Let’s be real: we are a far cry from the days when women had to fight just for the right to cast a ballot. In fact, it’s safe to say World War II would have ended very differently—and the economy would have completely tanked—if not for the thousands of bad-ass ‘Rosie the Riveters’ who rolled up their sleeves and flooded the factory floors.
Women have fought hard for every inch of ground gained, but make no mistake: we aren’t at the finish line yet. Dismantling the social, cultural, and political hurdles that hold women back isn’t for the faint of heart, and it certainly isn’t a solo mission. True change happens when women across the globe lock arms and present a united front about our worth, our abilities, and our massive potential.
Want to be part of the shift? Here are five highly effective—and surprisingly simple—ways you can empower the women around you and push the needle forward:
1. Fuel Her Mind (Support Education)
In the States, the gender gap in education is actually flipping—women are now out-enrolling men in college and pushing through to graduation at higher rates. But step outside our borders, and the reality looks drastically different.
In many countries, school-age girls are the designated water-carriers for their families, burning daylight walking miles just to secure something to drink. Improving access to clean water doesn’t just save lives; it literally gives girls their time back so they can sit in a classroom. (You can help make this happen by supporting organizations like Charity: Water).
Then there’s “period poverty.” Astonishingly, this isn’t just an issue in developing nations. Nearly 1 in 5 American girls have missed school simply because they couldn’t afford period products, and 137,000 girls in the UK face the exact same hurdle every year. In parts of India, a heartbreaking 4 out of 5 girls drop out entirely once they hit puberty. You can change this by petitioning your local government to provide free sanitary products in schools—take a look at the Red Box Program to see how it’s done right.
When a girl finishes secondary school, she is less likely to experience child marriage, face domestic abuse, and suffer from long-term health complications. As a result, educated women and girls are more likely to have fewer, healthier children, who are then, in turn, more likely to get an education and pull themselves out of poverty.
2. Stand with Women in Crisis
Human trafficking isn’t just a plotline in an action movie; rates have drastically increased over the last few years. Millions of girls worldwide are still subjected to forced marriages, enslavement, and exploitation.
The good news? There is an army of agencies fighting back. They provide rescue, counseling, medical care, and the financial backing these survivors need to rebuild their lives from scratch. Donating your time or money to a vetted charity in this space is one of the most direct ways to fight for a woman’s basic freedom.
3. Look in Your Own Backyard
You don’t need a passport to find women who need a hand up. Poverty rates are climbing in many states, and underfunded schools are capping the potential of brilliant girls who just need a fair shot. Meanwhile, domestic violence remains a quiet, pervasive epidemic.
Want to take action today? Look up the women’s shelters in your city and ask what they need. Pro tip: advocate for them to start accepting pets. The fear of leaving a beloved dog or cat behind with an abusive partner is one of the primary reasons women delay making their escape.
You can also step up as a mentor. Organizations like Big Brothers Big Sisters are always looking for people willing to share their time, listen, and help a disadvantaged girl realize what she’s capable of.
4. Vote With Your Wallet
Amazon will survive without your twenty bucks today. But the bakery down the street? Or that row of local boutiques? They rely on you. Many of the small businesses anchoring your community are run by local women and their families, and they are constantly battling to stay afloat against retail giants.
Take that same energy global by shopping from female artisans on Etsy. If you want to go a step further, fund a woman’s dream directly. Platforms like Zidisha allow you to provide microloans to female entrepreneurs in developing countries, letting you communicate with them directly as they build their businesses.
5. Speak Up — Unapologetically!
Use your voice for the women who are routinely silenced. Despite all our modern medical marvels, complications from pregnancy and childbirth are still claiming the lives of hundreds of thousands of mothers and newborns globally. Preventable issues like malaria and pneumonia are still devastating communities. You have the power to make noise about it.
Get involved with aid organizations, or better yet, go straight to the top. Flood your congressional representatives’ inboxes and voicemails. Demand that global women’s health remains a priority, and rally your friends to do the same. (Global Citizen is a fantastic resource if you need a place to start).
And Lastly…
Sometimes, the most empowering thing you can do for a woman is simply to see her.
Tell her you notice how hard she’s working. Write a quick thank-you note to your child’s teacher. Grab an extra iced coffee for that co-worker who looks like she’s carrying the weight of the world. If you’re a leader at your company, actively champion and promote the women on your team. You have the daily opportunity to make sure the women in your orbit feel fiercely valued, deeply respected, and completely unstoppable.
Hi Hilary,
I think that other methods will be needed too so that we can target various groups to explain the importance of empowering women.
