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INTRODUCTION
Empowerment
Empowerment is a construct shared by many disciplines and arenas: community
development, psychology, education, economics, and studies of social movements and
organizations, among others. How empowerment is understood varies among these
perspectives. In recent empowerment literature, the meaning of the term empowerment is
often assumed rather than explained or defined. Rappoport (1984) has noted that it is easy
to define empowerment by its absence but difficult to define in action as it takes on different
forms in different people and contexts. Even defining the concept is subject to debate.
Zimmerman (1984) has stated that asserting a single definition of empowerment may make
attempts to achieve it formulaic or prescription-like, contradicting the very concept of
empowerment.
A common understanding of empowerment is necessary, however, to allow us to know
empowerment when we see it in people with whom we are working, and for program
evaluation. According to Bailey (1992), how we precisely define empowerment within our
projects and programs will depend upon the specific people and context involved.
As a general definition, however, we suggest that empowerment is a multi-dimensional
social process that helps people gain control over their own lives. It is a process that fosters
power (that is, the capacity to implement) in people, for use in their own lives, their
communities, and in their society, by acting on issues that they define as important.
We suggest that three components of our definition are basic to any understanding of
empowerment. Empowerment is multi-dimensional, social, and a process. It is multidimensional in that it occurs within sociological, psychological, economic, and other
dimensions. Empowerment also occurs at various levels, such as individual, group, and
community. Empowerment, by definition, is a social process, since it occurs in relationship to
others. Empowerment is a process that is similar to a path or journey, one that develops as
we work through it. Other aspects of empowerment may vary according to the specific
context and people involved, but these remain constant. In addition, one important
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implication of this definition of empowerment is that the individual and community are
fundamentally connected.

UNDERSTANDING GENDER EQUALITY & WOMEN'S EMPOWERMENT

Gender equality implies a society in which women and men enjoy the same opportunities,
outcomes, rights and obligations in all spheres of life. Equality between men and women
exists when both sexes are able to share equally in the distribution of power and influence;
have equal opportunities for financial independence through work or through setting up
businesses; enjoy equal access to education and the opportunity to develop personal
ambitions. A critical aspect of promoting gender equality is the empowerment of women, with
a focus on identifying and redressing power imbalances and giving women more autonomy
to manage their own lives. Women's empowerment is vital to sustainable development and
the realization of human rights for all.
Despite many international agreements affirming their human rights, women are still much
more likely than men to be poor, malnourished and illiterate. They usually have less access
than men to medical care, property ownership, credit, training and employment. They are far
less likely than men to be politically active and far more likely to be victims of domestic
violence.
The ability of women to control their own fertility is absolutely fundamental to womens
empowerment and equality. When a woman can plan her family, she can plan the rest of her
life. When she is healthy, she can be more productive. And when her reproductive rights
including the right to plan her family in terms of birth timing and spacing, and to make
decisions regarding reproduction free of discrimination, coercion and violenceare
promoted and protected, she has freedom to participate more fully and equally in society.
Where womens status is low, family size tends to be large, which makes it more difficult for
families to thrive. Population and development and reproductive health programmes are
more effective when they address the educational opportunities, status and empowerment of

women. When women are empowered, whole families benefit, and these benefits often have
ripple effects to future generations.
The roles that men and women play in society are not biologically determined -- they are
socially determined, changing and changeable. Although they may be justified as being
required by culture or religion, these roles vary widely by locality and change over time.
UNFPA has found that applying culturally sensitive approaches can be key to advancing
womens rights while respecting different forms of social organization.
Addressing womens issues also requires recognizing that women are a diverse group, in
the roles they play as well as in characteristics such as age, social status, urban or rural
orientation and educational attainment. Although women may have many interests in
common, the fabric of their lives and the choices available to them may vary widely. UNFPA
seeks to identify groups of women who are most marginalized and vulnerable (women
refugees, for example, or those who are heads of households or living in extreme poverty),
so that interventions address their specific needs and concerns. This task is related to the
critical need for sex-disaggregated data and UNFPA helps countries build capacity in this
area.
Empowering women has become a frequently cited goal of development interventions.
However, while there is now a significant body of literature discussing how womens
empowerment has been or might be evaluated, there are still major difficulties in so doing.
Furthermore many projects and programmes which espouse the empowerment of women
show little if any evidence of attempts even to define what this means in their own context let
alone to assess whether and to what extent they have succeeded.
Different people use empowerment to mean different things. However there are four aspects
which seem to be generally accepted in the literature on womens empowerment.
Firstly to be empowered one must have been disempowered. It is relevant to speak of
empowering women, for example, because, as a group, they are disempowered relative to
men.

