Women Empowerment in India 2010, Women Empowerment, Status of Women India, Indian Women Empowerment

Women Empowerment in India 2010

WOMEN EMPOWERMENT is the ability of women to exercise full control over one’s actions. In the past, women were treated as mere house-makers. They were expected to be bound to the house, while men went out and worked. This division of labour was and is still in a few parts of the country one of the major reason because of which certain evils took birth in our society child marriage, female infanticide, women trafficking.

The government has passed many laws so as to empower the women. These rules have empowered them socially, economically, legally and politically. For example recentll indian government is determined to pass 33% Women's reservation bill in Lok Sabha and State assemblies. Not only the government but various non-governmental organisations have done a lot so as to improve the status of woman in our society.

Status of women in ancient India was much better. The women enjoyed equal status with men in all fields of life. However, some others hold contrasting views. Works by ancient Indian grammarians such as Patanjali and Katyayana suggest that women were educated in the early Vedic period Rigvedic verses suggest that the women married at a mature age and were probably free to select their husband. Scriptures such as Rig Veda and Upanishads mention several women sages and seers, notably Gargi and Maitreyi.

According to studies, women enjoyed equal status and rights during the early Vedic period. However, later (approximately 500 B.C.), the status of women began to decline with the Smritis (esp. Manusmriti) and with the Islamic invasion of Babur and the Mughal empire and later Christianity curtailing women's freedom and rights. Although reformatory movements such as Jainism allowed women to be admitted to the religious order, by and large, the women in India faced confinement and restrictions. The practice of child marriages is believed to have started from around sixth century.

The questions surrounding women's empowerment the condition and position of women have now become critical to the human rights based approaches to development. The Cairo conference in 1994 organized by UN on Population and Development called attention to women's empowerment as a central focus and UNDP developed the Gender Empowerment measure (GEM) which focuses on the three variables that reflect women's participation in society – political power or decision-making, education and health. 1995 UNDP report was devoted to women's empowerment and it declared that if human development is not engendered it is endangered a declaration which almost become a lei motif for further development measuring and policy planning. Equality, sustainability and empowerment were emphasized and the stress was, that women's emancipation does not depend on national income but is an engaged political process.

There are certain functions that are particularly central to human life. The list of capabilities that are necessary element of truly human functioning include:

1. Life-being able to live to the end of human life of normal length: not dying prematurely, or before one's life is so reduced as to be not worth living.

2. Bodily health – being able to have good health including reproductive health, to be adequately nourished, to have adequate shelter.

3. Bodily integrity – Being able to move freely from place to place, to be secure against violent assault, including sexual assault and domestic violence; having opportunities for sex satisfaction and for choice in matters of reproduction.

4. Senses, imagination and thought – Being able to use the sense, to imagine, think and reason in a truly human way including but not limited to literacy. Being able to use one's mind and imagination protected by freedom of expression.

5. Emotions – being able to have attachments, to love, to grieve to experience longing gratitude and justified anger. Not having one's emotional development blighted by fear and anxiety.

6. Practical Reason – Being able to form a conception of the good and to engage in critical reflection about planning of one's life's protected by liberty of conscience.

7. Affiliation – Being able to live with and toward others to have social interactions, to have the capability of both justice and friendship. This would entail freedom of assembly and free speech. Having social bases for self-respect and non-humiliation, being protected against discrimination on the basis of race, sex sexual orientation religion caste or region.

8. Other species – Being able to concern with nature.

9. Play – being able to laugh, play and enjoy.

10. Control over one's environment.

a) Political. Being able to participate effectively in political choices that govern one's life, having the right to political participation, protection of free speech and association.

b) Material. Being able to hold property to seek employment on equal bases and having freedom from unwarranted search and seizure. In work, being able to work as a human being, exercising practical reason and entering into meaningful relationships of mutual recognition with the workers.

