Empowering of Women Leadership and Participation - Coursework Example

EMPOWERING WOMEN LEADERSHIP AND PARTICIPATION Name: Class: Professor: School: Date: Gender development is an issue that has now become global. The whole world is sensitive on issues regarding sexual difference, cultures believed to be associated with it, means, and effort made toward ensuring equality for the different gender groups. To understand this well, definition of some words is necessary. Gender refers to an individual anatomical sexual orientation. Gender identity on the other hand, is a person’s sense of maleness or femaleness; this is often irreversible at age four. Sociological, biological and psychological roles have played a crucial role in gender identity. Gender socialization is the process whereby a child learns the norms, and rules society has created for different gender groups. This plays a vital role in identifying the femaleness or maleness of a child. The term child becomes extremely crucial when dealing with gender development. This is because any ideologies regarding gender imbalance starts at this age. A child growing up in a society where roles are set aside for the different genders will find it exceedingly difficult to change from that. The Maasai communities of Kenya; the only community that have diligently followed their tradition have roles set aside for different members of their society. Women from this community are child bearers, care givers and home makers. In such a community, most of the time, the women stay at home while men go out looking for food, socializing and leaving all household duties for their wives. Thus, most injustices happen in their absence putting the women in eminent danger. Most community raids find women alone at home, raped and beaten during raids as they try to raise alarms to stop the raiders. These women go through so much injustice. An example is when the British army men raped and impregnated the Maasai women giving them illegitimate children (Race and History, 2011). The spouses and family of these women disowned them. The dilemma becomes where is a woman married off as an underage does, only believes in her role as a wife, and care giver supposed go when disowned? The answer to this question becomes women empowerment, participation and leadership. Women empowerment and participation starts from childhood. Role distribution and inculcation of age passed beliefs causes a strain in one gender. Empowering women means enlightening the family as a social entity. Fathers and mothers together should bring up their children with the mentality that all human beings are equal, and one can do anything they set up to do. As hazel and Sally stated, women empowerment is a process of creating awareness about women insubordination and helping them find ways of challenging it. Men and women both often misunderstand this process (Hazel and Sally, 2000). They take the word power and make assumptions to it meaning women being in control, taking over positions previously held by men or trying to show authority, and demand power where unnecessary. This eventually has caused so many objections from the male side; often many women use this to their advantage ending up oppressing the opposite gender. The term power in empowerment simply describes internal power. Ability to be able to say and follow what one desires without fear. Simply put self confidence. If at all this concept of women empowerment has to dissolve the term power, and still be appropriate for use in this context, the government has to be able to ensure that they do not interfere directly. It should be a natural process where those involved women, own up to realize their own potentials and be able to use them positively. UN Women can simply come up with organizations for women to be able to meet, and come up with creative ideas for overall societal female development. Funding such groups would be one way to ensure their continuity, and give moral support to women. Through these groups, women will discover their capabilities, and be able to expand and positively use them in societal development. Groups like this would come out as resourceful, and even be used during national programs to show solidarity towards actions against the female kind. Their efforts and activities will enable other groups to come up. These groups created will also lead to the formation of other organizations like the civil women society set to fight for women’s rights. Acknowledging that women form the majority of individuals with either no jobs or with poor working conditions, minimal pay, and living in poverty is a step towards realizing the need for women empowerment. The process of empowerment starts with observation and finding the need to change and develop. Several factors hinder this process, thus UN women’s role should be to identify these hindrances, and try to overcome them. There are many setbacks to women leadership empowerment, and participation. One of the factors is culture. The different cultures around the world have made a woman’s role in the community be home care. The situation gets worse as women from such communities have embraced such cultures. Women thus, end up doing the hardest labour at remarkably cheap fee and become family providers with their little money. Culture also portrays the man as the strong one, making duties be divided according to gender whereby designation of leadership duties is for the men. For an unusually long period, women have not fought these beliefs. Only recently have women organizations come up to try, and enlighten women on their rights, and find ways of helping them have a stable income. Different cultures are a cause for hindrance to women development. Some cultures support early marriage, and the consequence for that is no education, giving birth at a young age, no form of financial support, family financial economic constraints assuming even the husband is a low income earner and many other issues. Female circumcision, still practiced in some communities also diminishes the girl’s confidence. The process is humiliating and painful. UN women being an organization formed by women for women, is an encouragement for women, and ensuring total abolishment of such cultures. The women from these traditional communities need to see women encouraging them to engage in self development projects that would lower their financial problems and improve their living conditions. Women have complained that their situation of no income makes them submissive to their spouses, thus do not argue when they are beat up or told to go make