Secondly empowerment cannot be bestowed by a third party. Rather those who would
become empowered must claim it. Development agencies cannot therefore empower
women the most they can achieve is to facilitate women empowering themselves. They
may be able to create conditions favourable to empowerment but they cannot make it
happen.
Thirdly, definitions of empowerment usually include a sense of people making decisions on
matters which are important in their lives and being able to carry them out. Reflection,
analysis and action are involved in this process which may happen on an individual or a
collective level. There is some evidence that while womens own struggles for empowerment
have tended to be collective efforts, empowerment-orientated development interventions
often focus more on the level of the individual.
Finally empowerment is an ongoing process rather than a product. There is no final goal.
One does not arrive at a stage of being empowered in some absolute sense. People are
empowered, or disempowered, relative to others or, importantly, relative to themselves at a
previous time.

2.0 WOMEN AND EMPOWERMENT

While the reasons for any particular womans powerlessness (or power) are many and
varied, considering women per se necessarily involves questioning what we/they have in
common in this respect. The common factor is that, as women, they are all constrained by
the norms, beliefs, customs and values through which societies differentiate between
women and men (Kabeer 2000, 22). The specific ways in which this operates vary culturally
and over time. In one situation it might reveal itself in womens lower incomes relative to
men, in another it might be seen in the relative survival rates of girl and boy children and in a
third by severe restrictions on womens mobility. Virtually everywhere it can be seen in
domestic violence, male-dominated decision fora and womens inferior access to assets of
many kinds.

A womans level of empowerment will vary, sometimes enormously, according to other

criteria such as her class or caste, ethnicity, relative wealth, age, family position etc and any
analysis of womens power or lack of it must appreciate these other contributory dimensions.
Nevertheless, focusing on the empowerment of women as a group requires an analysis of
gender relations i.e. the ways in which power relations between the sexes are constructed
and maintained.
Since gender relations vary both geographically and over time they always have to be
investigated in context. It also follows that they are not immutable. At the same time
particular manifestations of gender relations are often fiercely defended and regarded as
natural or God-given. While many development interventions involve challenges to existing
power relations it tends to be those which challenge power relations between men and
women which are most strongly contested.
While there has been criticism of attempts to import Northern feminisms to the South it is
patronising and incorrect to assume that feminism is a Northern concept. Women of the
South have their own history of organisation and struggle against gender-based injustices.
Also, gender analysis arising from the second wave of feminism in the North has benefited
from extensive criticism of its initial lack of attention to class and ethnicity and its
Eurocentricity and there has now been some twenty years of dialogue and joint action
between Northern and Southern feminists.

3.0

OBSTACLES TO WOMEN'S EMPOWERMENT:

Women Entrepreneurs and Their Problems
Since the social milieu restricts womens role within the household they are mostly involved
in home base industries such as, food processing, garments hosiery and crafts. However,
these industries are either progressively dying due to competition from imported products or
being replaced by organized formal units. On the one hand, the displacement of traditional
crafts by light industry is causing the replacement of female workers by male laborers (Rana
and Shah, 1989). On the other, women are being converted into wage laborers in such
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specialized sectors as the carpet industry. Women have been functioning as managers,
supervisors, entrepreneurs, and even skilled worker in home based craft enterprises. As
industrial activities become increasingly externalized, however, both male as well as female
workers lose control over the production process and become trans-formed into wage labor.
In this process, women are affected more since newly emerging organized industries need
not only more capital but also lay stress on more educated and mobile laborers. The
managerial class in these industries, which is dominated by the indo-Aryan and westernized
concep-tions of gender specialization, reinforce their own biases in hiring and firing. Further
a few women who remain proprietors face serve problems of lack of capital, access to
institutional credit, lack of access to marketing network, marketing information, appropriate
business training and education. Other constraints include limited access to modern
management methods and technology; and high cost of production leading to uncompetitive
pricing. They also lack self-confidence and risk taking and staying capacity as they have
access to very little capital and may face numerous family problems in their enterprise.

