Cui Bono? "Empowered"

Empowerment — a very frequently spoken, or used, word, yet hardly understood.

Take "women's empowerment," for example. Ask society this basic question — what does women's empowerment essentially mean to them — and most of the time you will get one of the following replies: freedom to visit, roam, or live in a place of their choice; freedom to spend, buy, or purchase the things they like or love; freedom to work as per their choice — and so forth, along similar lines.

These are, in essence, valid parameters to establish "empowerment" for any human being, not just women. However, the moment you dig one layer deeper into any of these questions, the empowerment of such "empowered women" starts to unravel. Ask whether she can really spend as per her own wish without consulting her "male guardian," or whether she actually has the financial and social standing to walk out of a toxic job rather than merely the right to — and you will find male dominance still calling the shots. And with that, the empowerment goes down the drain.

The fundamental question one needs to address is how the meaning of empowerment shifts depending on whom it is applied to. Ultimately, though, it comes down to power dynamics in society — and even in modern society, that dynamic unfortunately remains male-dominant. So the real question is: Cui bono? — Who truly benefits from empowerment as it stands today?

I will believe in "women's empowerment" the day this wish of Kaifi Azmi's Aurat is fulfilled — "Uth meri jaan, mere saath hi chalna hai tujhe!"