Hopefully the Women's Reservation Bill  of reserving 33% seats in indian parliament and state assemblies, which has long awaited to see day light will be passed this time.Now seeing both INC and BJP national parties in its favor. It would rightfully be a big and positive step in women empowerment in India where Women have waited long enough to be empowered. on 8th March 2010 the parliamentary session will have debate on this bill.

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Four of the main processes that could lead to women's empowerment, as defined by the IFAD evaluation, were:

changes in women's mobility and social interaction;
changes in women's labour patterns;
changes in women's access to and control over resources; and
changes in women's control over decision-making.

Changes in women's mobility and interaction.
The evaluation found that women had become more mobile and begun to have new interactions with a range of officials. There was even a growing willingness on the part of group members to approach the Panchayats and Collectors with petitions or grievances. In all, the evaluation found that:

50% of women group members had visited new places and travelled longer distances; and
94% had experienced new interactions with staff of institutions such as banks, district and block development organizations, NGOs and the project itself.
The study observes that this type of change was most likely to occur among women group members when:

the women involved were heads of households or were older;
the women involved had participated in training;
their group members had accessed a bank loan;
their group had undertaken community action initiatives; or
their group had been organized into a federation and encouraged to participate in special events (such as Women's Day, Rural Women's Day)

Changes in women's labour patterns.
The evaluation did not find any major changes in gender division of labour. However, there were indications of such changes beginning. For instance, the group meetings themselves forced some of the husbands to look after children and feed themselves while their wives attended the meetings. The evaluation found that the extent to which men helped in reproductive tasks was related to the health of the woman (men helped more if women were sick), the type of household (men helped more in a nuclear household), and the gender and age of the children (men helped less if girl children were present to help).

There was comparatively greater change reported in non-domestic productive tasks. Not all the changes in such labour patterns can be viewed as beneficial to women.

Fully 30% of women who had taken bank loans reported a marked change in gender roles, and 70% reported a small change. (Greater change was reported by women heads of households, which implies that changes in the division of labour were not always involved, but that the women themselves adopted new productive roles.)
However, the income-generating activities of the majority of women in male-headed households (for which loans had been taken) continued to be managed by men (presumably, the women's husbands).
The workload of 94% of the women who had taken loans increased compared with their previous workload (many had been wage labourers).
Therefore, the changes in women's labour patterns were mixed, and not as positive as along other dimensions. There was little indication that women's control over their labour had undergone a marked change, and the evaluation noted that many women may simply have gone from undertaking paid work outside the home to becoming unpaid family labourers (in male-managed enterprises). At least self-employment allows women the possibility to have better working conditions, save on travel time, and be able to more effectively combine reproductive and productive roles.

Changes in access to and control over resources.
The evaluation also looked into women group members' access to non-loan-related resources and benefits, and particularly to common resources. It seems that a number of the groups undertook activities that would give their communities better infrastructure or services, for instance in water supply, child-care facilities, health care services and improved roads. In this sense, they played a key role in promoting changes in collective access to resources.

Changes in intra-household decision-making.
The evaluation concluded that there seemed to be a slight improvement in women's involvement in household decision-making in male-headed households, on such issues as credit, the disposal of household assets, children's education, and family health care. However, the traditional gender-based divisions persist in intra-household decision-making. Women basically decide on food preparation, and men make the financial decisions. But group members had become more aware of their property and political rights (which was part of group training). As in the case of mobility and social interaction, the evaluation again found greater improvements among women heads of households, older women, and more educated women.

In traditional societies, even more than elsewhere, women's empowerment does not occur easily or overnight. In the India case described, there was evidence of such change beginning, to which the project had apparently contributed. It was most noticeable among certain types of women. Perhaps one of the most important emerging lessons is that women's groups themselves, in their social aspects, play a role in such empowerment. This argues for placing emphasis on sustaining groups beyond the life of the project, which indeed was done in this instance. The project evaluation also recommended that communication support (films, radio broadcasts and so on, with sensitization and training content) be used to speed up the empowerment process.