STUDY ON VARIOUS COMPONENTS OF WOMEN EMPOWERMENT

Women Empowerment refers to increasing the spiritual, political, social or economic strength of Women. It often involves the empowered developing confidence in their own capacities. Empowerment is probably the totality of the following or similar capabilities: Having decision-making power of their own Having access to information and resources for taking proper decision Having a range of options from which you can make choices (not just yes/no, either/or.) Ability to exercise assertiveness in collective decision making Having positive thinking on the ability to make change Ability to learn skills for improving one's personal or group power. Ability to change others‘ perceptions by democratic means. Involving in the growth process and changes that is never ending and self-initiated Increasing one's positive self-image and overcoming stigma Women in India now participate in all activities such as education, politics, media, art and culture, service sectors, science and technology, etc. The Constitution of India guarantees to all Indian women equality (Article 14), no discrimination by the State (Article 15(1)), equality of opportunity (Article 16), and equal pay for equal work (Article 39(d)). In addition, it allows special provisions to be made by the State in favour of women and children (Article 15(3)), renounces practices derogatory to the dignity of women (Article 51(A) (e)), and also allows for provisions to be made by the State for securing just and humane conditions of work and for maternity relief. (Article 42). The feminist activism in India picked up momentum during later 1970s. One of the first national level issues that brought the women's groups together was the Mathura rape case. The acquittal of policemen accused of raping a young girl Mathura in a police station, led to a wide-scale protests in 1979–1980. The protests were widely covered in the national media, and forced the Government to amend the Evidence Act, the Criminal Procedure Code and the Indian Penal Code and introduce the category of custodial rape. Female activists united over issues such as female infanticide, gender bias, women health, and female literacy. Since alcoholism is often associated with violence against women in India, many women groups launched anti-liquor campaigns in Andhra Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, Orissa, Madhya Pradesh and other states. Many Indian Muslim women have questioned the fundamental leaders' interpretation of women's rights under the Shariat law and have criticized the triple talaq system. In 1990s, grants from foreign donor agencies enabled the formation of new women-oriented NGOs. Self-help groups and NGOs such as Self Employed Women's Association (SEWA) have played a major role in women's rights in India. Many women have emerged asleaders of local movements. For eg., Medha Patkar of the Narmada Bachao Andolan. The Government of India declared 2001 as the Year of Women's Empowerment (Swashakti). The National Policy for the Empowerment of Women came was passed in 2001. Women constitute more than 50% of the population, undertake most of the work (two thirds) but only receive one tenth of the total income rather than men. The working hours of women are longer than that of men, often 12-16 hours per day. In addition to their domestic responsibilities in child care, women have to be responsible for housework, such as fetching firewood, water and cooking and even hard work as ploughing and raking, planting, transplanting and harvesting. Women have to suffer from continuing under nutrition and two thirds of them are anemic. Rural women lack sex education and have poor health due to frequent pregnancies. The illiterate women especially lack of information on balanced diet, family planning, house cleaning and other information to improve their health and the quality of life. They have lower status and low paid occupations, lower economic positions so they are less conscious and lack self-confidence. They have a few books and a little time to read so they can not appreciate the benefits of reading and have no motivation for reading. The term ―empowerment‖ has become one of the most widely used development terms. Women‘s groups, non-governmental development organizations, activists, politicians, governments and international agencies refer to empowerment as one of their goals. Yet it is one of the least understood in terms of how it is to be measured or observed. It is used precisely because this word has now been one of the fashionable concepts to include in policies/programmes/projects that there is a need to clarify and come up with tentative definitions. India has additionally validated assorted general conventions as well as tellurian rights instruments committing to secure next to rights of women. The Constitution not usually grants equivalence to women, though additionally empowers a State to adopt measures of certain taste in foster of women. Women‘s empowerment is an vicious bulletin in a expansion efforts. There has been poignant shift in proceed of a district administration department towards a expansion of women, generally a bad & a illiterate. When you sight a woman, you assistance a complete family, a encampment as well as a nation. The tide paper focuses upon women‘s empowerment in a made during home sphere—that is, their freedom from carry out by alternative family members as well as capability to outcome preferred outcomes inside of a residence hold. Empowerment is a multi-faceted, multi-dimensional as well as multi-layered concept. Women‘s empowerment is a routine in which women benefit larger share of carry out over resources – material, tellurian as well as egghead similar to knowledge, information, ideas as well as monetary resources similar to income – as well as entrance to income as well as carry out over decision making in a home, community, multitude as well as nation, as well as to benefit `power‘. According to a Country Report of Government of India, ―Empowerment equates to relocating from upon all sides of enforced powerlessness to a single of power‖. According to the UN definition, women‘s empowerment has five components: Women‘s sense of self-worth . Their right to have and to determine choices . Their right to have access to opportunities and resources . Their right to have the power to control their own lives, both within and outside the home . Their ability to influence the direction of social change to create a more just social and economic order, nationally and internationally In every age women played their important role for the progress of the society and due to which they got their importance in the history. It is a fact that behind each successful man there is a woman. All around the world women have played key roles in various movements. For eg: Susan Brownell Anthony (February 15, 1820 – March 13, 1906) was a prominent American civil rights leader who played a pivotal role in the 19th century women's rights movement to introduce women's suffrage into the United States. She was co-founder of the first Women's Temperance Movement with Elizabeth Cady Stanton as President. She also co-founded the women's rights journal, The Revolution. She traveled the United States and Europe, and averaged 75 to 100 speeches per year. She was one of the important advocates in leading the way for women's rights to be acknowledged and instituted in the American government. Elizabeth Cady Stanton (November 12, 1815 – October 26, 1902) was an American social activist, abolitionist, and leading figure of the early woman's movement. Her Declaration of Sentiments, presented at the first women's rights convention held in 1848 in Seneca Falls, New York, is often credited with initiating the first organized woman's rights and woman's suffrage movements in the United States. Before Stanton narrowed her political focus almost exclusively to women's rights, she had been an active abolitionist together with her husband, Henry Brewster Stanton and cousin, Gerrit Smith. Unlike many of those involved in the woman's rights movement, Stanton addressed various issues pertaining to women beyond voting rights. Her concerns included women's parental and custody rights, property rights, employment and income rights, divorce laws, the economic health of the family, and birth control. She was also an outspoken supporter of the 19th-century temperance movement. After the American Civil War, Stanton's commitment to female suffrage caused a schism in the woman's rights movement when she, together with Susan B. Anthony, declined to support passage of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. She opposed giving added legal protection and voting rights to African American men while women, black and white, were denied those same rights. Her position on this issue, together with her thoughts on organized Christianity and women's issues beyond voting rights, led to the formation of two separate women's rights organizations that were finally rejoined, with Stanton as president of the joint organization, approximately 20 years later. Elizabeth Dilling Stokes (April 19, 1894 – May 26, 1966) was an American anti-communist and later antisemitic social activist, as well as an anti-war campaigner and writer in the 1930s and 1940s, She stood trial for sedition in what is now called the Great Sedition Trial of 1944. The author of four political books, Dilling claimed that Marxism and "Jewry" were synonymous. She believed that Francisco Franco was a brave Christian. She claimed many prominent figures were Communist sympathizers, including Eleanor Roosevelt, Mahatma Gandhi, Franz Boas and Sigmund Freud. In modern age, some Indian women played important roles, for eg. Jhansi ki Rani Lakshmibai, Sarojini Naidu, Kasturba Gandhi, Indira Gandhi and so on. It is a firm belief that without women participation society cannot progress. History itself proves that in the societies where women get their due respect and responsibilities, have remarkable achievements. Indian society should also provide them their due share. Without women participation, our social, religious, political progress will remain incomplete. Women should get their constitutional rights and respect. In Indian mythology there is a specific word for women‘s respect-―Jannani‖, means the one who gives birth.