We are living in the dawn of a new era, where we all get to bear witness to the true abilities of an empowered woman. Last month marked a historical first – the inauguration of the first female cabinet member to grace one of the most intimate boys clubs ever, the United States Presidency.
While this is a sign of great possibilities, it’s still important to remember she is the only one in over 230 years. The fact that Kamala Harris is not only a female but a woman of color denotes progress; however, the “club” is still slighted towards elite, white men.
The Constitution didn’t reflect upon women as people until 1920 when it was amended to include our right to vote. This was, of course, after a great upheaval in the form of the Woman’s Suffrage Movement. Even the wording of the Constitution is demeaning to women because it reads “citizens’, yet women were deliberately excluded from politics for 5o more years after black men were granted the right to vote. That didn’t stop nor deter these women though, instead, it fueled them.
What is Empowerment?
By definition, empowerment is the granting of political, social, or economic power to an individual or group. The very premise of this definition is that empowerment is something outside of self.
True empowerment, however, is something that comes from within. As Elenore Roosevelt famously stated, “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” This highlights two types of empowerment: external and internal.
External
External empowerment can come in a variety of forms. External empowerment is just that, empowerment from forces outside of ourselves, i.e. our environment. Our earliest encounters with external empowerment come from our interactions with our parents and primary care-givers. These interactions help form the foundation that determines just how empowered we become.
For some girls, having a role model is simple, easy, and built-in via their own mothers. Mothers who lead by example are the best at fostering this ironclad will that empowered girls seem to share. It’s as though bearing witness to our own mother’s strength is exactly what fosters our own.
“I was raised to be an independent woman, not the victim of anything.
Kamala Harris
Representation matters. When girls grow up witnessing other girls and women stand in their own power, it demonstrates for them what is truly possible. This is why female empowerment is an imperative initiative because every kid should be allowed to look out into the world and have an Idol that they can relate to.
Thankfully for me, I had a mother who was self-empowered. She became an orphan when her mother died when she was just 13 years old. As a ward of the state, she lived a life of abuse, oppression, and trauma – most of which occurred at the hands of men. And it’s through these adversities that my mom taught herself how to tap into her internal strength. She was an alchemist who learned how to turn her pain into power.
Internal
Resilience is a trait that serves as a reminder that our true source of power comes from within. Resilience theory explicitly states that exposure to adverse events in life leads to an even higher level of functioning than before, for certain individuals.
Where there is a will, there is always a way. Lucky for us girls, interior strength is genetic. There are the obvious components of internal strength that every woman possesses. An example is our ability to give birth without quite literally dying from pain. Females possess more pain receptors than men, making us more adept at knowing how to control and handle pain.
Then there are the more subtle leanings that women possess that make us more resilient than men. If resilience is bred out of vulnerability, and it is, then women are inherently more resilient by the very structure of our society. In fact, this inherited ability can be traced all the back to the womb. Girls simply cope with stress better than boys.
What Makes a Woman Empowered?
An empowered woman is one who feels safe and secure with herself despite being female. Empowerment is something that is fostered through life experience. External and internal forces create the perfect atmosphere for her to propel past societal expectations, paving the way for others to follow. Finally, an empowered woman is generous with her gifts, for she knows the power of giving.
We are at a pivotal time, unlike ever before. Women now make up the majority of the population, and officially exceed men in higher education too. Pioneering biological research shows that women differ from men but in the most complimentary of ways.
“It’s time for women to stop being politely angry.”
Leymah Gbawee, Nobel Peace Price Winner
Empowerment leads to self-sufficiency and independence. These are two of the most sought after traits in American society, for both men and women. One of the major side-effects of empowerment is the desire to give back. Empowerment is contagious, as is evident in the numerous examples of empowered women throughout history who have an insatiable passion to give back.
Empowering girls and women should be personalized to cater to the female-specific characteristics. The approach should be to embrace and enhance our femininity through education and inspiration. The goal is to allow them to see their womanhood as a gift rather than a curse.
