Life Skills for Womens Empowerment Dr Chandra Venkatasubramanian M.Sc.,M.Phil.,PhD.

,RD Reader , Department of Home Science Queen Marys College, Chennai 600 004

What are Life Skills

Skills that enable us to succeed in the environment in which we live. They are- Behavioral (communicating effectively with peers and adults) Cognitive (making effective decisions) Interpersonal (being assertive) or intrapersonal (setting goals) It is an essential part of a womans overall development.

Life skills
are the ability for adaptive and positive behaviour that enables a woman to deal with the demands and challenges of everyday life. These skills include Decision-making, problem solving, communication and interpersonal skills Self-awareness, empathy, coping with emotions and stress and are essential to the mental development in a womans life.

A womans holistic development

lies in her ability to cope with real life situations to be able to take conscious, confident decisions about her life which will enable her to successfully integrate into the mainstream.

Women Entrepreneurship in Small Scale Industries

The position of women and their status in society is an index of its civilization. Women are equal partners in development. Women are the means of survival of their families, but are unrecognized and undervalued. In the interest of long-term development it is necessary to facilitate their empowerment. In many developing countries women have less access to education, jobs, income and power than men. Even after five and half decades of planned development Indian women have not achieved expected success in the mainstream of life.

Entrepreneurship is the key to economic development of a country. Small Scale Industries (SSI) play a key role in the industrialization of the country. The Ninth Five-Year Plan (1985-90) emphasized the need for gender equality and empowerment.

significant proportion of women in our region live below the poverty line and have not benefited from the process of globalization, resulting in "feminization of poverty". The performance of our region on gender related issues clearly has been mixed. In India, women play an important role in agriculture operations undertaking 60 percent of farm work and contribute in a big way to food production and economic growth.

Women have also increased their participation in high-end vocations where women were regarded as objects of charity, to a "development" oriented phase and currently to the plank of "empowerment" that seeks to promote gender equality.

Objective of Womens Empowerment

Improving women's participation in higher education, technical education and vocational courses. Empowering women for development as well as for prosperity. Women if educated and given a chance, have proved that they excel in their professions and careers. Educated and enlightened women can look after families better and make nations progressive.

A major milestone in women's empowerment in India has been the Self-Help Group . Over 2.2 million Self Help Groups have been set up at the grass root level throughout the country, which translates into more than 33 million households. Extending collateral free loans to these SHGs gives them continued support and encouragement.

The need of the hour is therefore the speedy implementation of legislative and policy measures for empowerment of women. There is often lack of awareness about schemes We need "gender advocates" whose mission is to bring about effective implementation of the policies and programmes for women's empowerment.

Women must also be motivated to fight discrimination. They should work in a determined manner for their own empowerment One important step in this direction is imparting physical education - like Judo and Karate as selfdefense for women to make them physically strong and develop self confidence to face the challenges of life.

Self-defense is the best form of defense

In India a large number of women are joining the police force. Those who needed protection earlier are now giving protection to others. This is a big change! It makes a difference as women have equal opportunity to grow?

"When you train a woman, you help the entire family, community and nation." The role of women in the development of a society is of utmost importance. In fact, it is the only criterion that determines whether a society is strong and harmonious or not. Women are the backbone of any society

. Learning how to live with technology is one of the most pressing global challenges today. We must empower women to overcome cultural barriers which may prevent them from gaining access to the required skills, technologies, resources and markets.

Status of Women in Society

Women constitute half of humanity and definitely the better half. Absence of gender equality is depriving humanity of substantial strength from 50 percent of its female entity. This has been the case almost from the beginning of civilized society.

Life Skill Development

Life Skill Development by Planning, organizing, recording and teamwork

A method of doing work that has been preplanned Being methodical Recording useful information, usually focused Categorize information and apply the skill of record keeping Communicating effectively, identifying a common task, dividing the task and accepting responsibility for job done Working together to complete the task and sharing accomplishment.

Women have been given vocational training in tailoring and computer skills. also training is given to women in life skills to face unforseen disasters. To sensitize society against alarming trends of violence against women particularly the domestic women

Women empowerment process in India- a need for new direction

women were silent when basic rights like education, employment , voting and property rights were denied to them. They were silent even when they were treated as beasts of burden and as reproductive machines. They continued to be silent when all sorts of crimes were committed against them and they were humiliated as sex symbols.

Why were they silent in spite of all types of humiliation?

It is because of their total dependency on men. In India, they were dependent on fathers during younger days, on husbands after marriage and on sons during old age. Their economic dependency was mainly responsible for their sufferings and the Indian society has always taught that silence and patience are women virtues. Women were so dependant on men due to their lower socio economic, legal and political status and the end result was extreme gender inequality.

