I am a (wo)man, but..
Mindful Solace; from empowerment to development






Ebtisam Elghblawi

Correspondence:
Dr Ebtisam Elghblawi
Tripoli,
Libya
Email: ebtisamya@yahoo.com

There has been a Mennonite-economic-development-associates (MEDA) sponsored event accredited by the BC (Springboard trainer) under the Libyan women economic empowerment programme (LWEE) for Libyan women, which held the leadership training in Tripoli, October 2015, to explore the self potential and capability, self worth, and self development of Libyan women to enable constructive applicability to make effective efficient plans that suit her personally to take decisions and prosper. Its motto was 'you are a star, and you must go and shine'. It has tackled certain points in order to enable women self discovery of their potential and weakness to work on and self strengths to evolve.

Springboard is a leading personal and work development programme for both individuals and organisations. Catering to women at any age or stage in life and from all backgrounds, whether working or not working, it enables women to take more control over their lives by identifying the clear, practical and realistic steps that they need to take and by developing the skills and confidence to take them. Springboard is accredited by the British council.

It has involved as well some live examples of strong Libyan women who shared their stories, how they arrived at success and the challenges they faced. They also shared their motivation, personal drive, and the knowledge and skills they acquired to evolve and give a meaning to their life.

This course has been running around the Arab world, in countries like Syria, Oman, Qatar and Saudi Arabia among other Arab countries including Libya.

I will try to highlight the main points in small themes I am thinking to help women combat obstacles in their lives, in order to make a denotation to their existence and self worth.

Defining empowerment
The term empowerment has different contexts of different application, arguably over-used term. It emphasises the idea of women as active agents in, rather than passive recipients of, development strategies. Examining the existing literature revealed its application for instance, in education, social work, psychology, feminism, and development. Empowerment takes into account the power of an idea (Oxaal and Baden, 1997). Drawing attention to the fact that the lives of poor and marginalised people, and the communities in which they live are shaped by political processes involving power, inequality and oppression (Oxaal and Baden, 1997).

Research in psychology affirms the definition of the empowerment conception as a healthy individual, who is self-contained, independent, and self reliant, capable of asserting and influencing the surrounding environment, and operates according to principles of justice and fairness (Riger 1993).

Empowerment as well encompasses the social influence, political power, and legal rights. It is about ones belief in competency, efficacy and conformity to become involved in the social and political environment to apply control. In short, its personal power with behaviour to control (Riger 1993).

Don't be afraid to be yourself
It is good to look professional, but it is even better to look like a real human being. That's where we start to connect and respond to the surroundings. So it is vital to express and identify your goals and yourself well and to tell what you want, like, and where to go and what you dislike and does not want.

Don't feel embarrassed
It is vital to engage with the audience, to give and take feedback to learn and innovate. Try to work on those aspects you feel weak in and you can seek support and help from similar women to be a motive to move forward and do well confidently.

The main five you should avoid as much as you can are the following. Don't compare yourself with others and aim always to strive for perfection and make your own best efforts to achieve your dreams and ambitions and don't blame others and take responsibility for your own actions always, and don't dwell in the past and don't critique others and avoid stating I am the only one as self ego destroys in many occasions. Be humble and kind and caring even if the other party doesnt appreciate and value that kindness. Be yourself always.

Recognition for yourself- a women has a name
Let people know about you and what are you good at to increase recognition and value. Women should overcome their phobias, build their confidence, and manage their stress by support from other influential empowered and role model women.

Women's educational attainment, employment status, and household economic status are the most important proxy measures of women's empowerment and recognition. Moreover, economic women's empowerment enables and strengthens her rights to access to economic reserves like jobs, fiscal services, property and land, assets, enhancing and scaling up her own skills and gaining a piece of knowledge needed for the market, by which she can have a control on her life and be a contributor to her society.

Shaping your life
People should participate in the decision and process to shape their life the way they wish it to be. Women should voice their needs and interests through a top-down approach. It is by investing in women's capabilities and capacities to exercise their own choices and wishes which would ultimately empower and recognize her as a valuable asset within her society which would contribute to its economical development. Having said that, this would ultimately create and shape a transformation in society.

Women's empowerment is also about liberating men from the false perception, values and ideology of women's oppression, coercion or discrimination and denial (Oxaal and Baden, 1997). In fact, empowerment has several different and inter-related aspects.

Use and abuse
Women in the third world had been suffering from use and abuse by their counterpart, men. In fact many men misinterpret even the Quran verses and religion and exerted their power on women to oppress her. Women should resist misuse and abuse and should access control over resources and bargain power (Oxaal and Baden, 1997).