The 5 pillars of female empowerment encompass the essential areas that every female need in order to thrive. These pillars are educational, financial, social, political, and health, as they pertain to the female gender in specific.
Educational
When girls’ education is given the same amount of investment as their male counterparts, the benefits extend far beyond their personal lives. Data clearly shows a correlation between educated girls and the decrease in societal poverty. “High-quality female education empowers women, reduces poverty, and unleashes economic growth”
Education is the foundation for anyone to thrive in society. Thankfully, the educational institution has evolved over time to be gender inclusive. In the not-so-distant past though, girls’ education was a considered privilege, not a right. Whereas women once had to fight for the right to equal education, we now surpass men in higher education achievements across the board.
Yet the educational instructions are still very much lacking the emphasis on feminine principles to this day. One way this is obvious is in the lack of female faculty in higher education. Women consist of the majority of the population of people who obtain higher education, yet women are consistently overlooked for tenure, appropriate compensation, and representation in high-ranking leadership positions, such as presidency and membership on governing boards.
Additionally, the emotional aspect of living and thriving is still shunned by much of society. This means that our educational foundation still disregards the more right-brain, feminine components that we all possess. Not only should young girls be taught about their emotional bodies, but young boys also need to understand the importance of creativity, visual imagery, and intuition.
Fostering emotional intelligence should not be geared towards one gender over the other. These essential areas are stereotyped as being “female” traits, but we all have them. Much like we all possess left-brain abilities, such as logic, speech, and analytics. Like the two sides of the brain, these two components complement one another and should both be celebrated. Unfortunately, our society still prefers science and math over art and emotional acuity.
Finally, women have been disenfranchised for all of history. While education might seem to be the easy route, many girls lose their way due to the embedded side-effects of systemic oppression. While drop-out rates have declined for both genders, similar factors are cited for both genders, except one: teen pregnancy. Both male and female students suffering from low-income, single-parent households are at a higher risk of dropping out. Thirty-three percent of girls, however, drop out due to pregnancy.
Education is not segregated by sex, but age rather. This means boys and girls are clumped together in a male-centric education and expected to thrive equally. Both boys and girls need deeper instruction on female physiology, but the research simply does not exist.
Teaching girls that they differ from their male peers is essential to their understanding of these differences. Our inherent differences are obvious, yet girls are made to feel less-than because of these differences. Our culture shames girls for bleeding, making the stigma unavoidable. Girls should be given permission to feel comfortable about their physiology, instead of inferior because of it.
Social
We’ve come a long way from the obvious domineering control that once was the accepted norm. Whereas women were once quite literally considered property, we now have certain âinalienable-rightsâ bestowed upon us per the U.S. Constitution.
In the not-so-distant past; however, women were not allowed to open a bank account or take out a loan without a male co-signer. Just 33 years ago, Ronald Raegan signed the Womenâs Business Ownership Act of 1988 granting women the right to equal credit and lending opportunities.
Women are more in control of their own lives now than ever before, but we still have far to go. The system is still set-up by and for men. So while we might now enjoy the benefits of having our own property, income, lending, and investment potential, itâs still more in theory than application.
In 2018, women consisted of only 2.2% of the $130 billion dollar total in venture capital money invested over the year. Sadly, this is a decline from the previous year which was recorded at 2.53% for female founders. This staggeringly low number illustrates the systemic bias that is still very prevalent today.
Female entrepreneurs generated $1.7 trillion dollars in sales in 2017 alone. Women own more than 11.6 million firms and employ 9 million people in the United States. One in every five firms that make over $1 million dollars in revenue are female-founded.
Additionally, women are not only more likely to start a business, but also to start businesses out of need and necessity. Much like women are more likely to choose a career in healthcare or education, they are also more likely than men to start a business in health and education too.
Women contribute immensely to society but benefit only marginally. In such an atmosphere, itâs taxing to attempt to develop one’s autonomy, let alone self-confidence. Representation matters and women are simply not represented properly throughout societies alike.
Women act individually to enhance the collective, unlike most men who act individually to benefit themselves. Itâs time for girls and women to be portrayed for the true value they bring. And the best part of honoring and uplifting women is that everybody wins! Itâs time to challenge dated ideals and false constructs that deter and ultimately hold us all back.
