Dr. K. Muraleedharan*
Introduction
G
ender Equality, women’s power and empowerment of women have emerged at the forefront of social consciousness and theoretical conceptualization, triggered off by the deep understanding about gender as a socio-cultural system based on unequal power relations between men and women (Pradhan B ,2003). The concept of empowerment 1 is currently in use by a variety of people in diverse contexts.In fact, the multiple use of the concept of empowerment has contributed towards the ambiguity of the term rather than to its clarity. The concept of empowerment varies from those predominantly found in the works in sociology, education and radical politics to the attempts of community development organizations as well as international development organizations like UNDP and World Bank. What Zoë Oxaal and Sally Baden (1997) observed in this context approximates the reality that there are a variety of understandings of the term empowerment due to its widespread usage. Deepa Narayan and several others agree with this (Deepa Narayan 2005). Though the term is often used in development work, it is rarely defined. Now a day, it has become an elusive concept that escapes any attempt to define and
Author is currently the Director of a research project supported by ICSSR, Ministry of HRD, Govt. of India and is with AcademicStaffCollege, University of Calicut, Kerala, India available at or
measure objectively. (Carr et .al 1996,Panda, 2000, Browman, 1996). As Carr et. al (1996) observes, there has been much debate at the theoretical level as to what empowerment comprises and how best it can be achieved, however there has been little primary research at the grass root level to contribute to our understanding of what empowerment means in every day terms.Similarly, a vide variety of attempts to measure empowerment ranging from those at the macro level to the micro level can be traced. This paper attempts to (1) sort out the conceptual cob webs of empowerment in search of a working definition of it and (2) measure empowerment from the empirical evidence of the women empowerment experiments ongoing in two South IndianStates viz, Kerala and Karnataka. This paper, drawn from a large study that looked into the inter-state variations on the impact of empowerment exercises, is organized in five parts. The first part has introduced the problem while the second part elaborates on the methodology, data and the sample used for the study. The third part dwells on the conceptual cobwebs of empowerment and reaches at working a definition of empowerment for empirical studies. The fourth part deals with the measurement of empowerment and uses the empirical data for such a purpose. The fifth part concludes the discussion.
II
Methodology, Data and the Sample.
The study has drawn from the works of a research project analyzing the impact of government interventions on empowerment of women in Indian States. It has a special focus on the facilitation of group formation among women and has examined the impact of facilitation of group formation and the subsequent thrift, credit and income generating activitiesamong women. The informants were identified through a multi-stage sampling. In the first stage, two States, Kerala and Karnataka were selected as these States have made successful experiments in the empowerment of women. Apart from Govt., several other agencies are active in the area of empowerment of women. With an intention to bring their activities to the framework, sample districts were selected on the basis of the presence of most of the agencies working in this area of group formation among rural women. Hence in Kerala, we have the sample district of Malappuram and in Karnataka we have the sample district of Mysore. Both these districts had the long tradition of self help groups and Neighborhood Groups. Around 500 and odd informants each from these districts form the sample of informants for the research project and this paper has been extracted from the information provided that 1000 informants from the two States chosen.
The methodology adopted in this study is a modified version of those applied in the studies at BRAC Villages and Grameen Bank Studies in Bangladesh. (See Hashemi et.al (1996), Mizan (1993). The methodology has borrowed much from the Mizan index of empowerment called the Household Decision Making (HHDM) scale. Defining empowerment at the individual level, the set of questions focused on wife and husband were the instrument used for extracting information. The working definition of empowerment has identified five crucial areas like 1.) Economic Aspects 2.) Income 3.) Assets 4. ) Education and Health and 5).Social Aspects. Each question with positive answer indicates a progress towards empowerment and is counted and index for different aspects are prepared. The total of scores in these different aspects constitutes an index for empowerment.
III
Conceptualizing Empowerment
Several factors have contributed towards the currency and widespread usage of the term ‘empowerment’ which has found the earlier expression in the radical writings on US politics. The failure of state run development efforts, increased understanding of the role of women in development, increased role of non-governmental sector in development efforts, the prominence gained by participatory democracy along with the efforts of feminist writers have contributed in some way and coincided with the emergence and popularity of the term empowerment. (Razavi and Miller, 1995: Zoë Oxaal and Sally Baden, 1997).
Attempts towards conceptualization of empowerment can be traced since 1980s onwards. Panda, (2000). Sen (1981), Overholt et al (1985), Korten (1986), Schuler (1986), Conger and Kanungo (1988), Bhatt (1989), Peggy (1989), Edna and Bose (1990), Keller and Mbwewe, (1991), Calman(1992),UNICEF (1993), Helen 1(993), Samar Singhe (1993) , Schuler and Hashemi (1993, Batliwala 1(994, Mahmud and Johnsten (1994, UNDP (1995), Holcombe (1995), Karl (1995) Carr et.al. (1996), Rao (1996), Betelle (1999) have contributed towards conceptualization of empowerment in a variety of ways
The concept of empowerment has got a long history back with several predecessors. During the early years of international women’s decade, ‘status of women’ was widely in use and it was meant for increasing the status of women in relation to that of men. The concept of ‘status of women’ implied the roles of women and the extent of her influence in decision making in family and community. It was argued to enhance the status of women through improvement in socio-economic indicators such as income, employment, education, enhanced decision making power and access to resources or assets. The concept of status of women gradually gave way to ‘women’s autonomy’, when the former concept failed to capture the dimensions of women conceived as agents of change. Though the concept and terminology had undergone changes with the changes in the perception of role of women in society, the measuring rode continued to be the same socio economic indicators, due to the dearth of qualitative data and the absence of appropriate techniques for collecting such data. Currently, the term empowerment is in vogue, says Bina. Pradhan(2003). In general, the concept describes women making independent choices, enabling them to emerge from their subordinate position as passive recipients of development interventions.
