What is women empowerment?

The topic of Women empowerment has been circulating a while and is discussed in all social and professional gatherings. However, it has been mostly discussed and emphasized in western countries, where the discussions are whether about empowering women to achieve gender equality or in the context of issues regarding economic empowerment, participant and education. But why has this topic not been quite discussed in countries like Afghanistan? Although there are movements and institutions promoting women’s rights and equality in the country, women empowerment does not seem to have made its mark.

What I believe is that it may have to do with the fact that there is no definition of empowerment in the languages spoken in Afghanistan. The lack of literal knowledge of empowerment may be the cause of not understanding the meaning of women empowerment and therefore missing out on acknowledging the term. Why is it though important to talk about women empowerment? Although women’s rights is, of course, the core element of achieving equality on a higher level, women empowerment is just as important because empowering women means that we are emphasizing the importance of gaining equality on an individual level. What does an individual level mean? Individual-level means when we, not only women but also men motivate and encourage the women we have in our surroundings by supporting and respecting their decisions and their lifestyle choices.

Today women are leading change, they are more confident than they have ever been before and that is why it is crucial that we start to understand the power of supporting women on an individual level so that we are able to work towards successfully implementing women’s rights on a higher level.