Women’s Empowerment, working women and Islam

Abstract

This paper discusses the concept of women empowerment, by identifying its context which identifies those social processes in response to which this reaction emerged. Womenfolk faced extreme exploitation and humiliation in different eras of European history including antiquity, dark ages and enlightenment period. As capitalism wanted more workforce and larger consumer bases, it used women exploitation as a pretext to break the family structure. This concept stands at odds with Muslim societies like Pakistan where majority of the women prefers to follow higher objective of rearing families than to achieve individualized economic freedom and autonomy. In the later part, this paper presents certain Islamic injunctions from Quran and Hadith elaborating real rights, respect, and freedom to women which is in line with human nature.