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Empowering Work

Our theme of 'Empowering Work' came out of the ideas of getting in touch with what it is that can make work empowering for women and understanding better the shifts in women's work that have taken place to such dramatic effect in recent years. We want to explore how women mobilise to claim rights as workers, especially in poorly paid and stigmatised professions.

Our projects enquire into the conditions under which work and welfare can be empowering for women, and what it takes to realise them – whether in terms of mobilising women to claim their rights as workers, or designing cash transfer programmes with a more explicit feminist perspective.

A sample of our activities around this theme over the last year includes:

Conditional Cash Transfers Workshop

At the end of January 2008 , the Social Research Center (SRC) hosted a workshop entitled “Introducing Empowering Conditional Cash Transfers to Egypt,” aimed at garnering the insights and experiences of colleagues, both local and international, pertaining to the design and future implementation of a conditional cash transfer (CCT) pilot in Egypt. SRC has been developing the pilot under the Empowering Work theme of the Pathways programme. Foreign presenters included a range of experts from Latin America and the UK who have worked closely on such projects, including the two largest and longest-running CCT programs to date (Oportunidades in Mexico and Bolsa Familia in Brazil).

For more details see: Workshop Report (pdf 42 KB)

Ain el-Sira, Site of Proposed Conditional Cash Transfer Pilot

Pick up truck Cityscape Man in kitchen
Chickens Woman in kitchen Woman with children

Work – Changing Images of Women in Bangladesh

These pictures come from a photography competition organised by our South Asia hub – they show women in different work contexts – mostly in professions not previously open to women in Bangladesh. For more information on the competition see Conceptualising Empowerment

Female tea worker Woman selling snacks
Tea night by Mohibub Zaman

Tea Staller by Mohibub Zaman

Mohi sells tea, cigarettes and snacks all day and up to midnight.  In the early morning, she comes and sets up her stall and begins her business. It is only in the last few years that women have started to set up stalls and sell things in Dhaka city.
Woman in TV studio

Munni Saha:  TV Reporter  by Sheikh Rajibul Islam

TV reporting is a very challenging job anywhere in world and in Bangladesh, it is rare to find any woman in this profession. Previously, taking reporting as a profession was only limited to men due to the nature of its work, having to go anywhere at any time which meant that there might be various risks involved. Nowadays, the scenario is changing and lots of young women are taking this challenging job and rejecting the image of women as being defenceless and vulnerable.

Munni Saha is a pioneer in this regard because she has established herself as a leading professional through her hard work, determination and being an excellent reporter. From the very beginning Munni Saha wanted to be a good reporter, not a female reporter who reports only women's events.  She wanted to be the lead reporter and she achieved it.  Reporters are not men or women, they are reporters. She proved this. Munni Saha has paved the way for other women to enter a field that was previously unimaginable to them.

Female photographer Female stoneworker

Photographer by Mohibub Zaman

Zabin is working as a professional photographer.  She joined Canvas, a magazine, as Assistant Photographer.  Photography is a new field for women in Bangladesh and now many women are joining this profession.

Shery Begum, worker by Badrun Nahar Ruba

Sherry Begum, breaking stone to make ‘Sheelpata’ (stone pestles to crush spices), represents women entering professions that have previously been dominated by men only. Making 'sheelpatas' has for long been a male profession that has been handed down through generations, making it a traditional profession. Even though modern technology has provided alternatives in the form of electric blenders, grinders, etc, the traditional sheelpata is still of great importance in people’s kitchens. It is extremely rare to find a home without a sheelpata - in villages and cities alike, it is one of the most commonly used tools used in preparing food.

Marriage, Motherhood and Masculinity

Naila_Kabeer

Naila Kabeer is the Team Leader of the Vulnerability and Poverty Reduction Team at the Institute of Development Studies and the Convenor of the Pathways' Empowering Work Theme and is affiliated to the Pathways South Asia Hub. The projects she is working on within the Pathways programme include 'Working Women Creating Particular Pathways of Change' and 'Paid Work and Women's Leadership.

Her recent Pathways/IDS Working Paper on 'Marriage, Motherhood and Masculinity in the Global Economy' looks at the feminisation of labour markets around the world and the new and often unpredictable effects it is having on the family and the social economy alike.

'Marriage, Motherhood and Masculinity in the Global Economy', IDS Working Paper 290, Brighton: IDS

See also:

Naila Kabeer, 'Marriage, Motherhood and Masculinity in the Global Economy' Open Democracy 50:50, 29 January 2008

Bio and selected publications

New Age, 'Naila Kabeer: Making Women Visible', New Year Special: Heroes, Dhaka: New Age

Working Women Creating Particular Pathways of Change

Under the 'Working Women Creating Particular Pathways of Change' project, the Pathways South Asia Hub team are establishing a panel of around 3,000 women of different socio-economic backgrounds, and using work as an entry point to explore pathways of change in women’s lives.  The panel will serve as a source of quantitative data and a site for experimentations with indicators of empowerment and will feed into the Measuring and Assessing Empowerment project.

See: Simeen Mahmud, Research Director in the Population Studies Division at the Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies and member of the Pathways South Asia Hub Team discussing the survey work on youtube.