Women Empowerment and Public Policy

‘There is no tool for development more effective than the empowerment of women’

(Kofi Annan)

All around the world, women are deprived of their social and economic rights. Twentieth century has witnessed a growing awareness among women regarding their desires, sexuality, self-definition, existence and destiny. Women's efforts to seek their independence and self-identity started a revolution all over the world which was termed by analysts and critics as ‘Feminism’. To change the conventional image of women constructed by the orthodox society, it is necessary to discourage the habit of defining woman as those whose nature is determined biologically and whose sole identity is to sustain human species. Although the feminists and feminist writers have been successful in achieving the legal rights for women, much has to be done at the social level. Man has born free but in the course of evolution the powerful man dominated the weak and took away their rights. In order to restore those rights several human rights movements have begun all over the world. Gender based dominations have also increased, as a result women has become an ultimate and worse victim of this culture. Though human rights movements could restore the violated rights of individual, they could not do much for the women rights. For instance, man has got voting right long back in some countries but women were kept away from it. As a result a separate movement took shape to fight for the women rights in the name of ‘women empowerment’.