ILLITERACY
The issues of women have been viewed differently in social relations including economic
activities. This has formed a barrier even when democratic movements have sought to
extend the base of participation of women. It will be fallacious to assume that the problems
of Nigerian women have been totally solved through the various emancipation initiatives
(Beijing conference 1975; 1985; 1995, International decade of women, Strategy for the
Acceleration of Girls Education etc) or through the collaborative efforts of the various
Government and Non-governmental Organisations. Certain inequalities and segregations,
which have been established over the ages and reinforced through the male-dominated
structures still persist inspite of the various instruments of the United Nations and the
concerted efforts of the federal government and a number of NGOs on alleviating women
discrimination. Without gainsaying, illiteracy remains at the centre of women empowerment
problems in Nigeria. Majority of the womenfolk and a large number of girls in this country are
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still grappling with the problems of basic reading and writing skills (Unicef 2003). The gross
enrolment rate (GER 2001) indicated that 71percent of out-of-school children are girls.
According to ARFOL (2000) the literacy rate for males is 58 percent but only 41 percent for
females. The Human Development Report 2002 published by the United Nations
development programme puts the statistics of illiterate women at 57 percent as against
males 43 percent. As seemingly insignificant as this difference may appear, it is completely
unacceptable, if the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) must be achieved. In Nigeria,
girls and women comprise about 49.69
percent (SAPA 1993) of the total population. Incidentally, about 61percent of the total female
population are reported to be illiterates as against 37.7 percent illiterate male population.
Women are discriminated against in access to education for social and economic reasons.
For instance, the Islamic practice of Purdah precludes many women from benefiting from
school instructions and/or participating in economic activities, which are likely to elevate their
positions. The most egregious segregation is probably the prevention of girls to go to school
in some communities. This has probably led to the greatest social harm of the twentieth
century, when a whole group of females were denied access to education, on the basis of
gender differences. There is palpably a deluge of problems besetting the Nigerian women,
but all of them arise from illiteracy. This suggests therefore that a large part of the
empowerment process is associated with education of the women themselves. The root of
the problem is the degree of importance women themselves have attached to education.
Many of them believe that the life of a successful woman revolves around her children, her
husband and domestic chores. This lack of personal ambition prevents her from thinking
about pursuing other educational goals, which may have great influence on her life. In the
case of the workingwomen in the cities, there had been a gradual predilection to abandon
further training because of the demands work and family as well as the huge costs
associated with pursuing higher studies in conventional school system or universities.

Political Empowerment
Throughout much of the world, womens equality is undermined by historical imbalances in
decision-making power and access to resources, rights, and entitlements for women. Either
by law or by custom, women in many countries still lack rights to:

Own land and to inherit property

Obtain access to credit

Attend and stay in school

Earn income and move up in their work, free from job discrimination

Moreover, women are still widely under-represented in decision-making at all levels, in the
household and in the public sphere.
Addressing these inequities through laws and public policy is a way of formalizing the goal of
gender equality. Legal changes, which most countries have now implemented, are often a
necessary step to institute gender equality, but not necessarily sufficient to create lasting
changes. Addressing the gaps between what the law proscribes and what actually occurs
often requires broad, integrated campaigns.

Persistence of traditional gender roles

Perhaps the most resilient obstacle to womens political empowerment are gender
stereotypes concerning women and leadership.

Seeming to be commonly held across

countries by both women and men, these stereotypes are of two categories.

The first

regards women as unsuitable for leadership positions; the second demands that women in
power and authority be capable of, and excel at, everything--the wonder woman syndrome.

Stereotype of women as followers, not leaders

Womens priority is family

Traditional gender roles make women primarily responsible for childrens upbringing and
home maintenance tasks. Women are expected to focus their lives on taking care of their
families to the detriment, or exclusion, of other concerns.

