‘No nation can rise to the heights of glory unless your women are side by side with you, said Quaid-e-Azam, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, the founding father of the nation. This statement shows that women empowerment and gender equality have been on the national agenda for as long as is the history of Pakistan.

But unfortunately, the current Pakistani society has largely misinterpreted the concept of women empowerment. While the term empowerment in general refers to the elevation of the status of an individual through education, raising awareness, proliferation of knowledge, and training,  women’s empowerment is all about equipping and allowing women to understand their self-worth and to enable them to make life-determining decisions to tackle the different issues they face in their daily lives. In its actual sense, the term women’s empowerment refers to the process of increasing women’s ability to make their own strategic life choices that influence their lives directly and their access to the openings that let them realize their capacities fully. But unfortunately, the term is largely misinterpreted in Pakistan, and has certain negative connotations attached to it.

Since the Pakistani society strongly believes in the assumption that women differ from men in their social positions, the idea of women’s empowerment as an economic, political, and sociocultural course is against the system of sexual stratification that has led to women’s subordination and marginalization in the society. And it is largely anticipated that women empowerment and its advocates are of a view to debar men, or to leave men behind in all walks of life and hence form a society exclusively for women with no importance given to men.

However, in its genuine sense, women empowerment has nothing to do with men’s debarment. The marginalized women of our country are running their own race to secure their rights, and are in no rivalry with men. All the five components of women empowerment i.e. imparting a sense of self-worth in women, giving them the right to have and to determine choices, giving them the right to have access to opportunities and assets, giving them the power to control their own lives, both within and outside the home, and enabling them to guide the direction of social change to generate a more just social and economic order, nationally and internationally, have no control on devaluing or weakening men’s position in the society.

In this context, education, training, awareness raising, building self-confidence, expansion of choices, increased access to and control over resources, and actions to transform the structures and institutions that reinforce and perpetuate gender discrimination and inequality are imperative tools for empowering women and girls to claim their rights, and evidently, all these tools have no link with transgressing men’s rights.

The women empowerment organizations working in Pakistan often face criticism and even threats as they are considered to be working for sidelining men in the society. Whereas in reality, they are just trying to create some space for women to work hand in hand with men for the prosperity of the country, as a holistic focus and dedication is required to take Pakistan on the path of florescence.

It’s high time for the male-dominated society of Pakistan to understand that when women demand empowerment, they are certainly not asking for men’s debarment, they are just asking for equal opportunities to share the burden of their males in the difficult walk for prosperity. A lot of work has been done in this regard in Pakistan, and many milestones have been achieved to bring women in the forefront. But with all the efforts made by the Government and other relevant organizations, it is high time that we normalize the concept of women empowerment in our society, to achieve maximum from the opportunities created by the relevant departments.