizing and acknowledging the support of their family members. Banerjee (2012) studied the empowerment of women through higher education. She concluded that the empowered women challenged the man in their workplace and were seen in the powerful corporate positions. Kandpal et al (2012) studied the participation in community-level female empowerment program in India increases participants physical mobility, political participation and access to employment. Murtaza (2012) examined the current status of women in higher education in Gilgit Baltistan. He examined the challenges faced by the women were harassment at work places and work load. The parents didn’t spend similar amount in educating their daughters as compare to their sons. Sonowal (2013) studied the effect of the SC and ST women in the rural areas of Sonitpur district. He found that the status of women in the present society, attitude of parents and guardians towards girl education. Taxak (2013) studied the disparity in education across the socio economic spectrum in India.

Educational System In India

The vast majority of the world’s poor population is women. ‘Around the world, healthy, educated, employed and empowered women break poverty cycles not only for themselves, but for their families, communities, and countries too.’ According to United Nations World’s Women 2010 Trends and Statistics, two-third of the world’s illiterate population is female. The majority of school age children, not in school are girls. Women all over the world are challenged by a number of obstacles that restrict their ability to play significant roles in their communities and the broader society. Today, HIV/AIDS is rapidly becoming a woman’s disease. Near about 60 percent of people living in Sub-Saharan Africa were sufferings with HIV/AIDS. When we talk about our country, the country has grown from leaps and bounds since its independence where education is concerned, the gap between women and men is severe. While 82.14% of adult men are educated, only 65.46% of adult women are known to be literate in India. Additionally, the norms of culture that state that the man of the family is the be-all and end-all of family decisions is slowly spoiling the society of the country.

Importance Of Women Empowemwent

• Opportunities for development
• Career development
• Leadership
• Communication
• Image
• Work-life balance
• Equal opportunities & fair treatment
• Pay & benefits
• Responsible
• Health & safety
• Job satisfaction

Reflecting into the “ Vedas Purana” of Indian culture, women is being worshiped such as LAXMI MAA, goddess of wealth; SARSWATI MAA, for wisdom; DURGA MAA for power. The status of women in India particularly in rural areas needs to address the issue of empowering women. About 66% of the female population in rural area is unutilized. This is mainly due to existing social customs. In agriculture and Animal care the women contribute 90% of the total workforce. Women constitute almost half of the population, perform nearly 2/3 of its work hours, receive 1/10th of the world’s income and own less than 1/ 100th the world property. Among the world’s 900 million illiterate people, women out number men two to one. 70% of people living in poverty are women. Lower sex ratio i.e. 933, The existing studies show that the women are relatively less healthy than men though belong to same class. They constitute less than 1/7th of the administrators and mangers in developing countries. Only 10% seats in World Parliament and 6% in National Cabinet are held by women.

Conclusion

In the earlier work on empowerment, agency and autonomy, these concepts have been treated as coterminous or have been used interchangeably; broadly including the ability to make authentic choices and to have resources to exercise these choices. However, they can substantially diverge from each other and one may not reflect into the other, for instance women from south India have very good access to resources but very low level of autonomy. This highlights the need for identification of some cultural factors having bearings on empowerment and autonomy.

Reference

1. Alkire, Sabina (2007): ‗Measuring Agency: Issues and Possibilities‘, Indian Journal of Human Development, Vol. 1, and No. 1.
2. Basu, Alaka Malwade and Kaushik Basu. (1991): ‗Women‘s Economic Roles and Child Survival: The Case of India.‘ Health Transition Review 1(1).
3. Batliwala, Srilatha. (1994): ‗The Meaning of Women‘s Empowerment: New Concepts from Action.‘ Pp. 127-138 in Population Policies Reconsidered: Health,
4. Empowerment and Rights. G. Sen. A., Germain and L.C. Chen, eds. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.