Boys are given priority for

schooling over girls whom, it is assumed, will later be provided for by husbands. As adults,
women are expected to care for children, spouses, parents and relatives. They are
responsible for keeping the family together. Their involvement in community, church, social
and political organizations is deemed secondary to obligations at home and the demands of
earning a living.

But today womens earnings are considered essential, rather than

supplemental, to the family income. The reality is that women are no longer confined to the
domestic sphere. Their space has expanded: they are regular bread-winners who actively
engage in community, church and other social activities.

Women are not qualified to take on leadership positions

Since women are excluded from leadership roles, they are deprived of opportunities for
leadership skills training. Girls have less chances for schooling and opportunities are
drastically limited for them to develop skills and talents in the public sphere. They are
praised for obedience and subservience, implicitly dissuading them from aspirations to
leadership. Higher education is a privilege many women do not enjoy. They are passed up
for training opportunities at work because it is not cost efficient to invest in women who may
give up work anytime for the sake of family. Domestic responsibilities make it difficult for
women to go for training or further studies because they simply do not have the requisite
hours for study.

Law and legal inequalities

The law is an instrument of control, which promotes or inhibits access to resources and
regulates social, economic and political relationships. But in West Africa, the problem
pertaining to women vis-a-vis the law centres around four key issues:
- The laws themselves tend to be discriminatory, greatly limiting the rights of women
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- The application of the law tends to be arbitrary or prejudiced to women

- Women tend to be unaware of their own legal rights or the meaning of the law in practice.
- Women have no access to the process of law for economic reasons or they lack the
confidence to take action

Below are case studies from Nigeria and Gambia.

In NIGERIA, there are two major types of law, the customary law and the Nigerian common
law. Customary law systems are as many as there are ethnic groups in Nigeria. Under this
category is also the Sharia law system. Lack of uniformity in the legal system and the use of
customary or Sharia law on family matters is the major problem of women as regards
obtaining justice. For example, in marriages; a woman cannot give her daughter away in a
registry marriage unless the father is dead or infirm and a girl can be given away in marriage
without her consent. Pertaining to Property, the laws permit joint ownership of property
between a man and his wife but in case of divorce, the woman loses her share to the man.
In some northern states of the country, only unmarried women are allowed to own certain
property. On children, the child belongs to the mother only if the marriage subsists. In case
of divorce, the father automatically claims custody of all the children except if he is unwilling
to do so. On the question of inheritance, when a man dies, the law under which his marriage
was conducted will determine the inheritance procedure. In the Western part of the country
for instance, a woman is not allowed to inherit her husband's property because she is to be
inherited by a relative of the late husband. Under Islamic law in Hausa land, women are
allowed to inherit either the spouse or her parents estate but the rule guiding this is equally
discriminatory; while sons inherit full share in their father's property, females are given half
their brothers share. As regards bail process; a woman is not allowed to stand bail for
accused person.
The GAMBIA like Nigeria does not have a single legal system. There is what one might call a
"modern sector" of standards and case law written in English and which mostly applies to
Christians. There is also customary Law and "Personal law" systems. Personal law in the

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Gambian context means Islamic or sharia law which governs for most Muslims particularly
on family affairs such as divorce and interstate succession (that is, rights to the property of a
deceased person who made no will before his death). Both the Customary and Personal
Laws are highly discriminatory and favours men more than women. In addition, all Chiefs
who are also Judges are men and are given sweeping powers to decide cases.

Gender biased development and commercial exploitation of women

The free market economy has been highly dependent on availability of cheap labour. In
many West African countries, cheap labour is easily obtained from the poor, ethnic
minorities, women, peasants and landless labourers. These groups the majority of whom are
women are discriminated against and exploited because they are largely unorganised with
no unions to press for their demands. In Gambia, about 90% of rice production which is the
country's main staple food id done by rural women to the benefit of the elite living in cities.
It is also clear that in West African countries of Gambia, Senegal and Cape Verde islands
income continues to be generated through the promotion of tourism in which women and
children are sexually exploited and abused in order to boost the trade.

