Contextualizing women’s empowerment frameworks with an emphasis on social support: a study in rural, South India

ABSTRACT

This paper presents a theoretical framework of women’s empowerment developed from an intervention in South India. The framework is unique in that, in addition to common empowerment indicators, it emphasizes the relational aspect of empowerment including the role of men, family, and gendered power structures—and the flexibility of these to change. This is especially pertinent to India, which has struggled to meet global targets for indicators of improved gender equality. The mixed-methods study found evidence that women who felt they had more support from their husbands and family also had more success in the project, and that family support was an overall indicator for empowerment. This paper’s contribution is in reframing women’s empowerment to better represent the often overlooked structural factors that could intrinsically resist or counter the establishment of new states of social equality and stability, specifically the integral role of men and the wider family in the women’s empowerment process.

KEYWORDS:

• Women’s empowerment
• family support
• rural development
• engaging men
• rural India

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to acknowledge Dr. S. Strauss,Dr. L. Maciuika, and K. Gressel for their support and contributions, and have the utmost gratitude for the AMMACHI Labs teams who successfully implemented the WE Project. Finally, to our university chancellor for her guidance and inspiration.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 All of the tools were approved by the research ethics committee at the host institution and validated prior to the project. Informed consent was obtained from all participants.

2 The variables listed here from the survey data follow a normal distribution, and therefore parametric tests were conducted. The Change in Family Support variable is binary, while the other variables discussed here are either numeric or categorical. Therefore, depending on the particular combination of variables being examined for association, a t-test or chi-square (respectively) was performed, and p values correspond to the associated T-test of difference, Pearson’s test of correlation coefficient, or chi-square test of independence.

Additional information

Funding

However the project from which data was used in this article was supported by the United Nations Democracy Fund [grant number UDF-IND-10-383].

Notes on contributors

Christopher Coley

Christopher Coley, PhD Scholar at the Amrita University Center for Women’s Empowerment and Gender Equality, with background in Philosophy and Environmental Ethics (Colorado State University). American by birth, Christopher has been living and working in India since 2011, contributing to humanitarian research in Rural India. His research focus area is in sustainable development, critical masculinity studies, and implementation sciences.

Srividya Sheshadri

Srividya Sheshadri, PhD Scholar at the Amrita University Center for Women’s Empowerment and Gender Equality, and certified Social Worker (Columbia University). American by birth, Srividya has been living and working in India since 2009, contributing to humanitarian research in Rural India. Her research focus area is in sustainable development, TVET and adult education, and implementation sciences.

Sriram Devanathan

Sriram Devanathan, Faculty at the Center for Women’s Empowerment and Gender Equality and Principal of Amrita School of Engineering, Bengaluru Campus. He was formerly the Head of Center for Excellence in Advanced Materials and Green in the Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science. Dr. Devanathan has a Certificate of Six Sigma Black Belt Training from 3M, and has led impact assessment efforts for several humanitarian programs conducted by Amrita.

Rao R. Bhavani

Rao R. Bhavani, Director AMMACHI Labs and Center for Women’s empowerment and Gender Equality at Amrita University, and UNESCO Chairholder in Gender Equality for India. Dr. Rao heads an academic center dedicated to participatory action research, education and implementation that focuses on the mapping of vulnerabilities of women in underserved communities. https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=9VjpIhQAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao