Empowerment without Antagonism: A Case for Reformulation of Women’s Empowerment Approach

Abstract

The rise of gender sensibility is one of the distinguishing features of our times. It has taken hold of human imagination like never before. For all practical purposes, the concern for gender equity has graduated to the level of a policy objective. More importantly, it has begun to dominate public discourse overshadowing vital concerns for other kinds of inequalities such as of castes and classes. This is proof enough of the agility of gender concern today. Two perspectives have emerged in the contemporary discourse on the modalities of gender equity: women's development and women's empowerment, and in that order. It is Ester Boserup's pioneering work Women's Role in Economic Development (1970) which paved way to the rise of women's development perspective. The development strategy, however, has come under severe interrogation not only for its failure to deliver its promise but also for working against the interests of womankind. Consequently, the decade of 90s has witnessed the rise of women's empowerment perspective which shot into prominence at Beijing Conference. Lately, skeptical notes have begun to appear about the soundness of women's empowerment perspective, necessitating its dispassionate appraisal. Articulating the same trend, this paper seeks to review the prevailing paradigm of women's empowerment, which is spelt out in section II. The main argument advanced here is that in its present form, it betrays a pronounced western-ethnocentric bias, places too heavy a reliance on conscientization as the key strategy of women's empowerment, and above all, is marked by a measure of antagonism against man. For the same reasons, it is not likely to go too far towards achieving the objective of gender equality. Hence the need to rethink it. To substantiate this argument, the paper is organised into five sections. The first section takes a critical look at women's development perspective as a backdrop to the rise of women's empowerment approach. The second section carries a S. L. Sharma, Professor of Sociology (Retd.), lives at 739, Sector 2, Panchkula, Haryana