Friday, 9 March 2012

Blogging for Nigeria! The End: Empower? Why not?


To empower, implies, to inculcate a sense of power, a sense of independence and a sense of confidence consequent to the endowed ability of honing the inherent proclivity to stand on one’s own feet.
There is plenty of talk, yes, that women are empowered enough. “We have women in politics.” “Women in Movies!” “Women in Medicine!” “Women in sports.... Women in Space, Even!” But that’s not enough, isn’t it? While these wonderfully enterprising and inspirational women are out there blazing trails, one cannot ignore the plight of several women who still struggle on a day-to-day basis, and something as simple as empowerment eludes them.

Women have an immense and incomparable potential to contribute to economic growth, prosperity and societal evolution. Gender-based violence of any kind, affects women globally, and does not just destroy lives, but actually, winds up breaking the very backbone of society, depriving the world of the talent it urgently needs. Women are, doubtless, agents of change. The innate penchant for being able to manage a household within the confines of a shoestring budget, whipping up a meal despite being desperately in demand from all quarters of a household, keeping a whole house together- women have the ability to do all of this and more. Women can, and are, the champions of a successful society, and the forerunners for global order and peace. Society cannot successfully tackle the challenges that confront it on every front- be it the environment, security, economics, development, and more, if women are not engaged at every level of society.

So why is empowerment the means to do it? In sum, circumscribing women’s participation and leaving a large part of the potential they possess, insultingly untapped, a lot of setbacks come from actually keeping women from participation on equal footing. Women can, and do make a difference. Give them a chance. 

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