Women's Empowerment

Abstract

Women's empowerment is a central concern of the women's movement. It refers to the general process through which women gain knowledge about the structures that oppress them, and seek to alter the power imbalances in society. Bookman and Morgen (1988: 4) define empowerment broadly as the “process aimed at consolidating, maintaining, or changing the nature and distribution of power in a particular cultural context” that can range from “acts of individual resistance to mass political mobilizations.” Given women's diverse experiences of inequality, women's empowerment has been partially achieved through a variety of strategies and within a number of different historical, institutional, and cultural contexts. For example, in the first wave of the women's movement in the US, women's empowerment was linked explicitly to political power in the form of voting rights. In the second wave, women's empowerment was linked to such issues as reproductive rights, workplace rights, freedom from men's violence, and furthering women's political rights and legal protections through the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). Not all of these issues were successful, however, as the ERA never passed into law, violence against women continues, and reproductive rights are not shared equally by all women. Nevertheless, that large numbers of women demanded changes to the unequal institutional arrangements in politics, law, medicine, and intimate relationships illustrates the process of women's empowerment. Though the concept and process of women's empowerment is far reaching and factors into all areas of women's lives, the discussion below focuses on those areas of women's lives in which the concept of empowerment has taken center stage. These include second‐wave US feminist organizing; women, sports, and self‐defense; women's health care; and women and development.