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Unit 10: Women's Empowerment

The empowered women should be able to participate in the process of decision making. Education Notes
would play the most crucial role in empowering women.

Empowerment of women would mean equipping women to be economically independent,
self-reliant, have a positive esteem to enable them to face any difficult situation and they
should be able to participate in development activities.

Institutional Framework
A separate Department for Women (and Child Development) was created as part of Ministry of
Human Resource Development in 1985. The objective was to have a nodal arm of the Government
so as to secure the all round development of women as well as children by formulating necessary
policies, plans and programmes and by coordinating with governmental and non-governmental
organizations. Over the years, there have been several policy shifts at the Government level in the
matter of caring for the concerns of women. The approach in the 70s was welfare; in the 80s it was
development; and in the 90s it was empowerment and inclusion of women in decision making.
Now the emphasis is on women’s participation and capacity building.
The scheme of hostel facilities for working woman and day care centres for their children and
scheme of short stay homes for women and girls with family problems were welfare oriented. The
programme of Support for Training-cum-Employment (STEP) which was designed to enhance
skills and employment opportunities for women below poverty line was development oriented.
The Mahila Samridhi Yojna aimed at promoting thrift amongst rural women, the Indira Mahila
Yojana aimed at organization of women at grassroots level and the Rashtriya Mahila Kosh created
to meet the credit need of poor women, especially in the informal sector, were empowerment
oriented. The Central Social Welfare Board (CSWB) was the earliest institution to be established at
the national level to care for women. It was created in 1953. It’s operational style is one of networking
with non-governmental organizations. Socio-economic programmes, vocational training, awareness
generation, creation of hostel infrastructure for working women, family counselling etc. are the
important activities of Board. Similarly, at the state level too, programmes have been designed for
women’s empowerment.
Proactive Institutions for Empowerment
The judiciary also has contributed to furthering the cause of women’s empowerment through
important judicial pronouncements from time to time. The National Commission for Women
(NCW) and it’s counterparts at state level are also working to investigate and examine the
constitutional and legal safeguards for women and their effective implementation. They also
make interventions in specific cases of individual complaints on atrocities against women and
recommend remedial action. They also conduct programmes for creating legal awareness amongst
women.
Some political parties, especially communist and other leftist parties, and their women’s
organizations such as All India Democratic Women’s Association (AIDWA) and Janwadi Mahila
Samiti are also fighting and organizing movements for women’s empowerment.
In 1992, the 73rd and 74th Constitution Amendments were carried out in respect of Panchayats
and Municipalities. Now, more than one million women have secured political space in these
bodies. Though, as the reports suggest, men especially husbands, are exercising power by proxy
in place of their Pradhan wives but in days to come women definitely would be asserting their
new found political power.

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