- What is empowerment?
- Origin of the term “empowerment”
- women empowerment
- business empowerment
- personal empowerment
We explain what empowerment is and what the origin of the term is. In addition, what is it in the workplace, gender and personal.
What is empowerment?
Empowerment or empowerment (from the English empowerment) is the process of strengthening the capabilities, self-confidence, perspective and leadership of a person or a group of people, with a view to promoting changes positive in the society, modifying the role that these people play in it. In general, empowerment applies to people or groups of people who are marginalized, oppressed or discriminated against, who are likely to rethink their place in society.
This process may have to do, specifically, with different fields of life, such as the socioeconomic, the labor, the educational, the cultural, among many others, since basically it refers to the situation of compliance, oppression or handicap that many individuals occupy in front of the Condition Yet the opinion majority.
For example, sexually diverse minorities have been made invisible and marginalized for much of modern Western history, but since the last decades of the 20th century they have been empowering themselves, that is, organizing themselves, appearing on the public scene, among other things that allow them to assume a more active and combative role in society, and thus fight for their own interests.
The terms “empowerment” and “empower”, in fact, have been particularly accepted within social movements for the rights of women and sex-diverse or gender-diverse groups.However, they apply to any social group that is considered to be in a situation of marginalization or subjugation.
Origin of the term “empowerment”
The term to empower comes from schools of thought Marxist and poststructuralist of the 20th century, specifically from the work of Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937) and Michel Foucault (1926-1984), who extensively studied the relationship between the state and individuals.
Both thinkers described, in their theoretical language, the methods with which the State exercises control over people, either through force and coercion, or through the creation of consensus (“truths”, according to Foucault) that force individuals to think in a certain way.
Thus, empowerment involves assuming a more active stance vis-à-vis the regulatory mechanisms of the State, in order to exert sufficient pressure to introduce a change in society. This idea was also of importance in the postulates around the education of Paulo Freire (1921-1997) in the 1960s, who defines it as the "reduction of vulnerability and the increase of the own capacities” of the vulnerable sectors of the society.
In later decades, the concept of empowerment was assumed by numerous social movements as a goal in the short and medium term, assuming that only through a greater and more active participation of marginalized groups in the production of symbols and discourses, and in the control of material elements, will it be possible to achieve equality.
women empowerment
Just as criticism and thought feminist have abundantly demonstrated, the role of women in society has traditionally been underestimated and diminished, relegating them to a secondary position compared to the role played by men.This not only implies the obligation to carry out the jobs unpaid household and family care, but also to satisfy male demands on the aesthetic, sexual and emotional level.
This situation, which defines what feminist groups call “patriarchy”, has been fought from different angles by feminist thought, whose main tool of social action is, precisely, the empowerment of women.
By assuming a more active, autonomous and powerful role in society, women can leave behind the passive, fragile and submissive role that they used to occupy and join the leadership of society alongside the male gender. This would allow him to transform society so that it is more equitable and egalitarian regarding the roles of gender, and regarding sexist dynamics that favor male protagonism.
Female empowerment can be summarized in the following principles:
- The promotion of gender equality in all areas, especially labor and professional, in order to close the wage gap between men and women, and break the "glass ceiling" that prevents the latter from reaching managerial positions in most companies.
- The promotion of equal social and legal treatment between men and women, the defense of human rights and non-discrimination based on gender.
- The fight for the visibility, normalization and care of the health needs of women, as well as the necessary autonomy about their bodies in sexual and reproductive matters.
- Feminist education with a gender perspective to combat traditional and/or religious sexist postulates that assign women a secondary place in culture.
business empowerment
In the business world, we speak of empowerment or empowerment to refer to a management model that distances itself from the traditional and authoritarian roles of leadership, in which an order is given and the subordinates obey without further ado, to move towards the empowerment of the workers.
In this model, the employees a greater degree of autonomy, decision making Y responsibility Front of business, which translates into a higher sense of belonging, a greater possibility of job growth and greater ranges of motivation labor.
Advocates of business empowerment warn that it produces greater benefits in the short, medium and long term, but that it requires a command structure capable of delegating responsibility. authority and continuously train its employees. The idea behind empowerment business is to build an organization that is committed to itself, that grows in multiple directions and that not only reports benefits for the shareholder, but also for the worker who grows within the company.
personal empowerment
The idea that a person can empower themselves, that is, they can assume a more active and leading role in their own destiny, is also key in the field of personal development and self-help.
A person empowers himself when he assumes the reins of her life through the abandonment of dependency, to assume a greater share of sovereignty. The latter translates into greater self-confidence, greater self esteem and greater ability to deal with decisions, especially those that are not easy to make.
Empowerment requires the abandonment of a submissive and dependent posture with respect to others, and the construction of a dynamic and leading role of one's own.