Empowerment Through Dairying: A Gender Perspective

Empowerment of women aims to increase women’s access to and control over social, economic and intellectual resources. Empowerment is one of the tried and tested strategies for attaining gender equality. Gender equality ensures transforming policies and schemes for ideological biases against women for equal access to resources. Though India is moving away from patriarchal culture, discrimination is still persistent in rural as well as urban areas, throughout all strata of society. Sustainable and long term development is not possible without participation and empowerment of women. Only if they participate in the economic and societal development the full potential of a country will be unfolded. Empowerment of women through dairying is an attempt to improve the socio-economic conditions of the women. Women contribute significantly for the development of the family, society and the country. They account for a large percentage of unpaid work, both at home and outside and in India they are the major producers of food in terms of value, volume and hours of work. Dairy cooperatives demonstrated that gender based interventions in its programme planning not only increased income and employment, but also enhanced women’s status in family and society and made them poised for much greater changes in society.