What does an "empowered woman" look like?

Sarita, one of the girls we support, asked me the other day, “Bec, how do you empower women?” Great question, where did it come from, I asked her. Her principal had asked her what her plans are for when she finishes class 10 in April. She said she wanted to work to empower women and the principal had nodded her head approvingly. This an accepted answer in Nepal and the catch cry of so many NGOs and INGOs. But, Sarita, continued, although she had used this phrase hundreds of times in school essays and exams, she wanted to know exactly what it meant.

We brainstormed what an “empowered woman” would look like, what would she do, how would she behave. Then looked at what skills they need and what support they may need on that journey. Finally, we broke down how organisations are approaching this task today.

Our conclusions:

1)    CONTEXTUAL SKILLS - Empowerment is about providing practical tools and skills to women to enable them to grab their opportunities within their context. It is about inspiring them to act or to change their behaviour;

2)    AWARENESS v ACTION - Most organisations focus on awareness only, on educating women as to their rights, nutrition, literacy etc. But they fail to focus on changing behaviours, on creating new rituals and behaviours in the women. The measurements of success for most organisations is numbers based – how many women were trained, how many received microloans. That is missing the point – it is not measuring behaviours that showcase empowered women;

3)    JARGON - Empowerment is a buzzword. There are so many of them used in development circles. But do people really understand what they mean? Do they consider what “success” looks like in these programs? In my experience, rarely.

Mitrataa has fallen into this trap sometimes too. We have explored before how to measure whether the girls we work with have really embraced the life skills we teach them. Empowered women fall into the same category. What does it mean and why are we aiming for it?

The development industry, in my experience, has got too caught up in jargon and patting themselves on the back for achieving numbers. But how about measuring what really matters – not to us, but to the people we have the privilege of supporting.

Thanks, Sarita, for making me really think. I am so happy to hear your future will involve empowering women. Nepal is lucky to count you as a future leader!