Religion, culture and harmful traditional practices

The Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women is the most
comprehensive articulate of gender perspective of human rights known to the world. It
captures the three components of women's rights namely: gender Affirmative Action, the
Principle of Equality and the complementary Principle of non-discrimination. Together these
three principles constitute the composite and involving concept of gender justice. On the
general note, there has been much improvement in gender relations in other parts of the
world but in West Africa, traditional practices or customs continue to be the main obstacles in
the progress towards gender equality and justice. In most countries, such traditions usually
backed by religious beliefs are recognised and practised to the extent that they have
become societal norms even though people are fully aware of their negative impact on the

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health and rights of women. It is well documented that the following practices still persist in
some West African countries;
- Female Genital Mutilation or female circumcision (practised in all countries).
- Land rights in Middle Belt of Nigeria: this is predominately amongst the Tiv and Igala
people where land is a communal property and private ownership or title claim is not
allowed. However, as modernization is gradually eroding this culture, men may claim
ownership but women in particular do not have and cannot hold title to land. The land is the
exclusive preserve of the male and is in turn inherited by male or sons in the family. Among
the Igala, women are not only disallowed from ownership but cannot engage in agriculture in
any form because farming is seen as male occupation.
- District Tribunals: in Gambia and Senegal, District Tribunal are very powerful, they decide
most disputes for rural people and are only made up of men. Women are forbidden under
traditional law to serve on district tribunals and most of their decisions favour men.
- Marriage and divorce: the vast majority of marriages are performed under Islamic law.
Under this dispensation, divorce is basically the prerogative of the man and can be
performed by simple repudiation. Most such divorces never reach the courts, but if they do,
the most the women can get is her removal expenses, maintenance allowances for three
months and a token amount for the maintenance of children if she keeps them.
- Forced marriages and child betrothal: this is a practice in all West African countries the
extent varies from country to country. Marriage is often arranged for a girl by her parents.
Force may be used if she does not like to enter into the marriage that has been arranged for
her. Child betrothal is still practised and early marriage common in many countries.
According to a recent survey in Gambia, about 66% of women responding disclosed that
they were married under 17 years and 27% married under 15 years.
-District voting rights in Gambia: the right to be a traditional Chief is the absolute prerogative
of men. Chieftaincy elections rules that provide for the election of traditional leadership is
based on compound ownership. Each compound is entitled to one vote. Traditionally only

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men can be Heads of compounds in the provinces. As a result, only men can vote in such
elections and only men can contest in them.
-Polygamy common in all countries; many women are neglected in a polygamous marriage
in several ways: In some cases, proper care and financial support is not given to the woman
and her children especially if she is not the favourite of the husband. In other circumstances,
men cannot afford to provide the support because of their meagre earnings. In this case,
there is a direct link between polygamy and financial difficulties in marriages.

Violence Against women

Violence against women is a human rights violation of her body and her right as a person.
Yet it has been experienced by all categories of women. Violence has been broadly defined
as "an action or policy or an altitude that causes bodily or mental injury and debases or
dehumanises a person". Violence against women regardless of the nature of the perpetrator
whether an individual, group, institution, state or society is a human rights violation and
must be treated as such. The following are the most endemic forms of violence against
women in West Africa; wife beating, indecent assault, rape, defilement of girls by threats,
sexual harassment, intimidation in order to have unlawful carnal knowledge of them.
In Gambia, the criminal law forbids violence and lays down penalties for offences ranging
from assault to murder as well as rape however, prosecutions for violence against women is
the lowest in the country's legal history. It is evident that some District Chiefs who are also
judges encourage violence against women. A district Chief once made a statement that, "if a
wife reports to her family that she is being maltreated by her husband, they should tell her to
go back to her husband and obey. If she refuses to return, she should be beaten and
certainly not encouraged to take further action."
While more women's advocacy groups and movements have emerged to fight for the cause
of women, they are not making much progress because of certain impediments such as;
split in goals, directions and analysis of women's situation in different countries, lack of

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mobilization at the grass roots level and above all lack of financial support to carry out large
scale and sustained projects for the promotion and protection of women's rights

