Today's discussion presents the views of women leaders in various communities in Cebu and Bohol.
Six women leaders from Lapu-Lapu City work as Project Coordinator and Area/Center Managers for local Cebu Province NGOs (Lihok Pilipina - a women's organization, Law Inc. - provides legal services, ELAC, and FORGE) while one works as operations manager of a national agriculture-related NGO (PHILDRRA) The rest of the five participants work as leaders for a FORGE, an urban community rescue program in Barangay Basak.
Those from barangays Danglag and Maguikay are women leaders in their respective urban communities populated by informal settlers. Except for one who works as an elected barangay councilor, the other women from Barangay Villalimpia, Loay, Bohol, are appointed Barangay Health Workers.
The leaders from Basak and Maguikay reside in urban areas populated by informal settlers. Those from Danglag are lot owners of their new relocation area (acquired in 2012). Villalimpia is a rural coastal community in Loay.
What are their views about women empowerment ("paghatag ug gahom sa mga kababayen-an") and about the obstacles/challenges to women empowerment? Here are some highlights: (the results below are not for quotations without permission please, thank you.)
The leaders offered a broader definition and overview of women empowerment as "liberation beyond the bounds of culture, society, economy, politics and education, applied in their day to day decision-making processes that best suit their person without harming others." They also recognized that women empowerment is multi-dimensional and multilevel, and its obstacles within the realm of culture and norms.
The women leaders of Basak defined empowerment in terms of knowing women's rights as individuals, as wives, as widows, as independent income-earners for the family. Obstacles mentioned included family-related, husband-related factors, finances, and, legal court litigation.
For those in Maguikay and Danglag, women empowerment meant knowing, asserting, and standing up for their rights as women, wives, public servants, and recipients of services. Women empowerment also meant to have gender equality and to have a widened understanding of their world and others. They included themselves (their love and fear of their husbands or of losing or breaking up their families), their husbands, financial reasons, lack of education and skills and lack of unsupportive (absence of enabling environment) as obstacles to their own empowerment.
Those from Villalimpia said women empowerment refers to the rights and power of women (even single or widowed) to be effective mothers, providers, and leaders at home and in the community. To some of them, women empowerment means men and women are equal. Obstacles included perceptions and comments among their co-community residents that women leaders are weak or conceited, selfishly thinking too much about themselves.
The diversity of definitions of women empowerment expressed by participants in this study can broaden the dimensions included in the Philippine National Demographic and Health Survey, which in 2013 included the following aspects of women empowerment: employment, type of earnings, control over cash and earnings, ownership of assets, freedom of movement, participation in decision-making, and attitude towards wife-beating.
While the Philippines ranks among the top 10 countries in the world with less gender gap and is progressive in terms of gender mainstreaming and legislation like the Magna Carta of Women or Anti-Violence Against Women, other indicators like the Gender Inequality Index and the Gender Empowerment Measure show more work is needed to attain gender equality and women empowerment.
The voices of the women leaders in this study confirm the need for more engagement and more advocacy for empowerment and equality. Their shared views about women empowerment also attest that they are involved in learning and asserting their lives in various dimensions (economic, political, interpersonal, familial, legal, socio-cultural) and various levels within themselves, within households, communities and societies. Policies that can match their context-specific needs are needed to promote better gender equality and women empowerment.