According to the Cambridge Dictionary, empowerment is “the process of gaining freedom and power to do what you want or to control what happens to you”. Empowerment can be defined according to two factors:
Who gains power from this process
How the target gains power
If we focus on the first dimension, we see that there can be several target groups of empowerment: women, youth, people with disabilities, and so on. If we focus on the second point, instead, we see that empowerment can happen on many levels: it can be socio-economic, political, or even happen on family level. Now, for instance, the empowerment of men in the family is becoming more and more relevant to build a more gender-equal society.
From my point of view, a third dimension should be added to this definition: Which is the final goal? Indeed, empowerment is just a means to an end, which is to bring forward a permanent change in society. Nevertheless, establishing the purpose of empowerment is often a far more significant challenge than empowering target groups: this is because giving visibility to the instances of a group nowadays, especially with the use of social media, is often easier than incorporating them into society of tomorrow since this requires an inclusive approach.
Let’s take for example gender equality: the instances in this sense are often heard now in Western democracies, but they still struggle to be fully included in the policymaking process. Policy areas such as security studies or foreign policy are still very much lacking a gender perspective - though there are some notable exceptions, such as Women in International Security (WIIS) and Margot Wallström’s feminist foreign policy. Without inclusion, hence, without adequate addition of the gender perspective in every single area of the policymaking process, there will be no permanent change in society in this sense.
Moreover, such change to be permanent needs not only to be holistic but also to be harmonious. This means that there can be no inclusion of women or any other group if the exclusion of another group occurs as a result: for instance, there can be no real inclusion of women in society if men’s needs are overlooked. This might sound counterintuitive, but to build a more equal society does not mean simply advancing women’s role in the economy and politics, but doing it with the support and the involvement of men so that none is left behind.
For this reason, it is both tricky and ineffective to propose gender equality policies that focus purely on women’s socio-economic empowerment, rather than on achieving full equality between the genders. Such an approach is ineffective because it does not consider the positive impact that gender equality could have on men: in fact, gender equality also means allowing men more flexible working times and leaves, as well as removing the stigma surrounding male physical and mental health, which would indirectly help women in focusing more on their careers.
It is pivotal if we want to create long-lasting change in any area of civil rights, from women’s rights to the rights of people with health conditions, not only to empower the target group but also to include the rest of society in such change so that it can become permanent. A society that excludes, no matter who is excluded, will always be based on fragile ground.
Love,
Elena
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