1. Introduction: What is women's empowerment?
2. Approaches to/for Women's Empowerment
-A. South Asian Approaches (Batliwala)
-B. Women Empowerment in Development (WED) or Developmental Approach
-C. Women in Development (WID)
-D. Women and Development (WAD)
-E. Gender and Development (GAD)
-F. The Welfare Approach
-G. The Equity Approach
-H. The Efficency Approach
-I. Anti-Proverty Approach
-J. The empowered Approach
3. Strategies for Women's Empowerment (include references)
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APPROACHES TO WOMEN'S EMPOWERMENT
Empowerment is “a process by which
individuals and groups gain power, access to resources and control over their
own lives. In doing so, they gain the ability to achieve their highest personal
and collective aspirations and goals” (Robbins, Chatterjee, & Canda, 1998).
Women’s empowerment is assumed to be attainable through
different points of departure, including political mobilization, consciousness
raising and education. In addition, changes where and when necessary, in laws,
civil codes, systems of property rights, and the social and legal institutions
that underwrite male control and privilege, are assumed to be essential for the
achievement of women’s equality.
Successful empowerment approach and
strategies require the direct and constant involvement and participation of
women in the process because empowerment evolves like a spiral, involving
changes in consciousness, the identification of target areas for change, and
analyses of actions and outcomes, “which leads in turn to higher levels of
consciousness and more finely honed and better executed strategies” (Batliwala,
1994).
A. South Asian Approaches:
In her study of selected empowerment strategies
implemented by specific South Asian NGOs, Batliwala identifies three approaches
to women’s empowerment: (i) integrated development; (ii) economic development;
and (iii) consciousness raising and organising among women. She notes that these are not mutually
exclusive categories, but argue that they are useful for distinguishing between
the various causes of “women’s powerlessness” and among the different
interventions thought to lead to empowerment.
(1) The integrated development approach interprets women’s powerlessness to be a result of
their “greater poverty and lower access to health care, education, and survival
resources”. Batliwala states that strategies deployed under this approach aim
to enhance women’s economic status through the provision of services. This
approach improves women’s everyday realities by assisting them in meeting their
survival and livelihood needs, i.e., their practical needs.
(2) The economic
development approach situates
“women’s economic vulnerability at the centre of their powerlessness”, and
assumes that economic empowerment positively impacts various aspects of women’s
existence. Its strategies are built around strengthening women’s position as
workers through organising and providing them with access to support services.
Though this approach improves women’s economic position, she notes that it is
unclear that this change necessarily empowers them in other dimensions of their
lives.
(3) Batliwala argues that the consciousness-raising and organising empowerment approach is based on a complex understanding of gender
relations and women’s status. This method ascribes women’s powerlessness to the
ideology and practice of patriarchy and socio-economic inequality. Strategies
focus on organising women to recognise and challenge gender- and class-based
discrimination in all aspects of their lives. However, she posits that though
successful in enabling women to address their strategic needs, this approach
may not be as effective in assisting them to meet their immediate or practical
needs.
Batliwala posits that empowerment
strategies must intervene at the level of “women’s condition while also
transforming their position”, thus simultaneously addressing both practical and
strategic needs. Such analyses facilitates understandings the empowerment
process that goes beyond the distribution of resources.
B. Women Empowerment in Development
The term ‘empowerment’ has gained common
usage in mainstream development discourse.
In this context, empowerment is often envisaged as individual rather
than as collective, and focused on entrepreneurship and individual
self-reliance, rather than on co-operation to challenge power structures which
subordinate women (or other marginalized groups).
The development approach arises mainly
from the belief that, the status of women (or other marginalized groups) in the
third world countries are dependent on the development of the country, and thus
must be included in the process of development. It argues that development assistance has to
tackle the problems of ignorance, backwardness, helplessness and resistance to
change –not amongst the rural poor but amongst development agencies themselves
(Almond, 1990).
This approach considers that (a) Equal
rights for men and women must be acknowledged as a fundamental principal.
Legal, economic, political, social, or cultural barriers must be identified and
lifted. (b) Human Rights as well as Women’s Rights are universal and
indivisible. They cannot be questioned under the cover of respect for cultural
diversity. They can have different implementation in different cultural
contexts, but the principal of equality and men-women equity applies to all
humans, without exception. (c) Women and girls must be the main actor and
beneficiaries of aimed changes. There is no human or democratic development
without their full participation, and (d) development projects affect men and
women differently because of their different position in society. Therefore
women and men must participate fully in the decision-making process in order to
enjoy equal benefit from developments’ impact.
