What Is Female Empowerment? | The Different Types Of Women’s Empowerment

Are you curious about what female empowerment actually is? Or perhaps you wanna learn about the different types of women’s empowerment?

Well, you’re in the right place!

In this article, you’ll learn exactly what female empowerment is, along with a tad of its history. We’ll also delve into some of the key factors that affect female empowerment, along with the different types of empowerment too.

What Is Female Empowerment?

Female empowerment is the support of women through the advancement of equity. Women’s empowerment can include helping to build equity for women in society, healthcare, education, employment, business, financial wealth, government policy, religion, and a variety of other areas too.

Female empowerment is the active support of women in the home, in society, and at work. This can cover helping to improve women’s self-perception of worth, supporting their individual choices, and supporting the rights of women to impact social change for not only themselves but also others.

In the west, the history of women’s empowerment is generally associated with pivotal movements towards women’s rights, along with changing societal values, beliefs, attitudes, and behaviour towards women.¹

Three Key Periods To Date In Women’s Empowerment

There are three rather key periods to note in the history of female empowerment…

1. The 19th and 20th centuries—in which women’s suffrage in the middle of the 19th century played a central role.
2. The sexual revolution—during which there was a focus on the role of women in society, and the liberation of sexual perception and behaviour.
3. The beginning of the 1990s—when feminism started becoming more mainstream and accepted.

As a woman, it’s important to take note of the history and development of women’s rights, because they can often unconsciously affect your thoughts, feelings, and behaviours without you even realising…

Women are mentally, emotionally, and physically primed by societal institutions—from the education system, cultural media norms, the workplace, family, religious and community values, to legal policy, health care and government regulation.

Understanding the myriad of dynamics that affect you as a woman, often without your consent, is a vital component of liberating yourself through awareness and mindful action. Women’s empowerment can become a valuable key in helping you to unlock your innate power, confidence, and Divine inner wisdom…

If you’re interested in learning more about sexual awakening for women, then check out the tips in my blog article here. Or you can learn how to build your sexual self-confidence with my blog article here.

What Is Intersectional Feminism?

Intersectional feminism is a framework that seeks to educate on the variety of factors that can play key roles in the disempowerment of women, including race. Intersectional feminism highlights the vast disparities in the privileges of different types of women. And furthermore, seeks to support all women irrespective of age, race, ethnicity, sexuality, status, social class, or religion.

Mainstream traditional feminism focuses on amplifying women’s voices, supporting their rights and choices, and gender equality. But intersectional feminism seeks to remind us that women are not a monolith, and are unfortunately treated differently depending on a range of factors, including race.

The ‘mainstream’ feminist movement has been criticized for largely focusing on the rights of white women, as opposed to women from all races, backgrounds, social classes, and ethnicities. Intersectional feminism largely rose due to the observation of white supremacy within mainstream feminism.

Intersectional feminism advocates for the rights of all women irrespective of race, ethnicity, age, religion, sexuality, or social class—because intersectional feminism recognises that we must be empowering women as a united whole.

“I am not free while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are very different from my own”—Audre Lorde

What Are The Three Essential Factors For Empowerment?

The three essential factors of women’s empowerment are considered to be; learning, labour, and leadership.

Christine Lagarde, who is a French lawyer and politician, gave a speech for the International Monetary Fund in 2014 in which she laid out the 3 L’s of women’s empowerment, and she also highlighted the deep-rooted gender inequality hiding in plain sight of mainstream societal institutions.²

The 3 L’s of women’s empowerment are vital aspects that require support in order for women to gain equity…

1. Learning

Education is regarded as a central pillar of female empowerment because knowledge is power. Education and equal education opportunities are of key importance to increasing self-esteem and opportunities for women.

Pamela Jakiela and Susannah Hares for the Center for Global Development found that “women are more educated today than at any point in history, but are still not as educated as men”.³

2. Labour

Labour focuses on the promotion of equal opportunities in the workplace and economy for women, along with allocating positions of power to women.

Equity in the labour force ensures that women can harness their talents and skills within the world—for the benefit of themselves and others. 

It seeks to abolish gender gaps that leave women unseen, undervalued, underpaid, or without access. Especially within economic institutions and societal sectors such as policy regulation, health care, education and the workplace.

The United States Census Bureau found that amongst those who are educated—women make on average 25% less than men.⁴ In support of women in the labour force, Christine Lagarde and Keshab Chandra Mandal have noted the vast benefits of including women within the economy, and its promising ability to help end poverty.⁵

3. Leadership

Leadership promotes the elevation of women in positions of power. In essence, it means that we need to make space for women at the table.

This includes providing access to positions of power to women across all sectors and institutions within society. We need to ensure that women are included in the conversation, especially wherever policies are being made.

Christine Lagarde notes that only one-fifth of seats in parliament are held by women globally and that less than 10% of countries worldwide are led by females.

“What holds women back is not competence, which they usually have; but confidence, which they often lack. While underqualified and underprepared men leap forward, overqualified and overprepared women hide in the shadows, doubting their abilities, holding themselves to an impossible standard of perfection”—Christine Lagarde

What Are The Five Types Of Empowerment?

Keshab Chandra Mandal classes women’s empowerment into five different types; social, educational, economic, political and psychological.⁵

Mandal states that “women are the victims of social, political, religious, and economic subordination and deprivation”. As a society, we need to assist the different types of empowerment in order for women to be fully supported in equity.

1. Social Empowerment 

Social empowerment seeks to strengthen the social relations of women, along with their position within social structures.

2. Educational Empowerment

Educational empowerment seeks to improve the education of all women, especially girls and young women. Women’s independence relies on quality education which provides self-awareness, self-confidence, self-esteem and self-sufficiency.

3. Economic Empowerment 

Women’s economic empowerment promotes the financial stability of women around the world. Providing economic equality to women leads to self-sufficiency. And economic empowerment includes the equal distribution and ownership of resources.

Economic empowerment can include the support of women entrepreneurs to ensure that women are encouraged and supported in their own economic development.

4. Political Empowerment 

Political empowerment advocates for women holding positions of power and the political participation of women. It seeks to ensure that we are making space for women where it matters most, and where important decisions are being made that affect women and their families.

Ensuring that women have access to positions of power ensures that women are considered in the development and improvements of human rights and women’s rights legislation.

5. Psychological Empowerment 

Psychological empowerment seeks to support women mentally so that they can flourish and thrive. This covers dismantling societal and patriarchal conditioning, taboos, beliefs and obligations that do not serve them. 

Most recently gender norms have been under scrutiny, due to their encouragement of gender discrimination. Dismantling unhelpful traditions is an integral process in supporting modern-day individual choices and building the self-esteem of all women.

If you’re interested in more top tips on building female empowerment, then check out my blog article here.

Conclusion

Female empowerment is a beautiful movement that seeks to raise the self-esteem of women worldwide through opportunities, education, and change.

In what ways do you think we can help to improve women’s empowerment? Let me know in the comments!