Education as a Source for Female Empowerment

As women, we learn from an early age how to juggle the many responsibilities and hats that come along with the title. Daughter, mother, #1 fan, student, doctor, therapist, teacher, and caregiver, are all examples that demonstrate these many hats. Here in North America, this juggling act can be observed as early as adolescence, with young girls performing domestic duties at home before, or after, setting off to school to be students. Many of these responsibilities coincide with the traditional views of women, and although some things have managed to remain the same, there have been many changes. Education has played a major role in the changes that have come about throughout the years, more so to the traditional role of motherhood, with many women now choosing to wait longer. While the role of education is one of the many contributing issues at the core of the women’s empowerment movement, this factor alone cannot account for the historic and present day victories and oppression faced by women.

With class being one of the primary forms of oppression, female empowerment came about with the intention of dismantling the power of the ruling class, by identifying the factors that gave the ruling class this upper-hand. These factors include things such as sex, race, and status. In today’s society, all three can be changed thanks to the technological and medical advancements, such as gender reassignment surgery, cosmetic creams, or the Patricia Krentcil method, as well as lines of credit and credit cards. Since in the past holding the status of female meant you were naturally inferior, there was one key factor women identified that would help empower them, and bring them one step closer to being viewed as equals in society – education.

This desire for equality has been, and, to some extent, still is, at the forefront of the global fight for equal rights for women. The effects of an educated woman can be stronger, and longer lasting, than those of the powerful earthquake that causes the tsunami and brings about devastation. When you educate a girl, her life is improved. That education will trickle down onto the children she produces (if and when), improving their lives and the overall health of her community through the reduction of social issues such as poverty.

Education breeds confidence, and this confidence brings out the voice that demands equality, the voice that speaks out against injustices, and transmits the knowledge to the next generation of women. As women living in the Western world, we have a duty to women worldwide in this fight for equality. For reasons as simple as our geographic location, when we protest government and social injustices, we do not have to go into hiding soon after for fear of our safety or lives. We can go to school without the threat of our institution being bombed to pieces, we can go to the doctor as unmarried single women to request birth control without being killed or jailed. But, through self-given and women-permitting privilege, men have managed to sustain political and social control over us.

Sisters, we have come a long way, but the fight for equality is not done yet. With or without education, the invisible bond of sisterhood is one that should not be easily broken.

If our fellow male species, and some of our own sisters, choose to overlook us and our struggles, keep on fighting the good fight because this revolution will not be televised!

Nnali is hosting an education awareness workshop for young women of colour living in the GTA, with the hopes of providing the young women with opportunities for peer mentorship after the workshop. Learn more about this event, Young Women of Colour: Reclaiming our Future!, taking place on Saturday, June 23, at 12:30PM at Oakdale Communtiy Centre.