Status of Indian women Political status of women

India ranks 118/177 in gender equality. Such a low ranking is due to the submissive attitude of the Indian women The social status is indicated by the data related to literacy and health. there are only 44/545 members in the parliament, in the cabinet, women's representation is almost nil.

Governments role in empowering women

The Indian laws, development policies, Plans and programmes have aimed at womens advancement in different spheres. From the Fifth Five Year Plan to the ninth five year plan there has been a marked shift in the approach to womens issues from welfare to development. In recent years, the empowerment of women has been recognized as the central issue in determining the status of women.

The National Commission for Women - an Act of Parliament in 1990 set up to safeguard the rights and legal entitlements of women. Gender disparity manifests itself in various forms, the most obvious being the trend of declining female ratio in the population in the last few decades due to female infanticide.

Empowerment process of the Indian women

In India the empowerment process has already begun. We are now witnessing a steady improvement in the enrollment of women in schools and colleges and even in the professional arena. The reproductive health status and general health status are better, when compared to their health status in the earlier decades.

They are entering the non traditional sectors like the police, defense, administration, media and research fields. In the highest forum of democracy and greater number of women will participate in the law making process.

26 laws to protect women from various crimes are set up protection of women against domestic violence is foremost. In the political field, the reservation for women in local administration is political empowerment. When 33% reservation for women in parliament becomes a reality, Womens voice will be heard.

For society women sacrifice a lot and bear mental,physical and emotional stress. . Even if a woman lives in an abusive domestic environment, she hesitates to come out of marriage in spite of her economic independence. This is due to strong addiction to culture and tradition. Such patience is exercised not only for the sake of society and children, but also due to lack of confidence to live as a single woman and face the challenges of life.

Suicide and Para suicide cases among women have increased in recent years.
carrier women have no freedom over their income

What sort of economic independence is this?

Even in the corporate sector women executives are not always consulted when important decisions are taken , for promotions women executives are not the first choice. Even in the Indian parliament and Central and state ministries less representation is given to women. Though women are capable of multi tasking, challenging responsibilities are not entrusted to them. It is the reflection of traditional mindset against women in India.

There is also a category of women,(who are highly educated) who proudly announce that they dont have digital literacy (though they own a computer), they can not operate bank accounts or make travel arrangements for the family or handle hospital admission even during emergencies They never even try to test whether they can cope with these responsibilities.

This type of extreme dependency is not good for the development of women.
Women should remember that they are also rational, intelligent and thinking human beings. Dependent women are not empowered women. If women think just because they are highly educated and employed. they are empowered, it is a myth. There is also another side to the empowerment process of women. Some sections of women have wrong notions about empowerment. They think they can break family relationship for flimsy reasons.

If empowerment means
The ability to plan ones own life, The ability to use the available resources for their betterment, The ability to achieve the goals in life, The ability to face the challenges of life, The ability to participate in decision making process and The ability to stand on their own legs. The seemingly empowered women will not be resorting to the extreme decision of ending their lives.

Things to be done in additional to the tools of empowerment

awareness about risks prevailing at home, in work places and while traveling and staying outside home. They should have political , legal , economic and health awareness. They should have knowledge about support groups. They should have the positive attitude towards life. Under any adverse circumstance they should not loose courage and confidence and try to end their life. They should set goals for their future and strive to achieve them with courage and conviction. They should have a strong will power to succeed in life. In short, the inner strength of women has to be built. Men should also be involved in the women empowerment process. Towards these goals the woman activists should continue to function.

Women as catalysts for Indias transformation

History salutes them, the present is inspired by them and the future awaits them. Women have redefined entrepreneurial benchmarks. But can Indian women with their vision, courage, ambition and energy, transform India. Indian women have proved their worth in different walks of life. There is a need to change the mindset as women should put collaborative effort to get into mainstream, bring transformation for inclusive and sustainable growth of India. India needs to set up a conducive structure that can empower women and industry and to encourage active participation at the work place.

Women are transforming Workplaces

Indian women have been able to stereotype, and have achieved enough is inspirational both within and outside. Is it that the Indian women loose their feminity when they take up a job or is it that they transform the work place when they get into it. Indian women have been steadily working on making a difference because of their capabilities and hard work and God willing they will achieve it.

A poem for Womens Empowerment

If all trees were one tree, what a great tree it would be If all rivers were one river, what a great river it would be If all women in the world spoke in one voice, what a great voice it would be and how well it would be heard

It would be the voice of victory and we would have achieved the empowerment of Women.

Thank you