Empowerment of women as a goal of development projects has gained wider acceptance since 1990s. (Karl, 1995) In fact, the multiple use of it has contributed towards the ambiguity of the term rather than to its clarity. It may be better to begin with what is understood in general when the word empowerment is used. The term empowerment has its roots in the term empower which means “to give power or authority’ and to ‘enable or permit’. Generally empowerment implies, enabling and providing power and they reinforce each other (Panda, 2000) However, in practice, it entails that the process of challenging the existing inequality, power relations, and gaining greater control over sources of power by the under privileged.
As observed by Pradhan. B.(2003) the concept of empowerment comes from the need to enable women to overcome those systemic sources of subordination and its implication on intervention strategies to enhance those powers of women and its sources to affect change. This notion of power and empowerment is a major shift from the conventional socio-economic measures of power indicated by education, income or access to resources. Empowerment, according to Pradhan, is the process by which the powerless gain greater control over the circumstances of their lives and it includes both control over resources such as physical, human, intellectual and financial. Also it includes control over ideology like beliefs, values and attitudes. As Sen and Battliwala (2000:18) put it, empowerment means greater self-confidence, and an inner transformation of one’s consciousness that enables one to overcome external barriers to accessing resources or changing traditional ideology.
A better understanding of power is central to the concept of empowerment.(Hazel Reevees and Sally Baden, 2000,Zoe Oxaal and Sally Baden 1997: WB 2002). As a matter of fact, empowerment of women hardly refers to women taking over control previously held by men, rather than the need to change the power relations. Power may be understood as ‘power with’ or self-confidence, ‘power within ‘ or the capacity to organize others for a common purpose and the ‘power to’ effect changes and take decisions rather than ‘power over’ others. The power ‘over view’ has been dominating the development perspective during the 1970s, within the paradigm of Women in Development. Rowland (1998) and Foucault (1982, 1998) have elaborated on the various notions of power in the context of empowerment. Rowlands(1995) points out that empowerment is a bottom-up process and cannot be bestowed from the top down. Rowland (1998) feels that most models of power hardly address the question of how power is distributed in society and she has proposed other ways of understanding and conceptualizing power, which focus not on a particular set of results, but on the process itself. Contrasting with this, the model of power proposed by Foucault includes an understanding of resistance as a form of power. Rowland concludes that empowerment involves undoing negative social constructions, so that the people affected can perceive themselves as having the capacity and right to act and have influence. (Rowlands, 1995:102)
As mentioned earlier, meaning of the term empowerment is subject to quite different interpretations. First, it is translated as participation in labor force. But there is an observation that mere participation in labor force is not a sufficient condition for empowerment, if the structure remains unchanged as exploitative and oppressive. (Elson, 1991: Fleming 1991: Geisler 1993). The later view of empowerment looks at it as development of strategies that empower women by challenging the existing social, economic and political structures. The primary objective of empowerment of women is to create more equitable and participatory structures in which women can gain control over their lives. As Keller and Mbewe (1991) observed, empowerment should enable them to increase their self- reliance to assert their independent right to make decision and to challenge and eliminate their subordination.
UNDP has viewed empowerment from the perspective of participation. Accordingly it states that Development must be by people, not only for them. People must participate fully in the decisions and processes that shape their lives, but at the same time promotes a rather instrumentalist view of empowerment (UN, 1995 b: 12). Investing in women’s capabilities and empowering them to exercise their choices is not only valuable in itself but is also the surest way to contribute to economic growth and overall development (UN, 1995b: iii) But, for Oxfam, empowerment is about challenging oppression and inequality: Empowerment involves challenging the forms of oppression which force millions of people to play a part in their society on terms which are inequitable, or in ways which deny their human rights (Oxfam, 1995).
Feminist activists stress that woman’s empowerment is not about replacing one form of empowerment with another: Women’s empowerment should lead to the liberation of men from false value systems and ideologies of oppression. It should lead to a situation where each one can become a whole being regardless of gender, and use their fullest potential to construct a more humane society for all (Akhtar 1992 quoted in Batliwala 1994: 131).