(Almond, 1990).
However, the common practice in the field
of development where the planners (or other outside agency other than the women
themselves) identified women’s needs and interests which are to be integrated
and implemented along with the projects or programmes, etc. runs against
empowerment objectives which imply that women themselves formulate and decide
what their needs and interests are. Planning
(extensively used in the field of development) suggests a top-down approach,
whereas the empowerment concept is a bottom-up process, which began from the
individual.
There are three broad approaches that seek to
integrate women in the developmental process used by various international development
bodies and funding agencies. They are
Women in Development, Women and Development and Gender and Development
C. Women in Development (WID):
The WID originated from UN Charter Convention in 1945.
Proponents of this
approach argue that women are ignored and excluded from the development
programmes, believing that development is not obtainable in the absence of
women’s integration into development process. The approach seeks the equality of men and women with
its roots embedded in liberal feminism and modernization paradigm with a
dualistic framework of development and modernization. It focuses on reduction
of poverty, restructuring the global economy to focus on human resources and
basic human needs with special focus on women. It basic assumption is that
increased productivity and income of women would make women partners in
development and this in turn would change gender relations. Most of the strategies of actions of this
approach are based on health, education and employment of women. Its policy and strategy are focused mainly at
micro-level like in income generating activities for women
The main criticisms of this approach are that it is
considered as a packaged deal disowned by feminist because of its assumption
that inequality of women as a result of poverty and backwardness and that
equality will come through modernization. Apart from that, it viewed women’s
empowerment only as an instrument rather than a goal, for instance educated
women still suffer owing to wage discrimination, employment opportunities as
well as job mobility. Also, strategies generated by WID perspective had a top-down
character and lacked a holistic perspective of women’s subordination.
D. Women and Development (WAD):
This approach emerged as a critique of modernization
theory and WID approach. The focus was that women have always been a part of
development process, but in an exploitative way, the problem is that planners
hold inaccurate assumptions about women’s specific activities and this led to
neglect of women’s real needs and over-exploitation of their labour. It accepted women as an important economic actor in
their societies. Women’s work in the
public and private domain is central to the maintenance of their social
structure.
Proponents
of this approach are mainly activists and theorists from the South and few from
the North who saw the limitations of WID and argued that women would never get
their equal share of development benefits unless patriarchy and global
inequality are addressed. It offers a
more critical view of women’s position than WID. Like WID, WAD’s perspective
assumes that women’s position will improve if and when international structures
become more equitable. How these could change was not explained clearly.
It argues
that the dominant development approach lacks women’s perspective (viewpoints)
and the perspectives of developing countries. They see that overcoming poverty and
addressing the effects of colonialism are also as important as promoting gender
equality in the development process. Out of this grew the Development
Alternatives with Women for a New Era network (DAWN), based in the South, and
which aimed to make the view of developing countries known and influential. According
to this perspective, women were not a neglected resource but overburdened and
undervalued, so what needed to be done is the re-evaluation of women’s
considerable contribution to the development process and a redistribution of
the benefits and burdens of development between men and women.
E. Gender and Development (GAD):
This approach came into existence as an alternative to
WID approach. This approach has a
holistic approach by looking at all aspects of women’s lives. It challenges the basis of assigning specific
gender roles to different sexes. It
recognizes women’s contribution inside and outside the household non-commodity
production. Women have been seen as
agents of change rather than as passive recipients of development
assistance.
It is
concerned with gender and gender relations. It is not advocating for WID’s
“adding women” into the development process, but about rethinking development
concepts and practice as a whole through a gender lens.
This approach stresses the need for women to organize
themselves for more effective political voice and recognize the patriarchy
operates within and across classes to oppress women and focuses on
strengthening women’s legal rights. It sees gender as a cross-cutting issue
with relevance for influencing all economic, social and political process. It aims to identity both the practical gender
needs of women such as healthcare, water supply, education labour saving
technologies and the strategic gender needs ensuring increase in benefits and
help to overcome structural constraints.
