Over the last three decades, there has been an increasing realisation of the
need for empowering women. It is believed that this can be done by
taking measures to increase social, economic and political equity
and broader access to the fundamental rights. The ultimate objective is to reach
that stage of social development at which rights, responsibilities and opportunities
of the individuals are determined irrespective of their
sex. This, in turn, calls for increased political empowerment of women whereby the women can exercise
their powers more effectively and profitably for their own development in
particular, and for the development of the society as a whole. The global concern for
women's participation, at least in words, was noticed in 1975 when the United
Nations declared the decade as the women development decade and adopted
some resolutions for it. However, the declaration was followed by the
Nairobi Conference, 1985 which called on the participating countries to take steps
for ensuring women's participation in politics through reservation of 35% seats in
all elections. The idea of `gender mainstreaming' which means application of
gender perspectives to all legal and social norms and standards, to all policy
development, research, planning, advocacy, development, implementation and monitoring
was elaborated in the Beijing World Conference on Women (1995). It came as a
mandate for all the member states. The series of initiatives over the last few decades
have strengthened the operational dimension of the concept. One of the goals in
the UN Millennium Project is promotion of gender equality and empowerment
of women. As a result of a wide range of initiatives undertaken following the
`women development decade', gender issue has gained considerable currency in the
current discourse on development and empowerment.
Since women constitute nearly half of the human society, their
empowerment and participation in every sphere of decision making is very important. On
the political front, they play a dual role of voters and political representatives.
In fact, political participation of women leads to an enhancement of
their participation in public life. Several empirical micro-level and macro-level
studies have been conducted in recent times to measure the status of political
participation of women world over, the findings of which are rather disheartening. The
UN Development Report has developed Gender Empowerment Measure to assess
the status of women empowerment on a global frame. These reports do not
indicate that things are fast changing for the better. |
