Role of Feminizing Men for Women empowerment, the case of Ethiopia

Abstract

Globally many policies are designed for women empowerment realizing its utmost significance to development. Though these governmental efforts are bringing change, still women are not up to the level that they deserve to be empowered from different dimensions. Men’s are powerful drivers of the globe. Due to this there  has  been  an  increasing  emphasis  internationally,  in  policy  and  in  practice, on  engaging men to promote and achieve gender equality. It is evidenced that without the empowerment on the part of boys and men to realize women’s importance and their contribution in various spheres of life, true empowerment for women is not possible in our society. Therefore the role of men's attitudes and behaviors should not be ignored in the debate and the design of gender related policies. This study aims at assessing the rational for involvement of men in women empowerment the case of Ethiopia. From the review it is evidenced that, men play significant role for women empowerment and any policy that fails to include men in gender related policies is failed to achieve women empowerment. Policies designed to make women economically independent is going to be a cause for gender based violence since men fear women independence. women  who contested elections on their own initiatives faced more problems within and outside the family in comparison to women who contested elections on the initiative of their husbands or family members.