F. The Welfare Approach
The welfare approach is based on the assumptions that
(a) women are passive recipients of development, (ii) motherhood is the most
important role for women in society, and (iii) child bearing is her significant
responsibility. It has a family centred
orientation seeing man for productive role and women only for reproductive
role.
Its strategies and implementations are marked by
top-down approach like handouts for free goods and services, training like
skills appropriate for non working wives and mothers. The main criticism is that such welfare
policy creates dependency rather ran assisting women to become more independent
however such policies are politically safe and doesn't question traditionally
accepted role of women in the society
G. The Equity approach
The equity approach emerged in the 1970's and was
influenced by the work of Esther Boserup and other first-world feminists. It sees women as active participants in the
development process who through both their productive and reproductive role
provide a critical contribution to development. This approach aims at reducing
inequalities between men and women, and acknowledges that women must be brought
into the development process through better access. It recognize the productive role of women and
their practical need to earn an income through small-scale income generating
projects to fulfil her triple roles of reproductive, productive and community
management.
The approach is based on the principle of shared
power, i.e. incorporating the strengths of men and women and seamlessly
integrating their concerns at all stages in all development projects by
involving women as active participants in the development process, with both a
productive role and reproductive role
The main strategies used by this approach are involving
women as active participants in the development process, with both a productive
role and reproductive role, meeting strategic gender needs in terms of triple
role – directly through state top-down intervention, giving political and
economic autonomy by reducing inequality with men, etc. The main limitation of this approach is that
top-down approach do not empower women because it requires and relies on
government intervention in the form of policy and legislation. Women must bring
about the change themselves and not from a top-down approach.
H. The Efficiency approach
The efficiency approach has its roots in WID approach.
It was proposed by development agencies assuming that increase in women’s
economic participation in development links efficiency and equity together.
The approach was widely criticized for focusing more
on development rather than women, and also because it does not necessarily
follow that development improves the condition of women. Apart from that it fails to meet any
strategic needs of the gender.
I. Anti-Poverty Approach
The Anti-poverty Approach, better known as the second
WID approach, emerged at the end of the 1960's.
It assumes that poverty, rather than subordination, as the source of
inequality between women and men, and to reduce inequality between man and
women, we must reduce income inequality.
The basic assumption is that the origin of women’s poverty and
inequality lies in lack of access to private ownership of land/capital; sexual
discrimination in labour force, having no control over decision making, etc.
This approach aims to ensure that poor women increase
their productivity and income by increasing employment and income-generating
options through better access to productive resources, education and employment
programmes, increases women’s economic contribution and reduce fertility,
provide more autonomy to women, etc
The main criticism of this approach is that it takes
little account of the fact that women are already overburdened with work, and
overlooked the low status of women especially in the third world countries
which limits their access to land, credit, machinery, markets for their
products and control over income. Apart
from that saving is also difficult if women are not in control of the family
budget and do not have freedom of movement.
The eradication of poverty cannot be accomplished through anti-poverty
programmes alone, but will require democratic participation and changes in
economic structures in order to ensure access for all to resources and opportunities
J. The Empowered Approach
The empowered approach can be defined as the process
of marginalized groups or communities equipping themselves with the knowledge,
skills and resources they need in order to change, influence and improve the
quality of their own lives and their community.
Empowerment may come from within or it may be facilitated and supported
through external agencies. It recognizes
the fact that women’s subordination lies in the family, emphasizing on the fact
that women experience oppression differently according to their race, class and
history and position in economic order.
So women have to challenge oppression at different levels
simultaneously.
Originating from emergent feminist writings and
grassroots organizations' experiences in the third world countries, this
approach seeks to empower women through redistribution of power. It views
‘power’ less in terms of dominance but in terms of self reliance and internal
strength, and capacity of women to increase their own self reliance and internal
strength (power within) the right to determine choices in life and to influence
the direction of change. It seeks to empower women through redistribution of
power within, as well as between societies.
In this context, gender is essential as a
category of analysis in discussions of poverty reduction. The presence of
poverty is in part linked to the gendered and unequal access to, and
distribution of, resources, a lack of control over productive resources, and
limited participation in political and economic institutions. Women, in
particular, face institutional obstacles to control land and other productive
resources. The gendered dimensions of poverty may be usefully understood in
terms of the differential entitlements, capabilities and rights conferred to
women and men. (Beneria and Bisnath,
1999).
