Gender equality is, first and foremost, a human right. A woman is entitled to live in dignity and freedom. Empowering women is also an indispensable tool for advancing development and reducing poverty. Empowered women contribute to the health and productivity of whole families and communities and improved prospects for the next generation.

The importance of gender equality is underscored by its inclusion as one of the eight Millennium Development Goals. Gender equality is acknowledged as being a key to achieving the other seven goals. Yet discrimination against women – including gender-based violence, economic discrimination, reproductive health inequities, and harmful traditional practices – remains the most pervasive and persistent form of inequality.

Since the beginning of civilization, there has been bulk evidence of women being considered inferior to men. Almost every country, no matter how progressive has a history of ill-treating women. This has eventually nudged women to retrospect their status in society and has even led women from all over the world to be rebellious to reach the status they have today. Since then, women have been vocal about gender equality and have continuously made efforts to empower themselves to achieve that equality. The empowerment and autonomy of women and the improvement of their political, social, economic, and health status is a highly important end in itself.

In addition, it is essential for the achievement of sustainable development. The full participation and partnership of both women and men is required in productive and reproductive life, including shared responsibilities for the care and nurturing of children and maintenance of the household. In all parts of the world, women are facing threats to their lives, health and well-being as a result of being overburdened with work and of their lack of power and influence.

In most regions of the world, women receive less formal education than men, and at the same time, women’s knowledge, abilities and coping mechanisms often go unrecognized. The power relations that impede women’s attainment of healthy and fulfilling lives operate at many levels of society, from the most personal to the highly public.

Education is one of the most important means of empowering women with the knowledge, skills and self-confidence necessary to participate fully in the development process. More than 40 years ago, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights asserted that “everyone has the right to education”. But despite notable efforts by countries around the globe that have appreciably expanded access to basic education, there are approximately 960 million illiterate adults in the world, of who two-thirds are women. More than one-third of the world’s adults, most of them women, have no access to printed knowledge, to new skills or to technologies that would improve the quality of their lives and help them shape and adapt to social and economic change.

Countries should act to establish mechanisms for women’s equal participation and equitable representation at all levels of the political process and public life in each community and society and enabling women to articulate their concerns and needs. Government and organizations should try eliminating all practices that discriminate against women; assisting women to establish and realize their rights, including those that relate to reproductive and sexual health. Adopting appropriate measures to improve women’s ability to earn income beyond traditional occupations, achieve economic self-reliance, and ensure women’s equal access to the labor market and social security systems.

Also, violence and safety is a major threat to women in society. Domestic violence, rapes, etc are alarmingly increasing day by day. More so, because women are afraid to speak up. Similarly, the women who do the same work get paid less than their male counterparts. It is downright unfair and sexist to pay someone less for the same work because of their gender. Thus, we see how women’s empowerment is the need of the hour. We need to empower these women to speak up for themselves and never be a victim of injustice.

There have been several organizations and institutions advocating for women, promoting legal and policy reforms and gender-sensitive data collection, and supporting projects that improve women’s health and expand their choices in life. Even governments of various nations are tirelessly trying to promote education for womenfolk. These are clear indications that all the forces that conform to a society have been collectively supporting empowering women. However, many adversities are blocking the ways to attain a complete gender unbiased society.

Moreover, today there are different denotations of the term “Women Empowerment” which have led to different sects of belief. Empowerment holds different meanings to different psyches and this divergence, this comprehension of facts against fiction, this way of interpretation that people of various sects, associations and understanding is making the basic understanding of “women empowerment” more complex. However, it is important for every woman to remember that they must acquire empowerment themselves rather than have it given to them by an external party and women should believe in having the capability to make important decisions in their lives while also being able to act on them.

Empowerment and disempowerment are relative; therefore, empowerment is a process, not a product. There has been immense progress to uplift women financially, politically and socially, but it is still an open-ended process. In the light of many ongoing, a clear vision emerges, a vision of the empowerment of each deserving one. Even though a new age woman is far more empowered but her progress skids to a halt when cases of violence or any unprecedented regressive evil emerges. So, when one evaluates whether women empowerment is a myth or reality, it is not that easy as women empowerment at times seems to be an illusion that has been made into reality by some but remains uncharted territory to many. We, as a society, need to applaud every effort made so far to bring to parity the gender debate and need to understand why this battle is not overrated and is completely important to be justified. Empowering a woman today will lead to a progressive society for tomorrow and this silver lining should be our motivation in analyzing any gender equa

lity discussion.