Historiography of Women Empowerment in India

Abstract

Women’s Empowerment has been an issue of immense discussions and contemplation over the last few decades world-wide. Efforts have been made on a regular basis across nations to address this issue and enhance the socio-economic status of women. However, it has been observed that most of the policies and programs view empowerment in the economic sense only working in the belief that economic self-reliance empowers women. This paper addresses the conceptual and methodological issues related to women’s empowerment, the trends in women’s empowerment over the last 20 years in key areas like health, education, literacy etc. The study is based on purely from secondary sources. The study reveals that women of India are relatively disempowered and they enjoy somewhat lower status than that of men in spite of many efforts undertaken by Government. In this study we are going to discuss concept of women empowerment, Issues related to feminist history, and government policies towards improving the status of women and global trends in women empowerment.