The Empowerment of Women
A seminar on "The Empowerment of
Women" was held on March 28, 2013 at the American Center in Ho Chi Minh
City (HCMC). The guest speaker was Dr. Kathleen Peoples, an official from the
U.S. Consulate General in HCMC. Her presentation mainly highlighted the steps
that were taken to empower American women; she also briefly discussed the steps
that can be taken to empower Vietnamese women.
Before her presentation, Dr. Peoples asked
the audience what “empowerment” is in their opinion. Several young people
replied that empowerment gives power to individuals or that individuals have
the right to make choices, to think critically, creatively, independently and
assertively, or that individuals are able to express their ideas and convince
others of their views.
History of the empowerment of
American women
After discussing her question with the
audience, Dr. Kathleen Peoples focused on presenting the steps that were taken
to empower American women. It is a very long story that eventually led to women
becoming empowered in the United States and that gained their right to vote
(Women’s suffrage). Like other places in the world, women’s empowerment did not
happen naturally. To gain empowerment required a large amount of effort, time,
and change regarding socioeconomic and political aspects in order to achieve
the level of power that American women have today.
Historically, the women’s right to vote was
first seriously proposed in the United States in July, 1848 at the Seneca Falls
Woman’s Rights Convention organized by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia
Mott. On June 4, 1919 the United States Senate endorsed an Amendment to the
Constitution by a vote of 56 to 25 and then sent the amendment on to the states
for ratification. In 1920, the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States
Constitution became law giving women the right to vote throughout the nation.
Once women received the right to vote, they began running for and were elected
to public office. They gained positions such as school board members, county
clerks, state legislators, judges, and eventually the right to own property in
their role as a wife. In every presidential election since 1980, the percentage
of women voters outnumbered the percentage of men voters in all elections. For example,
in the 2012 election the percent of black women voters was greater than that of
all other groups. It is obvious that to win an election, the candidates must
attract female voters and listen to their concerns. The study also showed that
female voters often vote for candidates who are concerned about social programs
and domestic spending. In contrast, male voters often select candidates that
are concerned about defense spending.
In terms of employment before the 19th
century women were mostly limited to housework and factory work. Women were not
allowed to be lawyers, doctors, scientists … and other professions, except for
writing or teaching. When World War II (WW II) happened, men went to war while
women were called to work to replace the men’s positions. During that time
women entered the work force in huge numbers and a number of women also joined
the armed forces such as the navy and the air force. However, stateside and in
every theater of the war they held non-combatant jobs such as cooks, secretaries,
or accountants. Other women worked in factories assembling machines, making
clothing, and packing equipment. During WW II, women demonstrated their ability
to perform any job that men could; yet the employment of women was only
encouraged as long as the war was on. Once the war was over, federal and
civilian policies encouraged women to stay at home to do the housework and
relinquish their work back to men. However, many women had to continue working
long hours in factories for low wages and almost always they received less
money for the same jobs as the men did. It is worth noting that after WW II the
U.S. economy thrived. Its agricultural growth was greater than all that of
England, France, Germany, Italy and Japan combined, while industrial growth
accounted for over 50% of the total world economic output. Many women were
pleased to be ideal wives who stayed home to clean, cook, and take care of
children. Television, books and newspapers also strengthened this viewpoint by
continuously describing the ideal woman as one who would be happy with modern
appliances and waiting for her husband to come home late from work.
In terms of education, during this phase
there was not much concern for educating girls; in school girls received much
less support. Research has shown that at that time the percentage of girls in
primary school was high, however, as they moved up to the secondary level the
percentage decreased significantly because the sole desire of the teachers,
parents, and the majority of female students was that girls marry rich men
instead of having a career.
Major changes that occurred in
America after the 1950s
During the 1950s many American women,
especially white middle-class intellectuals, were not happy with the ideal
housewife role. They identified and developed a self-consciousness about life
circumstances, including the dependence on men and the inequality they faced in
employment, education, health care, reproductive rights and the inequality in
marriage laws. Betty Friedan authored the book “The Feminine Mystique”
published in 1963 that spurred the US Women’s rights movement. The book
startled readers and at the same time it sparked active feminists to change the
world's view on women; apparently the problem is still "hot" in our
present modern society.
