Women Empowerment is a term used to describe the various steps taken at an individual as well as a social level to encourage women and also to support them to become self-confident and get an equal treatment in their personal as well as professional life.
The main agenda of Women Empowerment is to bring equality between men and women, to eradicate the social injustice faced by the women along with many other unjust practices which involve economic, professional, caste-related discrimination.
In a country like India, where caste-based discrimination is still prevalent that even in today’s date, a person is labelled in the society according to his caste and therefore, this kind of discrimination usually combines with other illogical beliefs about women which does not allow the women to become independent and self-reliant.
This initiative of women empowerment is a positive aspect of dealing with the problems faced by a woman in the Indian society as well as a pitiful thing which shows that a woman in our country is not treated as a human being but is most of the time neglected and is not allowed to live freely.
A woman in our country is bound to so many duties, namely the duties which are labelled as a “woman’s work”, which often involves all the household chores, looking after the children and the elderly people in the house.
This is a very biased perspective which views the work of a man and woman as different from each other and always, puts woman’s work as a less respectful work.
This perspective is set in this Indian male-dominated Society and therefore, does not support a woman who wants to move out of the age-old rules of “woman’s work”.
To move out of the house and work which means to earn money instead of being dependent on others or the men in the house is highly opposed in the family as well as the in society.
The major problem or the root cause of the extremity with which a woman is criticized to work out of the house, is that other women do not support a woman who wants to move out of the house and live her own dream.
It is true that when a girl child is born in any family, the child is taught from the beginning of the “dos and don’ts” of how a girl should behave, talk and also, a girl is taught to accept her place in the household and taught how to handle all the household chores.
This is the major reason why women are not encouraged to live their life independently and different from the traditional way of living. This is a sad state for the women in our society and therefore, it is very much necessary that the women in our country first of all need to be empowered by other women for the growth and development of the society as well as the nation.
We all see how women in different countries are empowered and allowed as well as encouraged to pursue any desired educational courses as well as to work in different fields.
Women, nowadays, work in a company along with men as their colleagues and this indicates that a woman is equally capable of working along side men and also to lead a certain project of that company on her own without any help from the people of the opposite gender.
Therefore, the rate of development of those countries is much higher than that of a nation who does not believe in women and their capabilities. A woman is capable of handling all the household chores independently and to look after the elderly and young people in the house.
Therefore, she is equally capable of moving out of the house from the bounds of the traditional mentality and live her dream and lead an independent and satisfactory life.
This therefore, needs the social, gender-based discriminations, caste-based discriminations and many other discriminations faced inside of the family to be completely eradicated in order to make a woman confident enough to pursue her dreams satisfactorily.
After all, she is also a human being and therefore, she also needs positive support and encouragement in order to pursue her dreams, instead of the constant criticisms, which are often due to the lack of female support to that particular woman.
There are many other discriminations faced by a woman when she wants to pursue her dream. The first begins when an unborn girl child is not allowed to enter the world just because she is a girl. This is the worst kind of gender discrimination and therefore, a major reason for the declining sex-ratio in the country.
Female Infanticide is like a termite to the concept of women empowerment and will never allow the complete development of the nation where, a female child is not allowed to live.
There are many other factors which involve partially based on the gender of that person, this kind of discrimination is faced at all the stages of life, for example, when a child is playing (that is sports), when a child wants to study a certain course (for example, many girl students are not allowed to study in certain courses and only male students are given the preferences), and the list goes on increasing.
All the above-mentioned facts are responsible for the lack of development of the women as well as the entire nation and therefore, there are many schemes which have been implemented by the Government to encourage women in getting proper education as well as the desired job.
There are legal provisions, that is the laws which explain the importance of educating the girl child and to allow them to work out of the house in the desired job field.
Along with all the schemes, legal provisions, it is very important for the society to emotionally support a girl child to become an empowered woman so that she could bring a positive change in the society thus, leading a path towards the development of the nation.
Article Source: Northeast Today