What is Female Empowerment?
Women Empowerment is a process where we empower women and promote their sense of self-worth, their ability to determine or voice their opinions and choices, and also raising their status through education and awareness. Women should have equal rights to participate in education, society, economy, and politics. Currently, we all are doing a decent job towards Female Empowerment. Government initiatives are in place and people are talking about them. But despite all this progress, women and girls continue to face discrimination and violence in every part of the world.
Why is Women’s Empowerment so important?
In some regions, women are still looked down on and are treated as not equal to men. They are only expected to cook and clean. Women are married off before their age and they are asked to do things only if their husband approves. Women are considered in society only to perform duties like bringing up children, caring for every family member, and doing other household activities. There are various issues and challenges that women face in our society. From Sexual harassment, dowry, domestic violence, child marriage, low status in the family, gender inequality, and much more. So, it is important to empower women because then they won’t be dependent on men. They can earn money for their survival and also look after their family. It will reduce domestic violence and women can become more confident to stop all nonsense that she has to go through.
Still, there are families who don’t allow proper education for a girl child. Education is an important tool because it helps us shape and mold people to be kind and supportive from adolescence. We need our system to teach more about strong women because that will inspire kids to follow their lead and be successful in life. We have been taught that women are only meant to be housewives and men go to work to provide for their families. Whereas we should be taught how both genders are equal and providing for the family and looking after them is a shared responsibility.
Focusing on the side of female empowerment that we aren’t talking about enough
Now when people are trying to change their perspective about working women they expect them to be efficient in everything they do. They expect a person to work in the office for 9-10 hours and then come back home and do all her said duties effortlessly. Women tend to forget that they are humans and they are equally allowed to take a break. Of course, they should not forget their responsibilities towards their families but men should also understand the fact that they are equally responsible to look after them. For example, laundry can be done by both men and women. At the same time cooking for the family is also a shared responsibility.
Now when women are considered capable to do anything and everything, is it necessary that women need to do it all? Women have so much more to do now but no more time to do it. Although women have increased professional and social opportunities, they still feel responsible for doing all their other duties well at the same time, which is practically impossible. This is the side that isn’t talked about enough.
It is understood that women still need to complete the other tasks but at least women can learn to prioritize. It is not necessary to list everything equally. Women tend to shame themselves to societal norms and think that not completing a task is equal to not taking care of their loved ones, which is not true. Sometimes it is okay to assign your work to someone else because in the end what matters is getting the work done. For example, it is okay to hire help to do your household chores. You can save that time and invest your energy in some other work. You should not feel disheartened or shamed about that.
Women are also shamed if they don’t know how to cook. Do you think it is only the female’s responsibility to cook? No, it is not. Of course, cooking should be something that is known to everyone regardless the gender. A person should know how to cook to survive and only do it further if they love to do it.
Hence, women should definitely take a break and think about this. And men should understand this and acknowledge it. It is all in our hands. We can shape society if worked on it together. We can be free of all the judgments and norms that we created in the name of society and culture. Let us start working on it from our own home first. Treat women and men the same and educate your friends and family about the same.
