• How do women empower themselves?

    More than one hundred years ago, one of the most important puertorricans of all time, Eugenio María De Hostos preached about the importance of educating women. In one of his most famous essays “The Scientific Education of Women” he uses his logic to argue that if women were in charge of the most important job in the world “raising the kids” they should be able to have access to a good education. His vision of the empowering of women through education is still valid.

    Since the 19th century, women have become an important part of life in different parts of the world, striving to gain high positions in important businesses, political and social jobs they occupy. Women have received great help from governments and ‘Women Empowerment Programs’ that protect and make women learn useful skills, like being able to hold their own small businesses and contribute to the country they belong in. There are numerous examples of policies made by the U.S Government and training programs made by the United Nations to empower women. For example the U.N. created a training program for woman living in Indonesia, near the area affected by the Tsunami, to help them create new businesses and break a new ground in the market economy. They also help by guiding them though life using Family Planning programs, providing more protection from violence and trafficking of persons and the teaching of subjects like: health, economy, technology, communication, and media.

    Women have made history or made a statement to the world by making their own individual achievements, in literature, civil rights movements, and other important events. Many women during the 19th century dedicated themselves to defend women civil rights and then later helped to fight for African American civil rights. Some of these women are Harriet Beecher Stowe (abolitionist during the civil war, who wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin), Jane Addams (founder of the Hull House), Rosa Parks (the mother of the Civil Rights movement, that made a famous protest in the Montgomery bus boycott), Amelia Earhart (the 1st woman to cross the Pacific Ocean), and many others. The actions that they did and the ideas that they committed themselves to, created great respect towards women, making them an important part of world history.

    I believe that the most important way of empowerment is through education. You gain knowledge for your personal success and control of life by getting an education and learning your rights. For example, women have to protect themselves from rights’ violations, discrimination, unequal job payments, and unequal rights in society. “Solamente será la sociedad lo que debe ser cuando la mujer- adecuadamente preparada- co-ayude a la obra general de la vida humana a que estamos consagrados todos los seres raciónales…la razón no es masculina ni femenina. Es razón, medio orgánico de indagación y adquisición de la verdad.” I believe there are no better words to say it as those words of Eugenio María de Hostos. He also said “Madre, amante, esposa, toda mujer es una influencia. Armad de conocimientos científicos esa influencia, y soñad la existencia, la felicidad y la armonía inefable de que gozaría el hombre en el planeta, si la dadora, si la embellecedora, si la compañera de la vida fuera, como madre, nuestro guía científico; como amada, la amante reflexiva de nuestras ideas, de nuestros designios virtuosos, como esposa, la compañera de nuestro cuerpo, de nuestra razón, de nuestro sentimiento, de nuestra voluntad y nuestra conciencia, sería el hombre completo. Hoy no lo es.”