Marilee Karl (1995) has viewed empowerment from a quite different, but, perhaps a further empirical perspective. According to her, empowerment is the term which has been talked about largely, but defined seldom. Prior to the use of the term empowerment, experts used to talk about gaining control over resources and participating in decision making that affects their lives. Empowerment, in fact,captures this idea. Empowerment is a process, and for that matter, it is not something that can be given to the people. Simultaneously, it is collective and individual, as it involves collective action of individuals. Hence, empowerment of women can be visualized as a process, a continuum of several inter- related and mutually reinforcing components, as follows.
1)Awareness building about women’s situation, discrimination, right and opportunities as a step towards gender equity. Collective awareness building provides a sense of group identity and the power of working as a group.
2)Capacity building and skills development, to especially the ability to plan, take decisions, organize, manage and carry out activities to deal with people and institution around them.
3)Participation, greater control over decision making power at home and community.
4)Action to bring about greater equality between men and women.
In summary, empowerment is a process of awareness creation and capacity building leading to greater participation, to greater decision making power and control and to transformative action.
Interpreting Empowerment from a different perspective, Friedman (1992) connects political empowerment with social empowerment, so that political empowerment requires a process of social empowerment through which effective participation in politics becomes possible. But for Moser (1989) notions of empowerment are linked to the contrasting definitions of participation. One of the most widely accepted measurement of empowerment is through the distinction between participation as a ‘means’ and participation as an ‘end’. Moser believes that it is important to look how projects move from focus on participation as a means to increase efficiency, effectiveness or cost sharing towards participation as an end for empowering and building capabilities. Defined in this way, Empowerment is a multi faceted process, involving the pooling of resources to achieve collective strength and countervailing power and enhancing the capabilities of the local people ( Ghai, 1989).
UNDP‘s gender in development policy (GIDP) has interpreted empowerment in a more precise and comprehensive manner. The policy aims at
1.)Promotion of women in policy and decision making process.
2.)Emphasizing on women’s income generating activities and
3.)Providing women with access to empowering facilities like education and training.
The policy framework offers the potential for addressing individual and collective empowerment of women, through the practical focus on participation in decision making, individual skills and economic self reliance. This emphasize is on power to, with little attention to the need to create spaces for women to be involved in the decision-making. The frame work assumes that income generating activities will increase women’s access to resources, ignoring the fact that such programs will add to the work load with out increasing their decision making powers.
Kabeer (2000) argues that one way of discussing empowerment is in terms of their ability to make choices as ‘Disempowered’ means one is denied of making any choices. The notion of empowerment, according to Kabeer, is that it is inescapably bound up with the condition of disempowerment and refers to the process by which those who have denied the ability to make choices acquire such anability. Empowerment entails a process of change in the sense that it implies that the ability to make choices were denied to them in the first place and empowerment enables them to make such choices. As far as those who had such choices earlier, empowerment is meaningless. Hence, Kabeer defines empowerment as the expansion in people’s ability to make strategic life choices in a context this ability was previously denied to them. Interpreted in this way, empowerment has got three dimensions:
1)resources, which form the conditions under which choices are made,
2)agency: which is at the heart of all the process by which choices are made, and
3)achievements, which are the outcome of choices.
These dimensions are interdependent because changes in each contribute to, and benefits from changes in the others. Thus, as Kabeer observes, achievements of a particular moment are translated into enhanced resources or agency and hence capacity for making choices, at a later moment in time.
Empowerment calls for modalities such as those other than mere economic betterment, because much of women’s powerlessness stems from non quantifiable rather than quantifiable and monetary impositions or handicaps. Conventional strategies only address poverty, not powerlessness or subordinate status which are crucial issues, according to Sakunthala Narasimhan (2001).
A rather more comprehensive concept was suggested by Khanna, Khamboji and Sreevastava (2002). According to them, empowerment is a process, conscious and continuous comprising enhancement of capacity building gaining confidence and meaning full participation in decision making. Empowerment enables them to participate in development as a democratic process. It is a process that emancipates women from their subordination and unfreedoms and it enables them to gain the vital capabilities for decision making and participation in democratic process.
Micro credit is now a day accepted as an effective tool for empowering women, globally. There is a heap of literature on the role of micro credit and empowerment of women. (Syed Hashemi .et .al 1996; Mayoux, 1998, 1999: Susane Johnson ,2000: Hunt and Kasynathan 2001: Kabeer 1998: Goetz and Sen Gupta 1996: Soofia Mumthas, 2000:, Mayoux, L 2001: Fiona Leach and Shashikala Sitaram,2002:,Rebecca.M Vonderlack and Mark Schreiner,2002:, Nanda ,1999) ). However, provision of credit at favorable terms is not a lacuna for the question of empowerment, as it does not, by design, empower women. Several studies have identified the in-built flows such as male control over the loans and repayment and the consequent danger involved in it as these are contributive towards worsening women’s position. Thus it is argued that improving women’s access to credit is a positive step towards empowerment, but it cannot be considered as the sole means of empowering women. Apart from the danger of male involvement, provision of credit and subsequent micro enterprises for the purpose of empowerment of women will definitely add to the burden she has to shoulder in terms of labor contribution towards such activities. In fact, such programs will demand further female labor and will accentuate the worse position of women.