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The idea of empowering women encompasses efforts that allow women to control their lives and indulge their potential in social, political, and economic aspects of society. Women empowerment may assume a group or individual effort to break away from established gender identities. The challenge with this goal is that society still clings to conventional ideas that define how the different genders interact and even how individuals live. The challenge is especially marked for individuals who attempt to stand out and challenge established gender conventions because they are branded rebels. The most prominent challenges faced by women who challenge gender expectations include contradictory messages, appealing to celebrated female qualities, and selective labeling. Ironically, women lead the opposition to female emancipation due to the fear of short term losses and the perception of being overburdened.
The concepts of feminism and women empowerment are founded on what could be described as contradictory principles. Based on Seidman and Alexander (2020), arriving at an intellectually and politically sound feminist definition is a significant challenge. The reason for this conflict rests in the conflict that arises between established cultural beliefs, westernization, and feminism. For instance, the concept of feminism is viewed as a predominantly western philosophy. Subsequently, women who stand up against established and oppressive gender identities face criticism that their struggle to take back control over their identity is simply a result of a colonized consciousness (Seidman & Alexander, 2020). This thought line is especially relevant to the third world, where the conflict between traditional values and contemporary ideas is most visible. In this case, the credibility of feminism is eroded by pitting it against accepted cultural principles. The effect of this conflict between progressive and conventional ideas is best illustrated by the lives of women faced with the dilemma of serving tradition and claiming their independence.
Women pursuing progressive feminist ideas and attitudes have to square with the dilemma of challenging celebrated female values. According to Sa’ar (2001), the key to successful women empowerment rests on the capacity to reconcile the dilemma created by patriarchy that society has come to accept. For instance, Seidman and Alexander (2020) present an analogy where mothers call their daughters’ attention to the struggles that characterize the female identity. Seidman and Alexander (2020) argue that women are taught to expect hardships and limitations as they settle into the role that society has prescribed for them. However, the same mothers are quick to challenge behavior seen to deviate from that which society deems right for women. Sa’ar (2001) builds upon this train of thought by recounting stories of women whom society compelled to remain in their hardships even when they sought a different path. For example, Sa’ar (2001) tells the story of a woman who after repeated abuse by her spouse choses to go back to her parents’ home. However, her mother continuously mistreats her in order to force her return to the husband. These facts point to a deeply socialized identity that triggers anti-feminism behavior. One way of explaining these self-defeating actions is by exploring the continuity myth’s implications to the feminist conversation.
Women subconsciously oppose feminism and perpetuate patriarchy due to the effects of self-labeling bias. A simple definition of self-labeling is the tendency to approve the credibility of something by relying purely on historical decisions or data (De-Arteaga et al., 2018). An ideal example of self-labeling is the respect for cultural values purely based on their permanence or longevity. In the present case, self-labeling serves as the basis for opposition to ideals such as feminism because they challenge longstanding ideas. In practice, women that challenge the gender identity status quo are painted as enemies of tradition, which proponents assume carries proven benefits. According to Seidman and Alexander (2020), self-labeling manifests in the form of enthusiasm for such cultural institutions as marriage and the rejection of Western ideas. In a nutshell, self-labeling challenges women’s empowerment by blinding society to the true outcomes of moving away from patriarchy. The ignorance of feminism’s outcomes also explains why women are among the toughest of feminism despite standing to gain from it.
Women oppose feminism based on the false assumption that it stands to introduce threats to their practical interests. Based on Kandiyoti (1988), women opt to overlook patriarchy’s harms, which undoubtedly outweigh those of feminism because of the fear that will lose such gains as economic and emotional security. Therefore, women respond by resisting feminism and supporting the status quo mainly because they fail to see directly empowering alternatives. For example, selling the idea of gender parity to an uneducated, unemployed woman who depends entirely on her spouse may not be a tenable idea. In some cases, society builds on these fears by introducing symbolic protections that refer back to patriarchy’s conventional protections. For example, Kandiyoti (1988) notes how women in some cultures are compelled to don veils to symbolize the need for protection after allowing women to work outside the home. Kandiyoti (1988) argues that what women fail to realize is that many of the losses that would arise from the fall of patriarchy are only short-term in nature.
Lastly, the suffrage movement has historically been criticized on the basis that it overburdens women. Based on Waxman (2020), there were sentiments opposing the suffrage movement based on the argument that it introduced responsibilities that added to the already heavy load borne by women. For example, these early opposing voices identified voting as a role inconsistent with womens’ role (Waxman, 2020). In the present case, the idea of gender parity overburdening women occurs in a more nuanced manner. For example, women may feel that they already incur a high cost in terms of their role in society. The result of this state of matters is that some women deliberately undermine the manifestation of gender parity by exchanging independence for liberties brought to life by patriarchy. Kandiyoti’s (1988) analysis shows cases of women willingly resisting change as long as it sustains what they have come to perceive as their respectable roles. For example, Kandiyoti (1988) points to women fighting economic empowerment primarily because it seemed to challenge society’s role definition of gender roles. Nonetheless, a review of these facts suggests that deliberate female conservatism and attempts to bargain with patriarchy only work to postpone the inevitable.
In closing, women who attempt to challenge the conventional definitions of gender face many challenges. The analysis of the existing body of knowledge indicates that the bulk of these challenges arises from the disconnect between culture and western values such as feminism and women empowerment. This conflict introduces such challenges as a lack of clarity regarding the parameters within which to define feminism. Additionally, women may find it hard to reconcile between positive cultural definitions of gender and those presented by progressive ideas such as feminism. In this regard, women may prioritize established cultural beliefs rather than come out as proponents of western ideas. This reality is well captured in the concept of self-labeling, which lends support to established ideas based exclusively on their history. Further, the synthesis of existing research supports the need for a broad approach to gender parity to eliminate such factors as economic disability, that compel women to oppose feminism. Consideration of such factors would allow women to face the uncertainties introduced by independence.
References
De-Arteaga, M., Dubrawski, A., & Chouldechova, A. (2018). Learning under selective labels in the presence of expert consistency. arXiv preprint arXiv:1807.00905. https://arxiv.org/pdf/1807.00905
Kandiyoti, D. (1988). Bargaining with patriarchy. Gender & society, 2(3), 274-290.
Sa’ar, A. (2001). Lonely in your firm grip: women in Israeli‐Palestinian families. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 7(4), 723-739.
Seidman, S., & Alexander, J. C. (Eds.). (2020). The new social theory reader. Routledge.
Waxman, O. (2020, August 18). 5 myths about the 19th Amendment, debunked. Time. https://time.com/5879346/19th-amendment-facts-myths/