Health
We all know that women bear the brunt when it comes to care-taking. Women consistently ensure the health and wellbeing of those around them. Even as little girls, we learn to foster this innate drive when we get our first babydoll to care for. Unfortunately, this passion doesn’t translate into caring for ourselves in quite the same way as we develop.
Both genders are taught that being selfish is a very bad thing. It’s ingrained in us that health is something that applies to the general population as much as it does to our very personal physical apparatuses. Public health is preached more than private health. The onset of Covid highlights this perfectly, in that all of the professionals that are considered experts are boasting “we’re all in this together” and to wear a mask and social-distance for thy neighbor, while none of them discuss the importance of self-care as a means to an end.
More than 770,000 injuries and deaths occur every single year as a direct result of medical errors, which makes it the third leading cause of death in the U.S. This number merely reflects those errors that we know of because many go unreported for a variety of reasons, according to Dr. Danielle Ofri. These numbers show the imbalance of promoting medical interventions over daily self-care.
Health empowerment begins with proper education. In the WHO Constitution, health is described as “a state of complete physical, social, and mental well-being, and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.” In this context health empowerment is something that pertains to the fundamental knowledge of the human body and how it thrives, first and foremost.
We all stand upon a foundation that has taught us to value modern, Westernized healthcare over our ancient, holistic approach to health. Women and men have been guided away from their internal wisdom towards a scientific and methodical approach to wellbeing. While that has served us to an extent, it has also left us quite detached from ourselves too. As soon as something goes awry, we seek the opinions of indoctrinated strangers in an attempt to fix it. Western medicine is a beneficial deterrent because it provides us with the ability to save lives in an emergency, but literally kills when it comes to drug interventions and miseducated professionals.
True health empowerment is knowing that we all have the ability to heal any and all dis-ease from our bodies with the proper prescription of a healthy diet. Diet, however, in regards to our physical, social, and mental well-being, just as WHO states. Our diets consist of not only what we eat, but also the other forms of energy we take in on a daily basis. We are made up of energy, as science has demonstrated. Our bodies know exactly what to do to heal, as we witness in the miracle of a simple scab or even in instant healing and remission.
As recently as 2016, the National Institutes of Health had to issue a directive to specify sex as a biological variable in all their funded preclinical research on vertebrate animals and human cells and tissues. This means that women and our biology have quite literally been ignored for the entire history of the medical institution. Gender exclusion even applies to lab rats, as males subjects are favored over females.
So not only is the general public being grievously misinformed about what health is and how to maintain it, but women especially are suffering the cost of this lopsided indoctrination that all of our medical professionals receive. Moreover, female research should be a priority because it doesn’t just impact each woman individually, but also society collectively because of the major role women play.
Obviously, we cannot speak on women’s health without addressing the power and control that men still hold over women’s reproductive health too. Unfortunately, the states are anything but united when it comes to rules that govern what a woman can and cannot do with her own body. An independent poll spoke for the people of which 77% of Americans agreed that abortion should be safe and legal. Yet, 274 state policy provisions have been introduced in 2021 alone. Naturally, most of these rules and regulations are introduced by the men who create and carry out the policies. Hence the need for more women in positions of leadership.
Political
Women now make up the majority of the American population, yet female representation in the political sphere is still negligible. As it stands, women consist of:
- 24% of the U.S. Senate
- 27% of the House of Representatives
- 30% of the statewide elected executives
- 31% of state legislative seats
- 23% of Mayors in cities with populations exceeding 30,000
- 0% of the Presidents of the United States
Sadly, these numbers clump all women into one big category diminishing the fact that for women of color, these seats are even harder to come by. While the last two Presidential elections have made great gains in the arena of female representation, the U.S. ranks 75th globally in women’s representation in Politics.
If women are the backbone of society, and we are, why is it that we still lack leadership roles that directly impact society at large, namely women? Women have demonstrated that our primary focus is to be of benefit to the community, time and time again. We do this by actively choosing the “low-paying” jobs that bring rewards beyond monetary value, such as teachers, social workers, hospitality staff, and medical professionals alike.
