Zaineb Ismail
“Empower women” This is one of the most common slogans we hear today. Feminists, activists, governments, international organizations, and people working for women’s rights are continuously asking for the empowerment of women. But I have started asking myself a different question:
What comes before empowerment? Is empowerment something like a medal, certificate, or piece of wood or silver that can simply be handed over to women? Can we give women a policy, a programme, or a project and say, “Now you are empowered”? Yet, in many discussions, we talk about women’s empowerment as if it is something that can be directly delivered to women. We create policies, programmes, and projects with the aim of empowering women, but we often fail to ask whether the basic conditions required for empowerment already exist.
My own understanding of this problem comes from observing the realities of women living in rural and marginalized communities in Pakistan. In many situations, women are deprived of basic needs. During disasters and emergencies, they may not be able to interact directly with rescue teams or relief workers. They may not be allowed to come outside their homes, and as a result, they may not be able to access relief equipment and other essential assistance. Many women also face limited access to education, healthcare, information, and knowledge about their basic rights. Child marriage remains a reality in some communities. Some women also lack legal identity documents, which can make it more difficult for them to access state services. When I think about these realities, I ask myself: How can we expect women to become empowered when they are still struggling to access the basic conditions necessary to exercise their rights?
Before talking about empowerment, we should first ask some basic questions. Does she have a legal identity? Can she access education, healthcare, information, and public services? Can she move safely to access opportunities and institutions? Can she speak without fear of violence, abandonment, or social punishment? Does she know that she has rights? Can she make decisions without complete economic dependence on others? Does she have a safe space where her voice can be heard? Is she included in decisions that affect her life?
These questions form what I call the Preconditions of Agency Framework. I do not see these conditions as a strict ladder that every woman must climb in exactly the same order. Instead, they are connected conditions that can shape whether a woman is able to exercise meaningful agency.
A woman may have a legal identity but still lack mobility. She may have education but lack safety. She may know her rights but lack the economic independence to claim them. She may be allowed to speak inside her home but remain excluded from decisions in her community. Therefore, empowerment cannot be understood simply by looking at whether a policy exists or whether a woman has participated in a programme.
The work of Amartya Sen helps us understand that having a formal right is not the same as having the real freedom or capability to use that right. A woman may legally have the right to education, healthcare, or political participation, but social, economic, geographical, and institutional barriers may prevent her from exercising those rights.
Naila Kabeer further explains empowerment through the relationship between resources, agency, and achievements. Her work shows that empowerment involves gaining the ability to make meaningful choices, rather than simply receiving a policy or programme. Building on these ideas, I argue that we must also examine the conditions that allow women to develop and exercise agency in the first place.
This is particularly important for rural women in Pakistan. The problem is not simply that policies do not exist. Pakistan has laws, policies, institutions, and programmes related to women’s rights and empowerment. The deeper problem is often the distance between the policy and the woman whose life the policy is supposed to improve.
What happens between the creation of a policy and the moment when a rural woman actually benefits from it? A policy may exist, but she may not know about it. She may know about it but be unable to reach the institution responsible for implementing it. She may reach the institution but lack the documents required to access the service. She may receive assistance but still have no voice in deciding how it should be used.
This creates a gap: Policy → Institution → Implementation → Awareness → Access → Safety → Actual use
At the same time, we often ask rural women why they do not speak up, why they do not fight for their rights, or why they do not take steps towards change. But perhaps we should ask a different question:
What is the cost of speaking up for them?
For some women, raising their voice may mean facing violence, abandonment, social isolation, or rejection by their families and communities. Therefore, we cannot simply tell women to become agents of change without creating conditions in which they can safely exercise their agency.
The problem is not that rural women do not have the ability to create change. The problem is that the system often denies them the conditions necessary to do so. This is why I believe we need to move beyond the slogan of women’s empowerment. We should not only ask:
How can we empower women? We should first ask: What must exist before empowerment can become possible?
The first step should be to ensure basic rights and basic conditions: legal identity, education, healthcare, information, safety, access to services, and the right to express oneself. Women should not be treated only as victims waiting to be rescued or beneficiaries waiting to receive a programme. They should be recognized as knowledge-holders and participants in creating solutions to the problems affecting their lives.
Empowerment is not a certificate that can be handed to a woman. It is not a policy that automatically changes her life. It is a process that becomes possible when women have the conditions to make choices, express themselves, access opportunities, and participate in decisions.
Before asking rural women to become empowered, perhaps we should first ask ourselves: Have we created the conditions in which empowerment can actually happen?
