Ideas on women empowerment

One of the most visible aspects of recent changes in rural livelihoods is substantial increase in women's access to credit. According to researchers, although women predominate in membership of NGOs (non-governmental organisations) through informal group mobilisation, the major thrust has been the broader macroeconomic imperatives of self-employment generation and poverty alleviation, rather than women's empowerment. S. Mahmud succinctly summarises the debates hovering around empowerment issue that, even at the cost of paraphrasing, should be submitted to have a glimpse into some of those controversial dimensions along with theoretical and empirical validities.
An influential framework for women's empowerment that has dominated the rationale for development programmes in general and micro-finance since the 1990s in particular, posits the process of empowerment as a set of mutually-reinforcing 'virtuous spirals' of (a) increasing economic empowerment; (b) improved well-being and (c) social/political and legal empowerment for women. This dominant view among practitioners reflects the 'confluence of three rather distinct paradigms" of micro-credit programmes and are believed to lead to similar 'virtuous spirals' of empowerment. These paradigms are related to  financial self-sustainability, poverty alleviation and feminist empowerment.
Financial self-sustainability paradigm encompasses the notion of economists and assumes that financial services at the disposal of poor women for micro-enterprise development is likely to result in increased income, reduced poverty and increased well-being (literacy level, health status, changes in consumption pattern, housing status etc.) for women and children . In the poverty alleviation paradigm, access to financial and other services are supposed to meet women's practical needs for income and employment and thus enable them to minimise inequality and empowerment problem. It is assumed that poverty alleviation benefits women particularly because of higher levels of poverty of women and women's greater responsibility for family welfare. The feminist paradigm postulates women's empowerment as an end in itself that calls for process of internal change at individual level and organisation at the macro level.
The assumption that financial services alone enable women to overcome poverty has been severely contested on the ground that in rural Bangladesh, various barriers bedevil women's access to participation in economic activities. The impact on women's incremental income is small, their control over income is not always determined and there are variations in norms over intra-household responsibilities and rights and the increase in women's access to other more formal networks and services is not well established.
The feminist framework holds a quite contrasting view. It argues that access to micro-credit reinforces patriarchal norms of women's subordination by imposing a burden on women as debt collectors for micro-finance organisations and increasing tensions within the family. There is also the hypothesis that there could be more cost-effective ways of empowering women but micro-credit diverts attention from other more effective strategies for empowerment. This school of thought believes that the intense pressure of timely repayment produces new forms of social and institutional dominance over women by families and organisations.
Naila Kabeer's concept of empowerment rests on the notion of power as determining choice and ability to choose, and how the lack of power and choice is 'disempowering'. She refers to empowerment as "a process by which those who have been denied the ability to make choices acquire such ability". In her framework, Kabeer suggests tracing women's 'ability to make choices' through three dimensions: the pre-conditions of choices or resources, the process of choosing or agency and the consequence of choice or achievements that reflect increased welfare and increased capacity to transform the structure of women's subordination.
Martin Chen and S. Mahmud postulate women's empowerment as a process purporting positive changes in women's lives that improve women's fallback position and bargaining power within a patriarchal structure. The authors examine different dimensions, material, cognitive, perceptual and relational at which empowerment is manifested. "Empowerment at some or all of these dimensions may be triggered by specific events in women's lives like schooling, labour force participation and participation in micro-credit and other development programmes. Women's empowerment is also influenced by secular life cycle events like marriage, birth of children, setting up of separate household, marriage of children and divorce or widowed". The process evolves in three dimensions: the condition for empowerment - the set of choices and options initially available to women,  the route to empowerment - means of translating choice enhancing resources into greater welfare of women and reduced subordination to men and  finally, the achievement of empowerment - the overall outcomes in terms of well-being. "In each dimension, there may be one or more pathways of change through which the process of empowerment unfolds".

The writer is Professor of Economics at Jahangirnagar University.
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