"Empower her," he said, for which she will get her a separate school to study in where there will only be female students, a girls-only transport to take her to and fro school, and a female-staff-only organization for her to work in. That way, he said, we will end all harassment and violence against women. That way we will ensure that women are safe. That way, he said, we will empower women when they are made to live their lives on their own terms.As I was sitting on my balcony one of these balmy evenings by myself, I thought about what he had said. "Empower women" he had said, but by spoon-feeding them? By not teaching them to defend and stand up for themselves but just by protecting them, and that too against men? Will women be empowered when they're left among themselves with no men to compete with? Seriously, are men even responsible for disempowering women?
I am a feminist and I believe more strongly than anything else that men are equally beautiful and fulfilling beings, just like women. I am a feminist and I believe that men are not beings that want to exploit and harass women, but want women to succeed along with them and even want women to break the glass ceiling and achieve more than them.
Today, "empowering women" has become a fashionable phrase that's generously used in almost every context—be it politics, science, academia...basically anything under the sun. But empowering women these days has become more focused in giving women what they want rather than letting them have what they want with their own capabilities. Can we really say that separating quotas and ensuring reservations for women will lead to women empowerment? Instead, why don't we work towards honing their skills and building their competencies? What can be more empowering than making women competent and capable enough so that they can, with their head held high, defend themselves from all kinds of harassment and violence?
I personally believe women empowerment can start in the real sense when women empower other women. We can empower women when we can make the phrase "like a girl" mean amazing things like strong, intelligent, brave, successful, and inspiring among others. We can empower women when freedom to women means letting them do what they can to enhance their competencies and work on their own terms; when we can let them succeed while competing with and among both men and women. Women empowerment starts when women learn to create a space for their own success and prosperity in this so called "male dominated societies" without taking support of any special quota or reservation. Women will then be empowered when we can help them realize that men are important, but so are they.
Perhaps what Natalia Oberti Noguera, the CEO of Pipeline Fellowship, has said about women empowerment is the best ever: "We are our own biggest advocate, and if we can break that stereotypical girl versus girl mentality there's so much that we can do."
I suppose then if we want to empower her in the real sense, we ought to teach girls from a very young age to believe in themselves. We can empower her when little girls grow up thinking that "like a girl" means more than being polite, pretty, patient and/or submissive. We can empower her when all women realize that waiting for someone else to help empower them is futile. We can empower her only when we can teach her to not undermine her determination and strength.
As American writer Nora Ephron once said, "Above all, be the heroine of your life, not the victim."
Shraddha is an undergraduate student of Business Administration at Prime College in Naya Bazaar, Kathmandu.
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