The word ‘women empowerment’ itself is a representation of oppression of women in the mostly patriarchal society as they needed to be ‘empowered’ from an inferior stage in the society. Societies, almost all over the world, has considered women as a weak, delicate and unworthy figure in compare to men. Thus, today, to establish the equality of the power or ability between men and women, it is needed to ‘empower’ women who were left far behind in the ladder of supremacy by the society. Let us know about the ‘Empowering Women In The Patriarchal Society’.
Empowering women
If we have a look in the condition of women all over the world right today, we will find out many apparent empowering stages. But if we go to the core of the systems, we will easily found out the flaws as well as the bright side of the systems and can trace the fact if women are truly empowered or not. Below, I’ll be discussing about 3 most important fields where women were treated as inferior and intellectually incapable priorly and will analyse their current condition and how much they have developed themselves to accept women in changed and empowering state.
Economic empowerment of women
Women were not allowed to any of economic activity till the late 19th century but with time women started to raise their voice and stepped out of the private world. Today if we see in the offices or in every private sector, we will find out ample number of women are involved in various kind of jobs and works. But, if we go deeper into the situation, a question will be arising in our mind: even if they are a part of the macro economical system, are they even respected or paid equally that of a man? Let’s find out the answer. Although many women are the single bread earner of their family, it is seen in a research in 2012, that women are pain only 77 cent for a work where men are paid 1 Dollar. This discrimination even grows when it comes to colour. An Afro-American woman makes only 67 cent where a white man makes 1 dollar. According to a research of Bureau of Labor Statistic, in United State 67% women are working at minimum or below wage for their work where only 8% of women is involved in Fortune 500s CEO. Highly lucrative financial management jobs are mainly dominated by male workers. Statistic says that at the top five U.S. investment banks (JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, and Citigroup), males make up from 64 to 82 percent executives and top managers. A study of eight high-income countries from the LONDON SCHOOL OF ECONOMMICS found that women made up just 14 percent to 22 percent of the top 1 percent of earners. These surveys were conducted during the 2010-2014 period where it was shown that in U.S the percent is as low as 17%. From the above mentioned surveys, it is clear that though women get the chance to work at the public sphere, the discriminations come to them in other ways even today. Working the same and getting less salaries and opportunities in compare to men are still there in a large scale which are enough to demotivate women from working.
Women Empowerment in Education
Education is the base field of women empowerment. This is where women started to get their power to lead the world in every aspect an equally with men. 19th century women were not allowed to get education as the main purpose of their home education was how to be a good wife and mother. Further with time, women were able to break this barrier of wife and motherhood and came forward with their keen interest in learning. In 1790, where the number of boys were almost two times of the number of girls an a school, by 1890, the number of girl students started to get increase in number. Their success in school started to break the myth of women intellectual incapabilities. U.S. Census Bureau shows the extent of the gender gap in higher educational attainments in the United States. In 2018 36,674,000 living men in the United States held a four-year college degree. This is 34.6 percent of all men over the age of 25. For women, 40,251,000 individuals held a four-year college degree. This was 35.3 percent of all women over the age of 25. Women hold a large lead in master’s degrees. In 2018, 11,831,000 women held a master’s degree but no higher credential. For men, the figure was 9,217,000. Thus, 10.4 percent of adult women but only 8.7 percent of adult men held a master’s degree but no higher degree. Thus it is evidential that women empowerment is true at the base where women are coming forward to achieve their goals and get successful.
Women empowerment in health care
The mortality rate of women was high during 19th century due to lack of medication discovery and less knowledge to diagnose women’s diseases. It was difficult for male doctors to understand the female body, thus many female died just for lack of care and attention from the medical field. With the increasing number of female doctors, these complications reduced but still present in a moderated way. According to a survey in 2018, US has the highest maternity deaths among the developed countries which is 17.4 deaths per 100000 births. So it is seen that though it was reduced but it is still in a large rate in US. But the abortion law of US enhances this maternal mortality in another way as it cuts off the right of legal abortion. Now, doctors will be scared of losing their license by doing an abortion even if it is a medical emergency which can lead the patient to a fatal end. On the other hand, patient willing to abort her baby may take illegal or risky non-medicative way to do it which can cause a health hazard even death at the end. So imposing the abortion law on women, it is basically chaining them and their decision about their own life and it can be surely said that this is a result of male perspective towards women medical care system which led many women to the way of death due to medical emergency and various reason
Conclusion
We have discussed about three major field and gained an idea about the mixed situation of women empowerment. The problem of our society is that, while women are ready to get into equal status of men by dedication and hard work, men are getting insecure about this tendency of women. It is possible for women to get a proper empowerment if men of the society also participate in that and give women chances to prove themselves. Though today’s situation is obviously better than the last century, but it can touch its peak if men and women start working equally in a true sense and I hope that such day might come soon.