Institute of Development Studies

New Narratives of Women's Empowerment

17 March 2009 

Andrea Cornwall, IDS Research fellow and Director of the Pathways of Women's Empowerment RPC, turned her Sussex Development Lecture into a wide-ranging discussion of power in various dimensions and contexts, the power of language within development and the meaning of empowerment.

Empowerment, once seen as a radical, challenging concept, has been embraced and 'mainstreamed' within and outside of development – and in this process, said Cornwall, has lost its power and become 'en-ment', or 'empowerment with the power taken out'. It has, she explained, come to be synonymous with an individualistic, neoliberal way of doing development; for instance, the many programmes that offer women microcredit loans to start their own businesses.

She described the 'linguistic kleptomania' of organisations, and the way in which their ideas of empowerment 'turn women into instruments' – of economic growth, better child nutrition, or any number of other goals that do not have women in mind. There is a neglect of the structural problems women face, and an acceptance of heterosexual marriage and family as the norm, with little space or encouragement for those women who become empowered and use their agency to choose a different path for themselves.

Cornwall talked about the importance of 'putting men back into the picture' – as women in poor countries are so often seen as surviving 'despite men' rather than with them. There is a dichotomy in development which can see women as 'good' and men as 'not good', thus reducing people to essentialist gender stereotypes and missing the context and the reasons behind poverty altogether. This glorification of an effective, empowered woman misses the point – that all people, of any nationality, gender, class or sexuality – experience empowerment and powerlessness at different times in their lives and in different situations.

Empowerment may just as easily lead to powerlessness as to further empowerment, and the complexity of people’s lives cannot be forgotten about – as it is so easily missed by blunt economic instruments that might be good for 'counting chickens' but not good at analysing power. Empowerment is about more than 'chickens, loans and jobs', said Cornwall.