In fact, the number of women in the workforce surpassed men prior to the lockdowns of 2020. Unfortunately, having little political representation where policies are created and enforced has created an even greater divide than before. If women had been more involved politically during the onset of the pandemic, I’m certain the outcome would have been different. But we will never know because women simply don’t have a voice in politics.
When women are allowed to participate; however, research shows that their primary focus differs from their male counterparts. Women officials have different attitudes on several important public policy topics. For example, compared with men, women are generally less militaristic on issues of war and peace, more often opposed to the death penalty, more likely to favor gun control, more likely to favor measures to protect the environment, more supportive of programs to help the economically disadvantaged, more supportive of efforts to achieve racial equality, and more likely to favor laws to regulate and control certain vices (e.g., alcohol, gambling, pornography).
For centuries, women have been demonized for a variety of reasons. These systemic biases play out in different ways, such as lack of support from the masses due to their hidden biases. Women fall victim to this societal programming, just the same as men do. Data shows that 90% of men and 90% of women are biased against women. Policies and practices that were put into place to intentionally benefit the men who wrote them are just as prevalent today as they were 232 years ago.
“On a moral plane, there’s a sense that the Constitution sets forth our human rights and to not have the human rights of women in there is a gross omission.”
Jessica Neuwirth, President of the ERA Coalition
Women in both public and private political spheres will be the solution to this on-going problem. In 2021, women still don’t have Constitutional equality. 94% of Americans support constitutional equality for women, yet 80% believe we’ve already achieved it. American sets itself apart by being one of only three countries to offer constitutional protection to gun owners. Yet, of the 131 nations that have passed laws to ensure gender equality, the United States is not one of them.
Economic
On February 7, 2019, the White House launched The Women’s Global Development and Prosperity Initiative to bring women’s economic empowerment to the forefront of the U.S.’s Government’s Development Agenda. Standing on three pillars, the goal is to empower women to participate fully in civic and economic life. These pillars consist of ensuring women have the proper skills and training to secure work, promoting entrepreneurial ventures, and removing gender-based legal, regulatory, and cultural barriers to participation.
The focus of this initiative further illustrates the need for more women in politics because until the laws change, women will remain stifled financially. The gender pay gap data helps to make this apparent, but even this is misleading in that it’s based on a white mans earning capacity, compared to that of a white women’s. Yet, women of color are paid even less pay than their caucasian counterparts.
Women started a net of 1,821 business each day in 2019, and own 40% of all U.S. businesses. Of these new businesses, 64% were started by women of color. The reasons women are starting their own businesses are to combat the blatant gender discrimination in corporate America, which is often coupled with outward racism. Women are 15% less likely to be promoted than their male colleagues, despite doing equal, and many times more work. Additionally, less pay, flexibility, and autonomy were also cited as top reasons why women are going into business for themselves.
While many women aren’t even aware of it, they are being held to a greater cost of living than men are. Pink-tax is not a tax that simply applies to feminine hygiene products, although that’s blatant discrimination too. Pink-tax also refers to the higher tax rate that women are held to just for being female. From diapers to shavers, bike helmets to toys, if it’s pink – it’s more expensive.
Even as it pertains to obtaining an education, women are at a disadvantage. Women hold 58% of all student loan debt, and it takes an average of two years longer to pay off. Examining the debt ratio of men to women explains exactly why 56% of all women are living in poverty. Native American women are impacted the greatest, and given the history of Native Americans and our colonizers, it’s obvious why.
Just how is a woman expected to get ahead or thrive in a society that doesn’t even value her contributions? Only by establishing an equal playing field can we progress.
Empowered women seem to share the knowledge and awareness that they are great, despite the general consensus. From this empowered foundation, she begins to strengthen her own resolve, and by doing this, she naturally empowers those around her simply by persisting. Even when she’s told to stand down and fall in place, a truly empowered woman continualy goes for what she knows in her heart to be fair.