Friedan wrote about the issue of middle-class
white women who experienced a sense of emptiness and a lack of meaningfulness
in life. They argued that women need to be proactive, have a higher sense of
dignity, self-determination and rights for their own lives instead of only
being in supportive roles for men. This was a bold proposal that required
everyone to listen; however, the proposal was strongly opposed by many, even
women, because they were afraid of large changes that may destabilize families
and society.
In the first chapter of the book the authors
described “The Problem That Has No Name” as follows [1]: “The problem lay buried and unspoken
for many years in the minds of American women. It was a strange stirring, a
sense of dissatisfaction, a yearning that women suffered in the middle of the
twentieth century in the United States. Each suburban housewife struggled with
it alone. As she made the beds, shopped for groceries, matched slipcover
material, ate peanut butter sandwiches with her children, chauffeured Cub
Scouts and Brownies, lay beside her husband at night, she was afraid to ask the
silent question even of herself — Is this all?”
The mystique is nothing mystical. It is the
notion that a woman's life will be complete when she devotes her life to being
a housewife and a mother and pleases her husband. That idea was held back by
many generations of women while they were cleaning house, cooking, taking care
of children, and being satisfied with the modern tools in the kitchen. Friedan
urged women, “Let's go to work and stop seeing universities as love markets.”
Betty Friedan is the Founder of the National
Organization for Women (NOW), the National Women’s Caucus, and the National
Abortion Rights Action League. The establishment of NOW was a response to the
indifference of the government to the needs of women. On August, 1970, NOW
organized the largest demonstration in 50 years when American women stood up
for the Women's Suffrage Movement. Ms Friedan was the first president of NOW which
presently has members in all 50 states, however, the beginning of all this was
in her apartment.
·
In 1963, President Kennedy formed the President’s Commission on
the Status of Women. The Commission performed a survey proving that women are
discriminated against in the workplace. Therefore, the Commission recommended
fair hiring practices, paid maternity leave and affordable child care. At the
same time, the federal government enacted the following laws to ensure equal
rights for women:
·
1963 - The Equal Pay Act. In the 19th century and the 20th
century women were paid lower wages for the same job,. At that time, women
received only 58 cents for every dollar earned by a man.
·
1964 - Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. This act made
discrimination in employment based on sex, race, color, religion, or national
origin illegal. President Johnson signed a policy that also required women and
ethnic minorities to have the right to study and work as did white men; for
example, women and minorities could work in schools, sign contracts, and do
business.
·
1967 - Affirmative Action for women, minorities and persons with
disabilities. For example, initiate university priorities for students in
remote areas, or for a company to hire a certain number of black people, or
people with disabilities.
·
1968 - Gender-neutral want ads. All ads must describe the
position, not the gender and insure equal pay and be without any limitations
(e.g., construction).
·
1970 - Strengthened Equal Pay Act. United States courts
ruled that jobs should be substantially the same but not identical between men
and women, i.e., “same work, same pay”. These rulings have continuously been
violated. While federal and state law prohibits paying different wages based on
gender, it has always been a precedent to pay women less than men in America.
However, unions and women's rights organizations have claimed that this simply
reflects overt discrimination.
·
1972 - Title IX Guaranteed full participation for women in all
programs receiving federal funds, including education and sports [3].
·
1973 - Roe v. Wade Legalized abortion in the whole country.
·
1978 - Pregnancy Discrimination Act. The Pregnancy
Discrimination Act of 1978 is an amendment to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act
of 1964. Women cannot be fired or denied a job or promotion because she is or
might become pregnant.
·
1985 - EMILY List (Early Money Is Like Yeast). EMILY's
List is the nation’s largest resource for women in politics. EMILY was found in
1985 and has worked to elect 100 pro-choice Democratic women to the House, 19
to the Senate, 10 governors, and over five hundred women to state and local
office. With more than 2 million members, it is one of the largest political
action committees (PAC) in the United States [4].
·
2010 - The number of women with bachelor degrees surpassed that
of men in the U.S.
In addition, American women of today have the
right to make their own decisions. For example, they decide to be single or
married, decide to work at home or work away from home, and decide to be a
single mom by choice, married with children, or married without children.