Stereotyped positions open to women

Women in the leadership hierarchy of governments, the private sector, political parties, trade
unions and social movements are often in positions that are an extension of their roles in the
private sphere. The positions of secretary, treasurer, public relations officer, or person-incharge of logistical support echo the care-giving and home maintenance functions
traditionally ascribed to women. Premised on the assumption that housework is of inferior
value to paid work, assigning women to quasi-domestic roles in the public sphere
strengthens the stereotype that they are suited for lesser responsibilities.
Womens multiple burden blocks political participation
Women have an equal right with men to participate in Business and assume leadership
roles. But the demands of traditional gender roles and economic and social obligations
leave them little time and energy to pursue this. Men must share in the demands of the
domestic sphere so that women can exercise their right to actively participate in the public
sphere. Women and men have an equal stake in family welfare and should be equally
responsible for the family. To encourage more women to take on leadership positions, it is
imperative to challenge the traditional gender division of labor in theory and in practice

High expectations from the public for acceptance of women in leadership roles
People have different expectations of male and female leaders. Foremost among these
differences is that men leaders are not expected to be primarily responsible for their families'
needs, while women leaders are expected to fulfill this role too. It is normative for male
leaders to set aside family concerns for needs of their constituents and other job-related
demands. In contrast, women leaders are expected to give full and equal time and energy to
raising children and taking care of home while discharging their functions as politicians.
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Women leaders are also expected to possess exceptional personal traits and qualifications
in terms of educational background, professional accomplishments, active membership in
community, church or other civic groups. They should be accessible to their constituents at
all times without neglecting their roles as wife, mother, daughter.

As women they are

expected to be beyond reproach; yet they must be politically astute to engage in comprises
that are part of traditional Business. This can put the political novice in a bind.
Women, especially those who are presented as an alternative to traditional male politicians,
are expected to create an impact in changing the situation of women or addressing critical
issues such as poverty, health care and education within a short time from their election or
assumption of leadership. Since women in leadership is something out of the norm, they are
expected to repeatedly justify the authority vested in them, to vindicate the electorates
choice of a woman as leader, by being infallible. This is one unspoken expectation.
Newly-elected women in countries that have recently introduced a reservation system find
themselves being criticized for failing to push the womens agenda forward. Their critics
forget that most of these women are political neophytes still learning the ropes. Moreover
the issues to be addressed cannot be solved overnight.
The exacting conditions imposed on women leaders work to discourage other women from
pursuing executive positions. Undue and unfair expectations make them feel inadequate to
consider venturing into Business, in the first place. This reduces the pool of future women
leaders who can be challenged, motivated, groomed, mentored and developed for a calling
in Business.

Access to Resources
Womens access to land and property is derived through her marriage relationship. A
married woman has no right in her parental property. She gets an equal share in the
husbands property together with her son, if she remains faithful to him and his clan. This is
servers limitation on womens access to all productive assets.

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Marriage becomes the overwhelming factor determining all her life options. This reinforced
by all round social norms and legal structures, every thing else is secondary to marriage.
Single women, even with many children are not given land in resettlement areas, even if
such households may be among the poorest of the poor. They may not claim any tenancy
rights. Although many husbands may keep property in the name of wives, such women
many not make any transaction in the property without the consent of her husband and
sons, etc. This limitation is not applied to husbands and the sons. Households get access to
community resources such as forests through household heads who are usually men.
Women may have the derived user rights as long as her husband does not abandon her.
When a husband brings another wife and leaves her, which is constantly recurring even in
the Nepalese social milieu, she looses all access to community property as well. Such
processes are hard to capture by data, since no data are collected on polygamy. It is illegal
to have more than one wife, but women get no property on divorce and so a access to
resources. Two major indicators of such inequality are access to credit and increasing
involvement of women in commercial sex work for survival. A detailed discussion of the
second symptom is beyond the scope of this paper. Nevertheless it is pertinent to note that
lack of alternative avenues of livelihood is one of the major causes why women get into
commercial sex work, why parents sell their daughters into dubious marriages and sex
bazaar (See New Era, 1997).

Access to Credit
It has been discussed widely that womens access to credit is limited because both formal
and informal credit institutions are geared to funding property owners. All formal credit
institutions seek tangible collateral from loan and women are effectively sidelined from
institutional credit since women have little access to the inherited property. The village
moneylenders are also interested more in earning high interest or acquiring the debtors
property rather than financing people in need.

