Women's Empowerment

The importance of girls’ education is now very well understood. And so, in this fourth blog, we will be discussing the implications of that notion and how it contributes to the development of a much grander and fruitful world. 

It is recognized that education is an essential tool for women’s empowerment. Women’s empowerment refers to women’s ability to make strategic life choices where that ability had been previously denied them. That is to say, to empower women is to motivate and present them with fair representation across all aspects of social and economic life. The need to empower females is quintessential in achieving gender equality and the sustainable development of all countries. 

“Gender equality is an essential expression of human rights and that women’s rights are human rights” - Ms. Michelle Bachelet (Chapter 1 of UN’s Achieving Gender Equality, Women’s Empowerment and Strengthening Development Cooperation)

Female encouragement is crucial, especially in education, for it contributes to health and nutrition of the family, as well as family incomes, and economic productivity. Through empowerment, women and girls will be able to have the opportunities to pursue their dreams and efficiently engage in the betterment of their community. Not only do economies flourish with female participation, but so does society and government. Improving the lives for females help challenge the ideologies of discrimination and subordination that are founded on a faulty social construct. Politically, it creates prospects for a diverse government with multiple views. 

The issue here lies on the fact that in many countries, gender disparity is still very much rampant despite efforts to alleviate it. Particularly in developing countries, there are higher degrees of gender inequality compared to more developed countries. Consequently, low empowerment of women and high gender gap still impede the development process of the country. 

From these blogs, we hope that readers will be able to digest our content and stay informed of these events and contribute to this growing movement! Thank you for tuning into blog #4.

Sources

https://www.un.org/en/ecosoc/docs/pdfs/10-50143_(e)_(desa)dialogues_ecosoc_achieving_gender_equality_women_empowerment.pdf

https://www.icrw.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Innovation-for-Womens-Empowerment.pdf

http://www.walker.ac.uk/media/1230/the-role-of-empowering-women-and-achieving-gender-equality-to-the-sustainable-development-of-ethiopia_2016.pdf

Written by Thuy Nguyen, Editorial Officer