It is essential to call for promoting and demanding a vision change within a society to create a healthy balanced community. This cannot be achieved unless all parties and the context of hierarchy such as political mobilisation, legal changes, consciousness raising and popular education is involved and integrated to bring up an effective positive change. In fact it involves multidisciplinary approaches and requisites, namely resources (finance, knowledge, and technology), acquisition of skills, skills training and leadership formation democratic processes in participation and taking into account conflicting interests to reach consensus, dialogue, partaking in policy and decision making and approaches for conflict resolution and control over resources. All of which would shape up the growing autonomy of women (Oxaal and Baden, 1997).

Give women microcredit and microenterprise
The microfinance and microcredits -providing grants to financial assistance to women through the establishment of special credit schemes is often considered to be a strong tool to encourage empowerment (Oxaal and Baden, 1997). It is as an individualistic definition of empowerment, where women build up their own resources. It can alleviate livelihoods, expand choices, and offer start-up funds for creative venture. Furthermore, providing additional services, like training, working through, is awareness-raising - and has been shown to boost women's direct control over resources.

Women in workplace and decision-making autonomy
Women usually lag behind and let the man do the whole work. Women's attitude towards autonomy is sometimes lacking due to certain factors such as the social norms and the cultural background.

The existing norms in many places dictate that girls and women have the main responsibility for the care of children, the elderly and the sick, as well as for running the household, which would undermine their chances for any opportunity for self development and independence in order to secure incomes, and better working conditions (women's economic empowerment, 2012).

According to Elhuni 2012, in the developing countries women's participation rate in the workforce was reported to be 21.6 % compared to 48.2% in developed countries, and in Libyan. Women's numbers constitute nearly half (49.3%) of the whole community. In Libya for example, many think that women's main role should focus on house making and care giving and the trend consequently for women is to prioritize household amenities and family care and acknowledged only men for workforce. Thus the socio-cultural factors disempowering and prohibiting women especially if she comes from a conservative society which would impede women to go against the tide for her ambitions.

Moreover, women often face discrimination and persistent gender inequalities. Women usually in developing countries are treated differently than their brothers, and are lagging behind men in many domains. It has been found, that for each missing woman, there are many more women who fail to get an education, a job, or a political responsibility that they would have obtained if they had been men (Duflo, 2012).

It has been observed that fewer women are found in chief executive and economic areas. However women are found in vast numbers in lower-level positions, like public administration, political parties, trade unions and business (Oxaal and Baden, 1997). Another fact is, women tending not to speak in meetings, and many instances lacking knowledge about the problems faced by women in their constituencies which would impact negatively.

The status of women in any society is also one important determinant for any progress and development. There is a need to incorporate women's empowerment as part of self development and self confidence.

Women's empowerment should fulfill certain criteria like education, economic independence, well being, to have a say about themself, choices, aspirations, and preferences as a human being and not wait for others to decide for them.

In many instances, women's lower social status challenges their decision-making autonomy on simple things, like the desired family size (reproductive rights and health), sexual behavior, family planning services, health care-seeking behavior and the amounts and types of food fed to children and themselves and amount of time to spend on child-rearing women empowerment and gender equality.

Therefore, the main as well as the direct measures of women's decision-making autonomy and proxy indictors are education, employment or household wealth status.

In Libya, male dominance remains more pronounced in the society, public and private spheres.
Understanding the relative importance of the various determinants of any society women empowering is the key factor to designing evidence-based effective programs to address women's empowerment (Duflo, 2012).

The women state vary by place of region, type of place of residence, household size, partner's educational attainment and employment status. Rural women, women with high household size, women whose partners were relatively less educated or with no education and those whose partners are unemployed.

Thus women should have a say about their life, ambitions, the simple measures and make a decision that they feel competent for and willing to have and they should say no to anything that they dislike without fear and oppression, and should make well informed decisions about their work, career, expenditures and family, to have access to secure jobs, earnings and social benefits.

Influential women - women walking the world
A list of famous influential women who changed the world. Including women's rights activists, female poets, musicians, politicians, humanitarians are the following:

Example of top 25 leading ladies: sources include: (http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/completelist/0,29569,2029774,00.html)
• Jane Addams (1860-1935)
• Corazon Aquino (1933-2009)
• Rachel Carson (1907-1964)
• Coco Chanel (1883-1971)
• Julia Child (1912-2004)
• Hillary Clinton (1947-Present)
• Marie Curie (1867-1934)
• Aretha Franklin (1942-Present)
• Indira Gandhi (1917-1984)
• Estée Lauder (1908-2004)
• Margaret Mead (1901-1978)
• Golda Meir (1898-1978)
• Angela Merkel (1954-Present)
• Sandra Day O'Connor (1930-Present)
• Rosa Parks (1913-2005)
• Jiang Qing (1914-1991)
• Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962)
• Margaret Sanger (1879-1966)
• Gloria Steinem (1934-Present)
• Martha Stewart (1941-Present)
• Mother Teresa (1910-1997)
• Margaret Thatcher (1925-Present)
• Virginia Woolf (1882-1941)
• Tawakkul Karman
• Malala Yousafzai
• Nawal El Saadawi
• Shirin Ebadi
• Benazir Bhutto


Eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)
It mainly takes it as given that the equality between women and men is a desirable goal in itself, and policies should aim to achieve that goal. Moreover women's mental health is crucial to achieve MDGs number 5 if women are not oppressed by men, which would impact their development, and functionality. Therefore to empower women, this point should be tackled as well in order for women to develop and prosper.

1. Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
2. Achieve universal primary education
3. Promote gender equality and empower women
4. Reduce child mortality
5. Improve maternal health
6. Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases
7. Ensure environmental sustainability
8. Develop a Global Partnership for Development

By empowering women, we promote equity, but also because they are necessary to accelerate development (empowerment-development relationship).

Policy action is still necessary to achieve equality between genders.

Young women who marry or have children typically drop out of school or college and are less likely to work and to be self independent or have a say in their life control. They tend to marry partners who are older than them to have a luminous life. All of these lead to a reduction in women's autonomy and capacities. It is a common fact to some extent in Libya as main women focus is just to get married at younger ages, and to be a mother. This could be explained due to the deeply rooted thought about marriage and stability for women.

Giving Women Hope by Expanding Their Opportunities
Parents generally speaking in the Arab world usually have lower aspirations for their daughters than for their sons, and female teenagers themselves have lower aspirations.

Many parents believed that educating girls is not necessary, since girls are only expected to marry and take care of their households which would create gender stereotyping and discrimination and low self esteem.

Thus women should be thought and encouraged to have a role in their society and identity for their valuable existence. The community and the society won't be functioning without women. Thus education is a must for women to learn about their worth and functionality.

Women and Property Rights
Many women are ignorant even for their simple and legal rights. Lack of legal knowledge and weak implementation habitually constrain the ability of women to exercise their rights (women's economic empowerment, 2012).

In many developing countries, women are very poorly protected in the case of family death, divorce, and stand to lose assets and the custody of their children. Even in some countries women are unable to obtain business loans without their husband's or father's
co-signature (women's economic empowerment, 2012). In legal rights: women in many countries still lack independent rights to own land, manage property, conduct business, or even travel without their husband's consent (Duflo, 2012).

Land is not only a productive asset, it is also important as collateral for securing finance and credit (women's economic empowerment, 2012). Women retain ownership of their property rights within the marriage over a portion of the assets they bring into the household will be empowered and in control. They could even retain separate property rights over productive assets; particularly land (Duflo, 2012). Some women are not ready to surrender control to their husbands and its right without doubt. It has been observed in certain countries that women retain the property in control (Figure 1).

Figure 1: Schematic map to women's empowerment



The life expectancy of women has increased by 20-25 years in developing countries over the past fifty years (World Bank 2011), while male life expectancy did not improve as much. Therefore, all measures and readings are in favour of women to be empowered (Duflo, 2012).

Women reshaping the actual world
Recent research suggests that economical growth can be flourishing by reducing poverty and increasing opportunity, which can have a positive impact on gender equality (Duflo, 2012).
In the labor market, even in developed countries, women who are equally qualified continue to earn less than men at all levels of qualification. Legal rights, particularly property rights, of women remain different from those of men in many countries, even as economies grow. The disparity in earnings at all levels of qualification even in richer countries illustrates the persisting injustice against women.

Women are less likely to hold a position of power in some developing countries, where males dominate. If women are politically weak, they may find it difficult to influence actual decisions (Duflo, 2012). In other words, a world run by women would look decidedly different if women were equipped well with the sense of that. Women leaders do seem to better represent the needs of women (Duflo, 2012).

Broad "empowerment" of women could change outcomes, by for instance simple things, such as by improving their understanding of how to raise children, use contraception, and manage their homes. Thus women strongly can reshape the world to the best possible thriving environment (figure 1).

Women and leadership
Eventually, in any societies where there is a male preference, there is persisting bias against women. The widespread perception that women are not competent leaders is probably the strongest barrier to greater participation of women in policy making. Furthermore, women leaders are evaluated more negatively than male leaders even sometimes by her educated male peers.
Leadership role is always perceived typically a male role, and they tend to give lower performance marks to female leaders than to male leaders according to Duflo's, 2012 observation. They in fact are generally not feeling positive toward females in politics. Even a test was conducted and shown that there is a strong association between women and the domestic sphere. Another factor, it seems that there is a significant cultural barrier to recognizing women as competent policy makers.

