WOMEN empowerment versus women in power. Women empowerment is an enabled power. For the longest time in history, women were not allowed to vote in some countries, not allowed to hold positions in government, not allowed to pursue college education and profiled to perform limited skills.
There were 55 women members in the House of Representatives and 23 female senators in the Philippines as of 2018. Leaders like former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, Speaker of the House of Congress in the United States Nancy Peloci, former Filipino President Corazon Aquino, former Filipino President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and Filipino Vice President Leni Robredo were voted in and given supreme authority with dominion over an entire nation.
March is Women’s month. It is incumbent upon us to remember the women of this world who tried to make a difference.
Topping the list is the late Mother Teresa, who has joined the saints in heaven for her extraordinary and exemplary acts of compassion and kindness to the most deprived.
Nobel Prize Winner on Economics, Esther Duflo, a professor of Poverty Alleviation and Development Economics, is also an economist who got the encomium for Solutions for Economic Inequality. The award was for her experimental approach to alleviate global poverty. According to World Bank, there are 700 million who live in extreme poverty.
European Green Deal Commission executive vice president Greta Thurberg is a climate activist who suggested ways to reduce carbon emission by 50 percent. Her advocacy is more development in agriculture instead of industrial. She reported that there were 400,000 deaths in Europe due to poor air quality and fossil fuel dependency.
Jessica Cox, who was born with no arms not only flies with her feet but also drives and surfs as well.
Angela Dinglasan started Zenutrients utilizing local produce thus, helping our farmers earn from the products that make us smell, look and feel good. How about that blind woman who taught the visually impaired to read Braille?
Millions of women all over the world manage households with skills equal to janitorial services, regarded by kids as the best cooks, double as drivers and tutors, and budget the meager income of the husbands.
I salute the women in uniform who joined the military and police force. Likewise, the women who now hold jobs previously occupied by men.
Kudos to the enabled women who have become empowered women!