Pakistan Association of Anthropology, Islamabad, Pakistan Special issue Sci.int.(Lahore),27(1),773-775,2015 ISSN 1013-5316, CODEN: SINTE 8 773 Jan.-Feb CULTURAL PERCEPTION OF WOMEN EMPOWERMENT IN CHAKWAL CITY Samina Rabbani, * Mahwish Zeeshan and Hina Saleem Department of Anthropology, PMAS-Arid Agricultural University, Rawalpindi, *Corresponding Author’s Email: mahwish.zeeshan@uaar.edu.pk ABSTRACT: Empowerment encompasses access to options, information, education and resources; decision making power, authority; and control over one’s life. Culture of any society has always played a significant role in social, economic and political empowerment of women. The study focused on the cultural perception of women empowerment and the factors which restrict the women to become empowered. A stratified sampling technique was used draw a sample of 150 respondents through interview guides from Chakwal city. It has been found that despite a major contribution in the development process, female population has lower status as compared to men, specifically in the developing world. A vast majority of women in Pakistan is not approved to make decisions about their own life due to cultural norms since society and culture influence their major decisions of life due to which they are socially and culturally empowered. Key words: Culture, Perception, Women Empowerment, Decision making, Authority INTRODUCTION Empowerment is associated with power which can help in increasing the spiritual, political, social, educational, gender, or economic strength of individuals and communities [1]. The meaning of empowerment is not that it gives power to the people. They have power in the form of their knowledge and motivation, with the help of this knowledge they can do their job as best as they can. In short we may define empowerment as letting this power out from your inside by using your abilities to take best decisions. The term empowerment is mostly used and understood with women empowerment. Women become empowered when they realize and have equal access to resources and opportunities, rights to choose their career, gender equality, identified their self worth, equal opportunity to utilize their abilities in order to brings social changes and strengthen the economy of their country [2]. Women’s equal and full participation in decision making is extremely important for good governance, poverty alleviation and equitable human resource development in developing countries [3]. Women empowerment is a dynamic process in which well planned social change by-product of which are empowerment women with education comes employment and with this comes economic freedom Busch and valentine. In many traditional societies especially in South Asia the charge of women’s life is in the hands of others. In Pakistan Dominated social system is Patriarchal due to which at every place and every stage women have no right to take decisions. In the process of empowerment women look at old problems in new ways, analyze their situation, recognize their strengths, access new kinds of information and knowledge, acquire new skills, and initiate action aimed at gaining greater control over resources, situation and ideologies [4]. Although All over the world mostly women are responsible for meeting the basic needs of their families. But unfortunately they are not provided with the essential resources, the information they need and the freedom of decision they need to fulfill this responsibility. Empowering women contain very vast meaning in it. Women have to take better and better decisions with the changing time. There are three dimensions of empowerment (autonomy) i.e. women’s mobility (freedom to visit different places), access to economic resources and decision making authority [5]. These three dimensions lead to get women empowered. By mobility it builds confidence among women, and through excess to economic resources women get employed and contribute in nation’s economy and can add on to household economy to meet their ends up. Through the third dimension of empowerment women take better decisions in family as well some matters. Culture is that complex whole which includes knowledge, beliefs, arts, morals, law, customs, and another capabilities and habits acquired by a human as a member of society [6]. Culture perception is basically the ideas of the people how they perceive things and events according to their societal setup. Culture can shape our view of the world. People from different cultures see and perceives things differently and that is probably due to how their culture shaped the way the view the world. The cultural perception of women empowerment is mostly dependent upon their cultural and societal values and norms. Mostly in many cultures women treated in very inhuman manner. They are treated like animals having no power in any part of life totally depending on the males of the family or society. This approach negates the idea of women empowerment. Due to the miserable condition of women in Pakistan especially in rural areas government has passed the bill known as “Haqooq-e-Naswan” for the betterment of women in Pakistan from the cruel customs and traditions and from the brutal behavior of males. In 2013 the population of Pakistan was 182,769,945 approximately. Males are 92,869,325 (50.8 percent) and women are 89,900,715(49.2 percent) among the total population. Among the total population of women in Pakistan 52 percent work harder for empowering themselves. Having said that, indigenous search recognizes to understand the phenomenon in each country’s own unique context since gender issues are social issues and no universal strategy can be adopted for the complex gender problems [3]. In some cultures and societies women are quiet empowered. They are politically empowered, usually participating in elections and government which is necessary for them to raise voice in the policies that affect their lives. Economically women also become empowered that they have authority to make their own decisions regarding use of their resources. METHODOLOGY