Table of Contents
The Historical Woman
Great things have been done by historical women which have made things easier for the modern women. Even though those women achieved a lot, they remained inferior and unequal to their male counterparts. The historical woman could did not have right to vote, hold normal jobs, or even have a place in politics. The duties of historical women included managing the home front, homemaking responsibilities and anything to do with children. The freedom of women including that of speech was a dream.
Their responsibilities were to cater for their men and have no say in the presence of men. However, there are women who were bold enough and took the risk to ensure todays women can walk boldly and have a say even in the presence of the men. These women will remain to be heroines to both men and fellow women. Some of these women include, Susan B. Anthony (an American social reformer and women’s rights activist) for granting women the right to vote, Jackie Joyner-Kersee (an American retired track and field athlete) for introducing women into the Olympics, and Helen Keller for educating the world about women with disabilities just to mention but a few.
The Modern Woman
There is no better way to introduce a woman than by using the UNESCO slogan as cited by, (Bhuyan, 2006) “educate a man and you educate an individual, educate a woman and you educate a family.” According to Kristof and WuDunn (2009), The world is awakening to a powerful truth: women and girls aren’t the problem, they’re the solution. Women are the new paradigms of today’s culture beginning from home to working sector. Today, almost in every field, a woman is in leadership be it management, local governance or political fields. The trend of women in working sector changes with globalization on daily basis. Indeed, women are the resource of a country in every field. They have turned the traditional perceptions about their capabilities and roles and worked them out for better. Women have shifted traditional assumptions about their roles and capabilities.
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Women Empowerment
Of the things which have always been controversial in the social sciences and subject to debate, women empowerment is among them. As (Kabeer, 1994, p. 224) cites, there has never been an agreement on the meening of this term. When we talk of women empowerment, different view points are brought forward by different people.According to (Kabeer, 1994; Mayoux, 1998) women empowerment relates to improvement in the livelihoods of impoverished people and is often related to good change. On the other hand, (Wallerstein, 1992) relates it with participatory processes that foster enhanced individual and community engagement that transforms and improves the socioeconomic and political lives of community members.
Women empowerment has started to sound like a song in our todays gender literature. They are becoming independent on daily basis and have access to what the historical women could not. Their roles are countless as they have the power to utilize in any field. Transition is still happening though it will not sprout like a plant without its own drawbacks. Nevertheless, they are prepared for the challenges and finding solutions daily on how to counter them. Forgotten is the era when men overruled women in almost every sphere and were denied opportunities and freedom. To show how powerful these women are Groucho Marx Quotes, “Behind every successful man is a woman”. This will not be complete if I do not add, behind every successful enterprise, there is a woman.
According to Riano, (1994) empowerment is not just individual achievements or assessing certain power positions, but “the way of energizing of individual and collective objects to participate in social movements and process of emancipation. (Sharifah, 2015) cites that women empowerment comes from the root of the idea of power. Women empowerment definition according to (Rajeshwari, 2015) is increasing the spiritual, political, social, educational, gender or economics strength of individuals and communities of women. (Anjuet al, 2009) defines women empowerment as “women’s ability to make strategic life choices which they had been previously denied from”
The lifestyle of a modern woman is changed in terms of dressing and responsibilities. It is incomplete without quoting “what a man can do, a woman can do better”. The enterprises which are led by women are doing better and better. The countries which were led by women performed great just to give an example of Germany and United Kingdom among the endless list.
The modern woman has many rights and freedom to do countless things including the right to vote, the right to career choice, a place in government and politics, equality to some extend and independence just to mention some.
