Empowering Women?

This morning we met with the Dalit Women’s Federation; more specifically, the Sanghra self-help group. Sanghra is an intiative of Visthar and is a honeycomb women’s group, stressing the importance of savings and unity. The women were absolutely wonderful, but it was slightly frustrating on several fronts:

1) my students were tired. And since they were tired, they were having difficulty engaging in conversation and I found myself asking most of the questions. Along these same lines, it was our last day and we had spoken with dalit women about the same issues all week long…I think the topic was becoming somewhat exhausted.

2) one of Visthar’s male staff was sitting in our circle, and because of his presence the women were sometimes hesitant to answer and he would answer for them, telling us how life was for them rather than letting us hear their voice and

3) They told us about a new initiative that Visthar has, the Child Rights Initiative and Adcovacy Program and that this and all other Visthar projects in the communities will be initiated by the women’s federation. I got excited about this, thinking it was a tangible effect of the self-help groups, proof of empowerment and giving the women courage to take initiative and offer their leadership for something. Intrigued, I asked, “Is this leadership something that you as women offered or that Visthar decided that you would do?” They looked at each other, Nazar looked at them and at me, the Visthar staff walked away with his phone and they said, “Visthar decided.” Now, I am not saying that it is a bad thing that this is a responsibility that Visthar is giving the women; in fact, it is a wonderful opportunity that women of this caste and circumstance would never otherwise have. However, if they are seeking to use this as a demonstration of women’s empowerment, I think they are lacking. Because what I have learned over and over is that you cannot empower somebody. They must empower themselves. Giving them this opportunity is providing them with tools to be empowered, but it isn’t until we see the women having ideas, offering their leadership, and making change on their own that empowerment will truly occur.