Gender equality through Woman Empowerment
A.S.M Riad Arif writes for DOT
Woman’s Empowerment and Gender equality is one of the major concerns of MDG’s. It is an intrinsic rather than an instrumental goal. For Generations, a financially backward woman has been paying their worth with dignity. Women are disproportionately affected by poverty and discrimination. The social settings of Bangladesh are still very patriarchal that is why this reality strikes more dreadfully and more brutally. In Bangladesh, men dominate and exploit women through different pattern patriarchy. Woman treated as passive dependents in their family. They don’t have the right to speak. Their household works are always non-paid and never get recognition. At rural Bangladesh, a woman does not allow to work in outside.
According to the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS), only 33% of woman is involved in a different category of professions. The number of working women is 18.6 million in 2016-17. Due to the lake of economic independence woman face abuse and discrimination. A number of Woman dreams of becoming self-independent by working outside. But because of inadequate opportunities, their dream hampered. Some of the organizations are trying to promote woman in Business or Entrepreneurship in Bangladesh. But they are few in numbers.
Like race and ethnicity, gender is a social construct.. Women entrepreneurship is a very recent phenomenon in Bangladesh. A primary and continuing obstacle faced by women appears to be difficulty in securing capital funding for new business ventures. Woman entrepreneurs are fighting against the societal value in Bangladesh. Religious sentiment one of the major barriers for them. Religious faith does not permit a woman to work outside. For the context of Bangladesh, the ideology of gender is psychological. Lack of capital and Bank don’t want to give loan to a woman. Bank thought that a woman is not efficient enough to run a business and they might not return the loan. So it is not a social taboo. Gender inequality is getting institutionalization in Bangladesh.
Many decades of arranging and support by woman’s associations and network over the world have brought about the worldwide acknowledgment of the commitments that woman make to financial improvement and of the expenses to social orders of determined disparities among woman and men. The incorporation of gender equality and woman empowerment as the third Millennium Development Goal is an update that a significant number of those guarantees have not been kept, while all the while offering one more worldwide strategy chance to actualize them.
Man wants to continue his hierarchical position. So they are afraid of the woman entrepreneur. They don’t want to lose the throne. Entrepreneurship makes the woman independent. So they will no more subordinate to man. That is why Men are against woman entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship is a key element of the success of any economy. Consistently an entrepreneur produces financial development, make new employment, structure new organizations, increment exports, reduce import and encourage innovation. To promote woman entrepreneurships we can take some steps.
Reduce barriers to all firms. Motivation and Mobilization is essential.
Better access to Capital. Some Special schemes should be implemented for getting bank loans in the easiest way.
Better childcare facilities should be provided for a woman entrepreneur. .
Better Training, advice or consultancy targeted solely or mainly at women entrepreneurs
Equal opportunities should be provided for man and woman entrepreneurship.
Need to have a network with other firms to generate business and access informal advice.
Woman empowerment is very much important to ensure gender equality and fulfill the SGD’s. The number of population in Bangladesh is huge and the underemployment rate is very high. Job facility is so limited. Entrepreneurship gives a woman the liberty and freedom of life. So they will be the decision maker of their family and can overcome all form of social barrier. It will improve their political, social, economic and health status. Entrepreneurship can be a good mechanism for women’s equal participation and equitable representation at all levels of the political process. It will defiantly reduce the violence against a man.
The Writer is graduated from South Asian University, New Delhi under SAARC Silver jubilee Scholarship. Can be reached through riad.arif1952@gmail.com.