Why Gender Empowerment?

In my last post I rambled a little (and maybe incoherently) about my view of the economic history of gender roles. But this time I'll talk a bit about how that changed, how it happened, and why it's been good.

In addition to broader acceptance of equality and individualism, there are arguably two things that have driven the rise and acceptance of feminism as an ideology: 1) agitation and demand by women, 2) the perceived benefits of feminism. By the former (demand), I don't only mean taking to the streets, but maybe more subtle things: because there's at least one woman in every household, she can exert her views and influence in different ways: a daughter and a mother demand that the daughter go to college (in addition to the son); that the daughter also be allowed to work outside the home; the daughter and mother contribute their opinions and views openly. And if you ask many self-identified feminisits why they believe what they do, many will cite a single person or few person that paved a path for them by way of example.

 

By the latter (benefits), I mean a great deal of things: this lady as well as Eve Ensler and the Kinsey Reports of the 1940s argued that more empowered women are also more sexually empowered (i.e. they have better sex---I'm sure this would be a good impetus for men!!). In the case of the Grameen Bank, for example, empowering women ensures that the whole family is cared for; educating women ensures that all members of the family get educated. Empowered women are more interesting, and most importantly, I suppose, empowered women are better able to contribute to economic, social and intellectual activity---i.e. they are more useful!

There are millions of other reasons that empowering women is important. A number of these, ironically, stem from the fact that women aren't equal to women! They are "not equal" to men in that they are "different" from men; women have their own skills sets, capacities, and so forth, that are complementary, but not necessarily equal (and certainly not subordinate) to those of men.

 

(This is some footing on which I'm not entirely comfortable: I worry sometimes when we acknowledge the differences between sexes that we open up a slippery slope to saying "yes, women are different, and inferior." Responses to that in the comments box below would be very, very welcome!)

 

And yet, one difference I've read about is articulation: women are apparently better at or better with words because of the side of the brain they use more frequently and the more vast interconnectedness of their neurons (evidently something related to estrogen), which results in women being good writers and journalists. Another is empathy, which isn't unrelated, I think, to the Grameen Bank conclusion about educating a woman to educate a family. And I'm sure this empathy extends into benefits in the realm of conflict mitigation as well: if women are involved in a conflict resolution process, I'd venture to guess that peace would be more sustainable，as HKS's Swanee Hunt writes about in her work on alternative security paradigms. That, I think, is what those surveys about women bosses were getting at: their approach to leadership is different and very often, more enabling.

I think the main drivers for societal recognition and acceptance of, and support for women's empowerment will be (a) changes in values and ideology, (b) activism from local women and rights groups or pressure from outside sources---e.g. perceptions of and pressure on Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan, and (c) actual recognition of the merits of viewing women as complementary and not subordinate.

I think all three will happen around the world; they are happening and I think these trends will be strengthened. Even (c), knowledge of the benefits, is happening...but maybe not tangibly enough, so I think needs to be encouraged a little more. I mean, these benefits clearly exist, but I think they need to be discovered, explicated, and shared more.

As for changes in values, ideologies and "tradition" (as discussed in my last post) remain paramount. All too often we tell ourselves things that serve as crutches to real: Indians cite the number of female politicians and the central role of women in Hindu mythology to gloss over the day to day practice of female infanticide, daughters being educated for marriage, women being treated like sex objects, rampant sexual harassment and violence, a paucity womens representation in a great deal of decision-making, trafficking of women and girls that goes neglected under the noses of law enforcement, etc.

In the US, the disconnect is often greater because the expectation/assumption is that we're "liberal," "progressive," and "free," yet we continuously gloss over so many inequities.

 

Again, all of these views comes from a relatively cursory overview of a very small section of literature (admittedly, much from Betty Friedan, who was criticized for ignoring everyone but middle class, suburban white Americans). So add in issues of class, geography, culture, and economics, and norms will change drastically.

 

Nonetheless, I think and hope that those 3 vectors (ideology, pressure, and recognition) will continue to permeate societies until we see some very important revolutions.