Feminism is an ideology which seeks to understand the world as well as to change it for empowerment of women. Feminism is an active movement resurfaced in the 1960s which assures about the empowerment of women.
Feminism has shown various opportunities for women to strengthen themselves in various fields. Feminist movement creates self-awareness in women which helps to enrich their life; and the process further transfers their hidden, individual fears into security and independence.
Feminism is a supporting stone for women to preserve their identity and their existence. It is used to relieve women from the burden of patriarchal system. It makes a clear vision of male being and creates a feeling of equality in them, emphasizing on the need to promote autonomous choices for women, either in the public or private spheres.
The patriarchal system of society is the reason of women’s suffering which looks at women from male point of view. The patriarchal society is based upon the conflation of sex and gender roles. But the invariable association of socially established gender characteristics of masculine and feminine with these biological sex distinctions is what challenges together with the sexual division of labour.
The social roles of wife, mother and housewife assigned to women go hand in hand with a division into the public and private domains, the first being the sphere considered proper to men, the second to women. Women become ‘the second sex’ in Simone de Beauvoir’s telling phrase…men are considered to be bold, strong, assertive, independent , aspiring ,rational, logical. Women on the contrary are considered to be timid, yielding, gentle, dependent, self-sacrificing, emotional, intuitive” (Kudchedkar 33).
The most important step in this regard was taken by the UN General Assembly as early as 1979, when it adopted what is termed as the International Bill for the rights of women-the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). The convention, ratified by 180 countries so far, enumerates that one half of humanity, the women, has historically been denied the basic rights, which is a severe violation of the fundamental rights of humans.
Empowerment, which means ‘to give power or authority’ and ‘to enable and permit’, fortify each other through enabling and providing power through the right job opportunities. In today’s world, such terms mean challenging the existing notions of inequality and power relations and questioning the various subjugation and subordination of the women folk.
Women’s empowerment has five components: Women’s sense of self-worth; their right to have and to determine choices; their right to have access to opportunities and resources; their right to have the power to control their own lives, both within and outside the home; and their ability to influence the direction of social change to create a more just social and economic order, nationally and internationally.
Globally, women make up only approximately 9 per cent of corporate board memberships. Women’s share of wages of paid employment worldwide
is 41 per cent. Although 117 countries have equal pay law, in many cases women are still paid up to 30 per cent less than men for similar work. Women do most of the informal or un-monetized work in all regions, and they represent 50.5 per cent of the 1.52 billion workers in vulnerable employment, often lacking legal and economic protection. In the traditional Indian context, since old family structures persist so strongly, women’s economic roles are added to her traditional domestic household work.
After the establishment of women’s reservations, political participation went up from 4-5 per cent to 25-40 per cent among women, and gave millions of women the opportunity to serve as leaders in local Government. Women participation during India’s 2014 general elections was 65.63 per cent, compared to 67.09 per cent for men and 61 women made it to lok Sabha. In Odisha, established reservations prior to the 73rd amendment had 28,069 women elected in 1992 and 28,595 women in 1997 while 11 women were elected to Odisha Assembly in 2014. Differences again persist in the panchayat and sarpanch level where the power to exercise their roles gets a halt.
Now, it is a need of the time to establish a modality for inter-agency cooperation that would serve as a catalyst for national initiatives designed to further the economic, social, political and legal empowerment of women for enhancing complementarity of programmes for facilitating integrated planning and fostering dialogue between agencies and Government which would in real legitimise their active participation. Because in original the authority and the legislative powers are not in the hand of women even after so many years of implementation of women empowerment and their holding of positions in the political system.
When we support each other, we cultivate an environment of love, acceptance, and hope. We must always remember to build a world where dreams are chased and hope is harvested; because empowering women believes in pursuing dreams to be true.
(Dr Das is a lecturer in English at Dhenkanal Government Junior College. She can be mailed at Subhashree.das1201@gmail.com)