The original sin in the Garden of Eden was woman’s. She tasted the forbidden fruit, tempted Adam and ever since been paying for this. In the Genesis the Lord says, “I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception. In sorrow thou shall bring forth children and thy desire shall be to thy husband and he shall rule over thee.” Since then the woman has been rendered powerless, a mere cog in the train of whim of the male folk. Many will reject the above stated view as baseless, but the reality has been nothing far different from the philosophy implicit there. The woman all over the world today, are living in a really depressing situation with the evils like domestic violence, atrocities and harassment at work place, in society, female infanticide, female foeticide always devouring on every moment. The common view point of our learned intelligencia to eradicate these social evils is to empower woman. Really novel concept indeed! But how successful has it been? Today, all our woman’s empowerment methods include any one of the followings:

1. positive discrimination i.e. providing reservation in education or in parliament (woman’s bill)

2. providing constitutional safe-guards i.e. as in India free education to girls till university level

3. stringent laws in CrPC and IPC for cases of atrocities against woman

But if one tends to evaluate, then one will find that despite such elaborate legislation the woman folk has not been really better off. Still in India, we see child marriages, infanticide, dowry-related death etc. Why real empowerment of woman has not happened after 60 years of independence?

According to me, no legislation cannot emancipate our woman folk from the atrocities they are now being the victims. We need something else:- a change in philosophy not mere sophisticated techniques. When we talk about woman empowerment we talk about brining a change in the present condition. Change can be brought about through two forces: exogenous force and endogenous force. In the first case the change has been imposed by an external agency on the target group, in this case the woman. On the other hand in case of endogenous change, the change has to come from within the target group itself. When change is exogenous in nature, there needs to be a proper communication between the agent of change and the target group. Each needs to understand the need for change and most importantly the target group has to be sympathetic and enthusiastic about the change. But sadly enough this is very difficult to achieve; because the culture background of the change initiators and the target beneficiary is always different. One can take the case of Indian woman development policies. The policies in India suffer from the following problems:-

1. woman in India are not aware of their own rights and they don’t know what government policies are there for their benefit
2. they don’t and cannot identify themselves with the development policies and the policies remain as mere ends in themselves and not being a means to a definite end—emancipation of woman
3. the policies have been prepared by the male folk in India who are not sympathetic to the atrocious condition of the fairer sex; e.g. the opposition to the woman’s bill in India

So what is the solution? The only solution is the change has to be endogenous in nature. It has to come from within. Woman should be aware enough of their rights. They should not wait for some policy makers to help them out. It is their right and they should fight for it. This can happen through three media:

1. education
2. political awareness and politicization
3. social organization

Woman needs to educate themselves. Education can only bring about self confidence and they should be more assertive to their demands instead of being at the mercy of some policies or legislations. To be empowered is a drive that should come from within. Woman, only, can empower themselves.

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written by suman, May 10, 2010

Well said, but i still feel women don't really get the fair chance. Lets not consider only metro city female and conclude things. In interiors, there are still people who don't let their girl child study!
So I can say the change has to be through out

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written by Pavalamani Pragasam, May 14, 2010

No amount of education, empowerment and emancipation can bring complete relief for women from their woes. On the ohter hand 'educating' men right from their tender years to respect and treat with fairness the fair sex will be a good solution. It is in parenting, how we bring up our male children. It is our duty to inculcate right values in the minds of male children. For this mportant effort the present genration parents also must adapt their mindsets in favour of women and their rights.

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