The persistence of gender inequality is most starkly brought home in the phenomenon of "missing women", and thus hinders development (Duflo, 2012).

In the United Nation's 2005 report on the Millennium Development Goals (MDG), Kofi Annan, the Secretary General of the United Nations, writes: "The full participation of women to all levels of decision-making is a basic human right." Also he disputes that gender fairness is in fact a "prerequisite" to achieving the other MDGs.

It has been found that when the husband is progressive enough to allow his wife to seek employment, then this same progressive attitude may make him treat his children better (Duflo, 2012). Likewise, children might do better in countries or regions where women's political participation is greater because these places are otherwise more favorable environments.
Thus, the first dimension of empowerment of women is education.

Conclusion and recommendations
Women must empower themselves. Achieving women's empowerment is not a "quick fix" (technical fix) issue. In fact, it is a long-term commitment from all development actors and sectors. Women's empowerment is about rights and equitable societies.

Yet, despite some progress in certain continents, women still continue to lag behind, confront discrimination, marginalization and exclusion. Doors for opportunities should be open to all equally without oppression, violence and discrimination. Thus women should raise their voice for their valuable existence.
Measures to be taken are to increase the quality of women in political participation by awareness raising, training programmes for female candidates. Also through effective leadership training to enable women to developing the necessary skills and to negotiate with development agencies and promote the formation of independent organizations, all of which can help women to examine the implementation of laws, to recognize allies, share knowledge, and explore new tools of promoting political partaking.

Women's economic participation and empowerment are fundamental to strengthening women's rights and enabling women to have control over their lives and exert influence in society. Women often face discrimination and persistent gender inequalities.

Women usually invest a higher proportion of their earnings in their families and communities than men. Most women have less personal autonomy, fewer resources at their disposal, and limited influence over the decision-making processes that shape their societies and their own lives. One motivation for women's empowerment is basic fairness and decency.

One fundamental investment is educating girls, which constitutes one of the core and the most powerful tools for women's empowerment. Education provides women with the right knowledge, skills and self-confidence they need to seek out economic opportunities

Formal education system and school enrollment has become nearly universal for both boys and girls in Libya. However the propaganda of private schooling in the last few years and the high expenses would refrain from education for some families who cannot afford it. Thus encouraging free access to the primary and secondary schooling and removing high fees plus providing financial incentives for girls to attend school have proven to be effective for increasing girls' enrolment and completion rates. Also advising about postponing marriage at under ages and after finishing basic education at least will help in increasing women's chances of finishing education which will be their power in facing life and the community.

Another problem is gender stereotyping which is still exists even in some westernized countries and to combat it, it needs to treat both genders at youngster equally at home and school.

To conclude, women's empowerment and economic development are closely related; in fact empowerment is a multi-dimensional event, with women relatively empowered in some spheres but not in others. Further research might play a major role in identifying whether community or individual characteristics are better predicators of women's empowerment in their surroundings. Development alone cannot play a major role in driving down inequality between men and women; in the other direction, empowering women may benefit development, which in return will drive them to influence and contribute to the positive transformation of their societies and increase the appreciation of their role in development of the societies.

Strengthening the role of women should capture the momentum to make positive changes. In fact women participation in determining their future and aspiration is a non-negotiable right. Thus the pathways to women's autonomy and empowerment are education the foremost. Those shared values should be kept together to encourage each other.

The main protective factors for women to empower and boost their confidence, is education, permanent job, and having a kind, trustworthly intimate partner.

So never accept the definition of your life and ambitions from others, because it is your life. Define it yourself the way you like as no one knows about you and your potential better than yourself. You are the writer, director, producer, creator and publisher of your own life, so make it a rewarding experience.

To conclude, women need to make a positive impact and difference in their life and that of others. In short, when women and girls are empowered, the world is a more prosperous, healthy and peaceful place for everyone. It is about changing the vision how women and power are perceived.

References
Duflo E 2012. Women Empowerment and Economic Development. Journal of Economic Literature 2012, 50(4), 1051-1079
Oxaal Z and Baden S, 1997. Gender and empowerment: definitions, approaches and
implications for policy. Briefing prepared for the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida). © Institute of Development Studies, Brighton. ISBN: 1 85864 175 6
Elhuni E, 2012. The impact of the 2011 Libyan revolution on the job aspirations of young urban Libyan women. Masters in Human Development and Food Security.
http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/completelist/0,29569,2029774,00.html)
United Nation's 2005 report on the Millennium Development Goals (MDG),
The OECD DAC network on gender equality (gendernet). Women's economic empowerment, promoting pro-poor growth: the role of empowerment - © oecd 2012.
Riger T. 1993. What's wrong with empowerment. American journal of community psychology. Vol 21, No 3.