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Womens access to institutional credit is further restricted by their confinement to household

activities and lower level of awareness and educational attainment. As such they are more
prone to fall prey to the exploitative conditions of the village moneylenders than their male
counter-parts. Nepal Rural Credit Review Study (NRCRS) by Nepal Rastra Bank in 1991/92
revealed that of the total female headed sample households almost 35 percent had
borrowed from one or the other sources compared to 39 percent male headed households.
However, among the borrowing female headed households only 15.4 percent had borrowed
from institutional sources such as Agricultural Development Bank and Commercial Banks
and 84 percent had borrowed from non-institutional sources (Table 1). Access to institutional
credit in one of the major stumbling blocks for women entrepreneurs in all sectors including
agriculture. Almost 40 percent had borrowed from moneylenders.

4.0 Conclusion
This paper is fuelled by a desire to make a contribution to remedying some of the more
brutal injustices being meted out to women today. When we read of, or meet, women whose
survival strategies include hiding small piles of money in different places so that they can
fool their husbands, after a beating, that they are surrendering all their savings to him
(Risseeuw, C. 1988, 278) do we not want to change such situations?
To attract the attention of policymakers it has been necessary to make the case (which has
been done effectively elsewhere so does not need repeating here) that empowering women
has many beneficial spin offs which nicely fit with development priorities. It is of course
equally valid to argue that such gross asymmetries of power between men and women are
themselves legitimate targets for change.
It is evident that the term empowerment has become a buzzword within development studies
and is used to add glamour (rather than value) to interventions which actually seek to
achieve a variety of economic and social outcomes, which, though they may be extremely
desirable in themselves, do not necessarily challenge existing patterns of power.

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In contrast I therefore define womens empowerment as the process by which women

redefine and extend what is possible for them to be and do in situations where they have
been restricted, compared to men, from being and doing. Or, if you like, womens
empowerment is the process by which women redefine gender roles in ways which extend
their possibilities for being and doing.
This is very closely related to Kabeers definition (womens empowerment is about the
process by which those who have been denied the ability to make strategic life choices
acquire such an ability (Kabeer 1999, 435) but has two important differences.
First it emphasises the gendered nature of womens disempowerment. When we speak of
womens empowerment we are defining individuals as women and in that case we are
considering the ways in which they are disempowered as women. This is not to deny that
women have multiple identities and are also farmers, workers, traders etc. and will choose at
times to work together with men to improve their mutual situation. (Of course struggles with
men for common goals as peasants, workers, colonial subjects etc. will, as has been shown
many times in history, need to be combined with struggle around gender roles too if women
are not to find themselves still disadvantaged as women once the common struggle is over.)
Womens gendered identities disempower them in their public roles as well as within the
home. Therefore women can act to challenge gender roles as part of any collective struggle
they are involved in.
The second difference from Kabeers definition is perhaps more subtle but, I think, real. Her
definition involves focusing on individuals acquiring an ability to choose whereas mine
focuses on redefining and extending the limits of what is possible. It therefore has more of
an emphasis on women achieving a change that expands options not only for themselves
but also for women in general both now and in the future.

Assessing empowerment
I suggest that a framework for assessing empowerment should include the following
components.
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Identifying constraints to action

This is the core of the framework and fulfils a number of functions. Because identifying
constraints is necessarily a participative process it contributes towards building an
understanding among the women involved of how they are discriminated against on the
basis of their gender (and a desire for, and belief in the possibility of, change).

When carried out for a particular action (as in the example given in section 2.5 of attending
school) it can be used to identify a baseline i.e. to define the state of gendered power
relations before any action is taken. By repeating the process at a later date change can be
identified. It can therefore be determined whether power relations have shifted towards
becoming more equitable.

Identifying how womens agency has developed

In a sense this is a mirror image to identifying constraints. If constraints to action are
loosened then, by definition, possibilities for action (agency) are increased. And, vice versa,
if possibilities for action are increased then constraints have loosened.
However we are interested not only in possibilities for action but in actual action taken. For
example womens rights to land tenure might be made more equal to mens through
legislation a good thing in itself of course. And it will certainly reduce formal constraints on
womens action. But will women take advantage of the new legislation or will social
pressures prevent them from doing so? In this case there has been little impact on womens
agency or empowerment.
Analysing changes in womens agency will involve considering both the individual and
collective level. It will involve seeking answers to question such as:

How have womens views about gender changed?

