Women Empowerment - Myths and Realities in India

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The status of Indian women in ancient as well as the modern era is a much debated topic amongst scholars, academicians and policy makers. In most feminist writings gender equality is quite often interpreted as a right to sameness-identical rights, duties and behavior. However, men and women are not substitutes for each other. In fact they should work together in the spirit of mutual cooperation, complementarily and harmony rather than competition. The seed of this book was thus born from the thought that superimposing western conceptions of women empowerment on the Indian situation might result in a distortion of perspective.

It has often been emphasized by indigenous thinkers that it is important to relocate ourselves in our own rich intellectual tradition. This does not mean that we will negate other traditions or streams of contemporary thought. However, it is always best to turn to our own roots in order to be able to understand the specificities of women's status in India. Further, Indian society has never been static or stagnant- rather it has absorbed in itself all that is best from other cultures.

There is no consensus on conceptualization of the term empowerment even in the west because of the variations in terminology used to encompass it. In fact women empowerment is multidimensional in nature and it is essentially a process, not an event. United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) emphasizes five important dimensions of female empowerment and opportunity namely, economic participation, economic opportunity, political empowerment, educational attainment and health and well being. The status of women can never be studied or assessed in isolation. It must be realized that there is a complex structure of forces-local, national and global which impacts the status of women.

**Contents and Sample Pages**