money and come home with food. Organizations like UN women also could ensure women banks like the Women Finance Trust. Such banks offer credit loans to women at affordable interest rates; they offer to save with manageable interests rates, micro insurance, and youth savings (Women’s World Banking). Organizations like these which make loans accessible to women who did not know they could access them make it easy for these women to upgrade their financial status. Another hindrance to women empowerment and leadership is business environments. Businesses almost fully spear headed by men are truly intimidating to women who want to compete in the same market. It is not a recommendation for men to stop working, and leave their positions to women. It is instead a plea and desire for considerable business opportunities for both groups. These women have come from communities where it was a taboo to challenge ideas put across by men. UN women can help solve this by introducing educational seminars to show women means of safely competing in a male dominated market. Economic development is another hindrance to women empowerment and participation. A report by World Bank in 2011, the gender gap in primary secondary gross enrolment has gone down. Poor countries showed a gap of 7% point enrolment for primary and 13% point enrolment for secondary. Middle income countries on the other hand showed 3% for primary and 2% point for secondary enrolment while rich countries had 0% point gap for enrolment. Rich countries 0% point for primary (World Bank, 2011). This data clearly shows that gap widens in poor countries This shows that gender inequality is greater among the poor than among the rich all over the world. Research on different countries has shown that economic development by means of reducing poverty and increasing opportunities in a country can have a significant positive impact on gender inequality. Political situation is also a hindrance to women leadership and empowerment. Men have been leading countries for many centuries and women shunned openly. The political system of most countries only boasts of only ten percent of female political leaders in their countries. The argument came from the notion of women being care givers and should stay at home in their rightful places. This is not encouraging to upcoming women who eye political seats. In that, their competitors will be men who will presumably get more votes during elections. Such a system should be discouraged. Trustworthy and worthy female politicians should get support from women organizations. This helps whenever need be for debates in parliament, at least there being someone who can relate to women is an advantage. UN women being an international organization for women can in many ways solve the problems affecting women empowerment and participation. In Korea, designation of most factory work that pays is for men. Women end up doing less paying jobs like organizing or not working in factories at all. The first solution, which should be put into consideration, should be developing machinery for use by women. This will allow women with interest in factory work to pursue such areas and avoid staying at home while their spouses go to work. Since most factories are in rural areas this will promote rural development, and it will reduce the poverty level within a family unit. To encourage the formation of financial institutions like banks and cooperatives societies in the rural areas. If possible this financial institutions should majorly focus on women’s’ needs. This needs will include giving loans with manageable interest as noted earlier, giving advice to women on ways of setting up and improving their business to maximize profit, and savings accounts acknowledging the fact that these women are low income earners. Fighting off cultures that cause harm to the female personality would be the next step. This can be achieved through organizing community seminars, and try to ensure that both men, and women both attend. Only through education of the side effects of these cultures will communities understand the need for their abolishment. The individuals already affected should not be neglected instead counselling should be offered on the next best way forward. Economic development being a hindrance to development, thus means of improving that should be the next consideration of UN women in trying to stop this barrier. Educational loans and scholarship funds should be set for education of the girl child since education is the leading source of development in a country. Another solution would be the creation of innovative forms of employment and headed by women. Women in leadership positions will be role models to young school girls coming up thus they will find a reason to emulate other women other than their mothers who maybe ended up as house wives. The process of women empowerment and leadership is a long term process still in the making. Steps towards overall development in a country will require the women to rise up or be raised from the poverty level. Research has shown that economic development of a country depends on poverty alleviation of all individuals. The overall goal is yet to be achieved, and it requires support from both men and women alike. References Bullough, Amanda M. (2008) Global Factors Affecting Womens Participation in Leadership. FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations. Paper 184. Datta, R. and Kornberg, J. (eds.) (2002), Women in Developing Countries, Assessing Strategies for Empowerment. Lynne Rienner Publishers: London. Karl, M. (1995), Women and Empowerment, Participation and Decision-making, Zed Books: London and New York. Kabeer, N. (2003) Gender Mainstreaming in Poverty Eradication and the Millenium Development Goals, the Commonwealth Secretariat: London. Kabeer, N. and Subrahmanian, R. (eds.) (1999), Institutions, Relations and Outcomes, Framework and Case Studies for Gender Aware Planning. Zed Books: London and New York. Momsen, J.H. and Kinnaird, V. (1993), Different Places, Different Voices: Gender and Development in Africa, Asia and Latin America, Routledge: London and New York. Momsen, J.H. (2004) ‘Gender is a development issue and Gender in rural areas’. Gender and Development, Routledge: London and New York. Macdonald, M., Sprenger, E., and Dubel, I. (1999), Gender and Organisational Change: bridging the gap between policy and practice Royal (2nd Ed) Tropical Institute: Amsterdam. Moser, C.O.N. (1993), Gender Planning and Development: Theory, Practice and Training. 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