How have their feelings about themselves changed (self-confidence, self-worth,

potential etc.)

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What can women do now that they wanted to do but could not do before?

Do women believe that it will be easier for their daughters to do these things now?

What new or existing resources (broadly defined) were used to achieve this?

How have women worked with each other to achieve this?

In what way did external assistance contribute?

Identifying how womens agency changed constraints to action

Practitioners of impact assessment are familiar with the complexities of attribution i.e.
determining whether observed changes are a result of an intervention or caused by some
external factor. The necessity to consider this as part of the assessment exists in this case
too but the attribution question has also to be faced at an extra level when considering
empowerment.

Because we define empowerment as the process by which women redefine and extend what
is possible for them to be and do etc., we have to question whether or not any identified
relaxation of constraints has come about as a result of womens actions or for some other
reason. If it is because of womens action then it is a straightforward example of
empowerment women have succeeded in expanding the realm of what is possible for
them. On the other hand, have constraints been loosened by some means other than
womens action? In this case we cannot talk of empowerment because as is generally
agreed empowerment cannot be bestowed but must be won. Nevertheless the loosening of
constraints could represent a real improvement in the situation of women and theoretically
eventually such improvements could result in a situation where women were no longer
disempowered i.e. a situation where empowerment would no longer be a matter for
concern. The point is that, while any improvement in power relations is welcome and
valuable in itself, it is only when this comes about as a result of womens action that
empowerment would be the appropriate term to use.
Questions we could investigate include:

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What actions did women take, individually or collectively to challenge constraints to

action?

How did women support each other and learn from each others actions?

How did women resist such constraints either overtly or covertly?

What opposition did women encounter?

To what extent and how was opposition overcome?

How secure do women think their newly expanded freedoms of action are?

What action, if any, do they intend to take to defend their improved position?

The above represents only a very sketchy outline of a framework for assessing
empowerment. I plan to develop these ideas further and welcome criticism and comment.

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The profile of the empowered woman (Aksomkool 1995, 55-56)

The empowered woman appreciates the time she spends on domestic work and outside the
home. She is aware that overwork is harmful to her physical and mental condition and that
health is vital. She is able to question her double responsibility and seeks help from others to
have enough leisure to spend on learning and participating in the social and political life of
the community.
The empowered woman appreciates the value of her contribution, whether remunerated or
not. She is aware that she has tremendous potential to contribute to the progress of her
family, community and nation. With that understanding, she is confident of her worth, is
open-minded and can appreciate others.
Aware of her productivity, she seeks to improve her skills and knowledge continuously. She
has enough information sources (such as extension services, available and relevant
technology) and makes sure she benefits from them. She appreciates the knowledge gained
from reading and reads regularly.
The empowered woman understands that she is a human being and can control her own life.
Hence, she could and should question the family and social practices which negatively affect
her. She seeks to get scientific insights into superstitions, and challenges those which are
unjust to women.
She has freedom of movement and expression on a par with men. She appreciates her
strengths and weaknesses and seeks self-improvement.
She can lead and serve as a positive role model for other women.
The empowered woman is aware of her rights as a citizen and protects them actively. She is
convinced of her equality with men. She knows which laws and legal processes treat women
unfairly and seeks to use her legal knowledge to protect her own and other womens rights.
The empowered woman respects herself and dares take credit and responsibility for her
contribution and action. She looks for options and makes informed decisions. She dares to
be different and creative.
The empowered woman appreciates and supports other women. She is aware that
organisation means strength and seeks to strengthen her organisational, management and
leadership skills.
The empowered woman is aware that her health is related to the number of children she
has. She respects the dignity of womanhood and appreciates daughters in the same way
she does sons.
The empowered woman nurtures herself. She wants everybody to understand that, as a
human being, she is entitled to happiness in the same way that others are.
She has a zest for life.

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