Women Empowerment And Understanding

Women Empowerment

Women Empowerment

Women empowerment means their capacity to participate as equal partners in cultural, social, economic and political systems of a society. Even though the world economy has developed into global economy, in both developed and developing countries women have been suppressed in all walks of life for generations. Women empowerment is far easier said than done. Education is a very powerful tool for women empowerment without education, none can be perfect. So, the importance of education is for communication with others. In ancient times, most of the women have no freedom of will in education.

The ancient Hindu philosophical concept of 'Shakthi', The feminine principle of energy, was also a product of this age. In India even today people worship Goddess "Sarasvati" as the Goddess of education.

In the British period women's education was much more deplorable. Education is a major tool for their independency, and through which they were protested against violence. Education improves her self-confidence.

Women Empowerment Needs

 There is no real surprise that women empowerment in India is a hotly discussed topic with no real solution looming in the horizon except to doubly redouble our efforts and continue to target the sources of all the violence and ill-will towards women.

Women Empowerment has become a movement now but in our country it only seems a distant dream. We have restricted our perceptions to only upliftment of women- from the value of an object to the value of a living being. But what is required in the present period is something beyond it. We make a great show off whenever a woman makes high achievements but instead of showing off why not accept it to be natural and normal like we do with men doing the same.

women can make independent decisions on their personal development as well as shine as equals in society. Women want to be treated as equals so much so that if a woman rises to the top of her field it should be a commonplace occurrence that draws nothing more than a raised eyebrow at the gender. This can only happen if there is a channelized route for the empowerment of women.

Sexism is the root oppression, the one which, until and unless we uproot it, will continue to put forth the branch of racism, class, hatred, ageism, competition, ecological disaster, and economic exploitation. No other human differentiations can be similarly powerful in reproducing oppressions, and so, women are the real left.”

Role of Education in Indian women

 Indian cultural history has a very old and long roots, it can be traced back to thousands of years. Sociologists have analyzed the status of women from these early ages to the present day by different methods. Scholars have believed that women of ancient India enjoyed equal status with men in all aspects of life.

In ancient India also women are educated but the numbers of ratios would very handful because they would not get a big scope of education for the strict prohibition of social instruction and mainly male dominated society, but if we look out the present era, we see that the atmosphere is more changed because at that time education is necessary for everyone. After all, the environment is modern era. Women equally worked as well as males in every sector, such as school, colleges, many private organizations, government and government aided organizations. Now a days many women entrepreneurs in all type of field.

Then Britishers arrived in India they listened to the wise counsel of social reformers like Raja Ram Mohan Roy and Swami Dayanand and they enacted several laws to improve the position of women, to bring back the dignity and glory of women. Some of these enactments were:

 Act prohibiting the practice of sati (in 1850)

Cast disabilities removal act, 1850

The Hindu widow remarriage act, 1856

The special marriage act III of 1872

The married women’s property act, 1874

The child marriage act, 1929

The Hindu gains of earning act, 1930

The Hindu women’s right to property, 1937

The Christian marriage act, 1872

The Parsee marriage and divorce act, 1936

The dissolution of the Muslim marriage act 1939

 These acts gave a spark, a chance to various reformers and social workers like Ishwar Chandra, Vidya Sager, Ranade, and Annie Besant. And the inclination of status of women starts from this period.

Challenges for Indian women

Poverty

Poverty is considered the greatest threat to peace in the world, and eradication of poverty should be a national goal as important as the eradication of illiteracy. Due to abject poverty, women are exploited as domestic helps and wives whose incomes are usurped by the man of the house. If poverty were not a concern, then the girl child will be able to follow her dreams without concerns of sexual exploitation, domestic abuse and no education or work.

Health and safety

The empowerment of women begins with a guarantee of their health and safety. Poverty and illiteracy add to these complications with local quacks giving ineffective and downright harmful remedies to problems that women have. While there are several programs that have been set into motion by the Government and several NGOs in the country, there is still a wide gap that exists between those under protection and those not. However there are alarming concerns where maternal healthcare is concerned. The health and safety concerns of women are paramount for the wellbeing of a country, and are important factors in gauging the empowerment of women in a country.

Education

While the country has grown from leaps and bounds since its independence the gap between women and men education is severe. Eradicating this gap and educating women about their real place in the world is a step that will largely set this entire movement rolling down the hill to crash and break the wall of intolerance, negligence and exploitation. In comparison to 82.14% of adult educated men, only 65.46% of adult literate women are there in India. Additionally, the norm of culture that states that the man of the family is the be-all and end-all of family’s decisions is gradually deteriorating the Indian society.

Understanding women empowerment 

Not just the women themselves, but the men have to wake up to a world that is moving towards equality and equity. India as a country is still recovering from years of abuse in the time of the Raj and more years of economic suffering at the hands of the License Raj. However, there are still quite a few areas where women empowerment in India is largely lacking.

To truly understand what women empowerment is, there needs to be a sea-change in the mind-set of the people in the country. It is only now that globalization, liberalization and other socio-economic forces have given some respite to a large proportion of the population. It is better that this is embraced earlier rather than later, for our own good.

Proper awareness for laws should be there that is law should not be restricted to papers only but the implementation of law should be there so that every woman can be familiar with her rights. Significant steps should be taken to implement all the laws which are amended to facilitate detention, prevention and punishment of crimes against women.

Women education has to be made compulsory and women should be encouraged to become literate because without being educated women cannot have a access to her right.

Strict implementation of the schemes and policies for women empowerment should be done.

Awareness camps for women should be organized where they can become familiar with the framed schemes and policies and can take benefit of those schemes and policies.