I think talks should be given in schools, this way gender equality will be ingrained in younger generations. I also think that governments should have campaigns to encourage women to attain jobs which otherwise seem stereotypically for men eg. engineers and contractors.
Modernize agriculture, increase access to micro-finance and regular loans, promote mobile banking in rural areas, create policies that increase property and land ownership, conduct business and financial training and promote women owned products.
Great ideas Hilary!
It is very important that we continue to pass on the message of women’s economic empowerment and continue the campaign for gender equality within our own communities!
Hi Hilary,
This is a very timely topic. In my opinion I think if we, the youth, can step in to the field and conduct awareness programs with regard to women’s empowerment would be a good idea. Also educate the women has to how they can enter into making an income, ways of becoming an entrepreneur.
Because, most of the time women are being harassed and cornered because they don’t have a proper financial stability. We must educate the low income women as to what are the possible paths of making a good income.
I hope my ideas are valuable. Great job on opening a topic which connects us all…
Best Regards..!
As many have mentioned, I see initiatives targeting youth and others within each of our communities and networks as being particularly important means to raise awareness of and promote women’s economic empowerment (WEE). Just from looking through the Knowledge Circle and Twitter discussions that members have participated in, it’s clear that we all hold extensive and valuable knowledge and perspectives on gender equality and women’s empowerment – now it’s a matter of disseminating our knowledge to encourage others to become passionate about such issues and promote them within their own circles.
In my view this can start from very simple things – e.g. bringing up existing gender disparities in the economic/social fields in relevant discussions, addressing factual information/data if someone states something inaccurate or something that reinforces harmful gender stereotypes, for instance regarding women’s capacity in the workplace. Belinda-Rose and Elisa have brought up some fantastic examples of what can be done in our very own communities to scale up the promotion of WEE from individual conversations and discussions. The great thing is these are completely feasible and doable actions that almost anyone can take! Looking forward to more ideas in this discussion.
I think that we need to increase awareness about UN Women’s mandate with local organizations, and leverage their “membership” to spread the message. For example, United Way Worldwide, through its presence in 45 countries and community-based approach, can be a valuable partner (https://unitedway.org/pages/about-united-way-worldwide/). Many of their agencies offer community services to women – these women who are being reached can in turn become advocates for women’s economic empowerment.
My approach on this topic is to target university/college students. These youth are fresh,open minded and innovative think tanks. Most are eager to be part of a bigger purpose in society and makes them even more vibrant to the idea of making a positive change in a community. They will fully participate knowing benefits such as certificates,networking,international exposure(in most cases),skills awaits them. With such information to ones identity, better opportunities are given to them once completion of one’s university course. Students should be trained on empowerment ideologies,given resources and assigned different tasks within a certain period to work out.
Kind regards.
I think you brought up excellent points. It is important to not only seek to make a difference globally, but also in your own backyard, so to speak. One idea might be to have monthly or quarterly women’s empowerment events. This will create community cohesion and also provide the a lot of feedback instantaneously. This allows you to learn what works best in your own culture. Also, it’s great to do presentations/ talks that directly and indirectly target women’s empowerment. For instance, I have done presentations in high schools on life skills and planning for the future with young girls. I’m not going on a tirade about how inequality is horrible, but I am still helping them plan for the future – which is empowerment. I have also done collegiate presentations on interpersonal skills. Through this college men and women are learning about mutual respect, how to network, etc. Again, I’m not bashing governmental policies, but I’m creatively teaching empowerment and mutual consideration. At the end of the day, with each session I do, I grow more, which empowers me. 🙂
Some great ideas so far! Here’s a few ideas I can think of:
– Take up speaking opportunities on the matter of gender equality in our community, this might be at local school events, female entrepreneurship events, local community events.
– Setting up events with charities and NGO’s which raises funds for WEE
– Guest blogging or guest writing in local publications in your community about WEE
– Speaking events which are traditionally male dominant about your own experience or knowledge about WEE.
Personally, I’ve had the honor of mentoring and speaking at various start-up tech events which has been great because the start-up tech sector has always been very male dominant so to be able to speak and lead as a female it does often encourage other females to stand up and do the same…it also raises awareness in the male dominant sectors that females are also capable to do the same job and how the sector as a whole can support other females, so in turn you are not only advocating the matter to females but also to males.
Networking with women who have senior positions in companies and encouraging them to talk about women empowerment with younger women who just started in the company is a massive hlep! Encouraging women to openly express themselves about women empowerment at a young age is a must. I am blogging about women empowerment by asking women the question ”what are you doing about women empowerment?”. I realized that some working women feel like it is stigmatizing women to just talk about women empowerment and others just feel like it’s a lot of pressure to be a CEO and a mother or have a full time job and be a mother.