Women Empowerment with Special Focus on Labour Law

“Women are less likely to secure favorable outcomes for them in household decision making process. Socio-economic development is not possible without participation and empowerment of rural downtrodden women” - Dr. Amartya Sen, Noble Laureate in Economics.

Women empowerment means promoting women in their social and economic development, can be understood as giving power to women to decide for their own lives or abilities in them so that they could be able to find their rightful place in the society and allowing them to socialize, the freedoms and rights that were denied before.

Women constitute almost 50% of the world’s population but has shown female’s population has been comparatively lower than males. Development is a process that signifies a state of improvement, involvement and positive change to a desirable quality of life, as we know women have the position in the gender relationship and injustice in everyday lives. Women’s role in economic development, in most of the countries in the world, typically consider as weaker than men. This attitude has constrained their lack of opportunities for the development of their own personalities rather than customarily expected to confine themselves to household environs. Women belonging to poorer section, underprivileged have been playing passive role as daughter, daughters-in-law, wives, mothers, irrespective of their social strata and no position to unravel their problem.

They are subject to exploitation to the lower status in social and economic scenario. Women, particularly have proportionately the least possessions, skills, leadership qualities, education, social status, and capabilities for mobilization, which determines the degree of decision making, power, and as a result, their dependence on men increases. They have been confined to the four walls of the household, over burden with domestic works and controlled of their mobility and personal freedoms by the men of the household since time immemorial. This is the reason that women are given special treatment in the development and women’s development becomes the prime concern in policies and programmers. It helps the women to strengthen and overcome the barriers experienced by them because of their sex. Many policies, programmers and projects are designed to raise the status of women empowerment. The women and empowerment perspective looks at women in process .

They have lagged behind in the fields of education, skill development, employment and as a result, their work is greatly undervalued in economic terms. Women’s lack of empowerment is believed to be an important factor for this situation and hence they require social and economic protection. The empowerment of woman begins when she becomes aware of the injustice that is being done to her and also how gender inequality and inequity and gender are affecting her adversely in every sphere of her life. It starts when she becomes fully aware of her positive self image, self esteem, rights and duties, her capabilities and potentialities.

Therefore, they need to be empowered economically, socially and politically. The women empowerment is a critical determinant of economic well being, social status and political power. To empower women does not mean to give them power to dominate over others or to use power to establish their superiority over others as it may be commonly understood. So we can say that women’s moving to position of power does not mean that they are going to abuse power, to ill-treat and exploit men. Women empowerment in reality is to empower the-mselves and not to overpower men. It is essential for bringing about prosperity, peace and progress in society. Thus to empower women in the real sense is to enable them to flourish their talents, faculties, abilities and capacities and to realize their hill potentialities and real identity; it also means to have freedom of thought, expression and action and to strengthen them to handle every sphere of their lives .

The component involves understanding of gender relations as well as destroying old beliefs that structure powerful gender ideologies. It includes the development of feelings that women can act on at personal and social levels to improve their condition. The economic component requires that let women be able to engage in a productive activity that will allow them some degree of authority. The political component encompasses the ability to organise and mobilise for social change. So, the empowerment is a process to change the distribution of power, both in interpersonal relations and in institutions throughout society. 

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