According to Dr. Kathleen Peoples, women in
America still face many problems such as domestic violence, the glass ceiling,
and the dual role although they have made great progress in gender equality in
many other areas. Statistics show that one in four American women will
experience domestic violence in her life-time. A more complicated problem is
the glass ceiling. In the past few decades, the number of women leaders has
increased, particularly in the proportion of women in low and middle management
levels, however, the rate of women in senior leadership as CEOs or in Congress
is still not significant.
Prior to ending the seminar, the second part
of the discussion dealt with steps that must be taken to empower women.
Participants shared and discussed ongoing pressing issues such as sexual
harassment in the workplace.
The
empowerment of Vietnamese women
According to the 2013 research findings of
the Invalids and Social Affairs and the ILO Office in Viet Nam the indication
is that perceptions of sexual harassment vary within society. Sexual harassment
at the workplace is an extremely sensitive issue. For most the issue is taboo,
due to the limitations of traditional gender hierarchies. Vietnamese men and a
large number of Vietnamese women accept the fact that because of culture, women
are a legitimate and natural target for flirting men. Cases of sexual
harassment in the workplace fall into the Health and Education sectors. Men may
also be subject to sexual harassment, however, the victims of sexual harassment
are mostly women who are often in a lower position, have no power, or are
dependent on men at the workplace. Sexual harassment happens to all people,
however, the younger age 18-30 year old group, especially beautiful and
attractive women, is at a higher risk. Until now, Vietnam has not yet had a
clear definition of sexual harassment. Therefore, it is very difficult to
distinguish between the different forms of sexual harassment at workplace [2].
The next item discussed was the retirement
age adjustment, a controversial issue that has led to many arguments and
discussions in public. Several attendees stressed that they were concerned
about the unequal retirement policy because many females who have leadership
abilities, good management skills, scientific-technical-qualifications, or are
skilled workers and are forced to retire at age 55; yet there are those who
would want to retire at 55 so therefore, either way they are faced with inequality
[5]. The last point discussed was a debate on the four attributes of
traditional Vietnamese women: hard-working, being attractive, being
well-spoken, and being well-behaved. Many attendees agreed that these qualities
are not only appropriate for women but also for men in this modern era.
Discussion and Conclusions
The general concept of empowerment is a
multi-dimensional social process that helps people, especially the
disadvantaged groups, to gain more control, participate and take part in
decision-making. Empowerment is the process of promoting power (that is, the
ability to perform) at the individual level and collectively by acting on the
important issues that they identify [6].
Women’s empowerment should be considered by
the following factors (with mutual relationships):
· Building awareness of the status of women, discrimination,
rights, and opportunities to progress to gender equality. Collective
perceptions will help recognize group identity and to work as a team;
· Developing ability and skills, especially the ability to plan,
make decisions, organize and manage activities and communicate with all
stakeholders;
·
Participating and engage more with family, community, and
society;
·
Acting to bring more equality between men and women.
Finally, as the author of this article, I
wish to further clarify the concept of empowerment, particularly women’s
empowerment by providing my thoughts on the subject of empowerment in addition
to the information presented at the seminar. Empowerment has been used in many
disciplines, the onset of Social Work, Community Development, Gender and
Development, Psychology, Education, Economics, etc. Thus, depending on a
specific field, context, program, or project, the definition of this construct
can be varied.
In conclusion, empowerment is the process of
building awareness and the ability to participate, make decisions, and to
obtain more control in order to make changes in one’s life, one’s community,
one’s society, and the universe.
By Doan Thi Ngoc
References
[1] Friedan
Betty. (1963). Feminine Mystique. New York: Simon & Schuster.
[2] Nguyễn
Thị Diệu Hồng et al. (2013). Sexual harassment at the workplace in Viet Nam: An
overview of the legal framework. Retrieved from http://www.ilo.org/hanoi/Whatwedo/Publications/WCMS_206106/lang--en/index.htm
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Title_IX
[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EMILY's_List
[5] Doãn
Thi Ngọc. (2012). Proposals to revise the retirement age of female workers.
Retrieved fromhttp://gas.hoasen.edu.vn/en/gas-page/proposals-revise-retirement-age-female-workers-0
[6] Thái
Thị Ngọc Dư. (2004). Giới và Phát triển. ĐH Mở TPHCM
