User:Ngdana/Women's empowerment

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Economic empowerment
Since the 1980s, the push for neoliberalism prioritizes competitiveness and self-reliance as a measurement for economic success. The individuals and their identifying communities that do not meet society's favored neoliberal standards are looked down upon and are prone to lower their own self esteem. Some groups who do not fit the preferable neoliberal image are the lower working class and the unemployed.

'''Specifically, neoliberalism has negatively impacted women's self-worth through its welfare reform policies. Mary Corcoran et al. theorize that conservative welfare reformers believe in welfare dependency as the cause of poverty. This leads welfare reformers to increase the criterion for an individual to qualify as a welfare recipient, limiting the amount of people that are dependent on welfare. These criterions include: work requirements and time limits, rapidly pushing women into the labor market. The active push for women to enter the labor market reinforces the notion that single mothers and unpaid care laborers are unproductive to the American economy. In consequence, women are forced to settle for low-paying unstable jobs while having to manage their maternal and domestic responsibilities. Scholars believe welfare reform's underlying purpose is to disempower women by suppressing women's agency and economic independence. By creating opportunities for women empowerment like job training, women can counteract the social implications of neoliberalism and specifically welfare reform.'''

In the case women have the opportunity to settle for stable jobs, Women of color encounter a lack of the equal accessibility and privileges in work settings. They are faced with more disadvantages in the work place. Patricia Parker argues that African American women's empowerment is their resistance to control, standing up for themselves and not conforming to societal norms and expectations. In connection to power, feminist perspectives look at empowerment as a form of resistance within systems of unequal power relations. Within the societal setting of race, gender, and class politics, African American women's empowerment in work environment "can be seen as resistance to attempts to fix meanings of appropriate identity and behavior, where such meanings are interpreted as controlling, exploitative, and other- wise oppressive to African American women." When talking about women's empowerment, many scholars suggest examining the social injustices on women in everyday organizational life that are influenced by race, class, and gender.

Another methodology for women's economic empowerment also includes microcredit. Microfinance institutions aim to empower women in their community by giving them access to loans that have low interest rates without the requirement of collateral. More specifically, they(microfinance institutions) aim to give microcredit to women who want to be entrepreneurs. The success and efficiency of microcredit and microloans is controversial and constantly debated. Some critiques claim that microcredit alone doesn't guarantee women have control over the way the loan is used. Microfinance institutions don't address cultural barriers that allow men to still control household finances; as a result, microcredit may simply be transferred to the husband. Microcredit doesn't relieve women of household obligations, and even if women have credit, they don't have the time to be as active in the market as men.

Feminist Approach to Women Empowerment
Feminism is defined by the movement’s goal of creating women’s empowerment. Two methods feminists use to facilitate a sense of women empowerment are consciousness-raising and building relationships with the women participants and their external oppressors.

Raising Consciousness
To create women empowerment, feminists commonly use consciousness raising. When raising consciousness, women not only become knowledgeable about their personal struggles but how it is related to political and economical issues. Raising consciousness allows marginalized individuals to see where they are placed in the larger social structure and pinpoint the root of their oppression. Awareness of their problems will initiate self-mobilization which precisely creates empowerment.

However, scholars Shane Brady and Mary O'Connor have pointed out the term “raising-consciousness” may be misunderstood and offensive to participants. Using the term “raising-consciousness” inflicts the notion that the marginalized community is not aware of their oppression and how to deal with it.

Building Relationships
I'''n addition, feminists, specifically feminist organizers, focus on building relationships as a medium for creating women empowerment. Scholars claim that building relationships result in empowerment because the increasing presence of power gaps in society are due to the lack of relationships that are needed to bridge them. When it comes to forming and maintaining relationships, there needs to be a balance of both collaboration and conflict between the two parties. Conflict commonly arises in situations where community members attempt to build relationships with external power figures like government representatives. Fostering a space for collaboration as well as deliberation of conflicting ideas is important because sorting out disagreements allows for the formation of trust between the parties. In addition, conflict individually benefits the women participants because it fosters problem-solving skills and opens them to a new pool of knowledge and perspectives on society. Scholars observe that building relationships has a depoliticizing tendency as the activity does not directly challenge the oppressive structures affecting women. A specific observation of this depoliticizing tendency is story telling. When building relationships, feminists encourage women participants to share their personal experiences involving gender oppression, rather than deliberate about strategies to approach the oppressive system.'''