The empowerment of Women is especially relevant in the world today in regards breaking the so called “glass ceiling” in politics and the workforce. The word “empowerment” gets thrown around quite often without truly understanding it’s powerful context, which essentially implies that you are in control of your life. As young women in college it is important that we learn to embrace who we are and what we stand for with confidence!
Although there is no universal reconciliation of what it means to take control of your life, I have put together 8 helpful tips that I believe promote how to be a positively empowered women by positiveprovocations.com.
1. Know yourself: An empowered women needs to spend time getting to know herself, i.e. becoming familiar with her strengths and weaknesses, likes and dislikes, etc.
2. Keep learning: Freeing and expanding your mind is one of the most imperative steps toward empowering yourself, so educate yourself in any way you can.
3. Know what YOU want: Having clearly defined goals enables an empowered woman to go after what she wants.
4. Be independent: Being comfortable with who you are and knowing that you are strong enough to face any situation on your own is an empowering feeling in itself.
5. Make connections: An empowered woman has a network of people that she has formed deep relationships with both personal and professional, that she can count on.
6. Give back: Give back to the community in any way you can and you will be rewarded in more ways than one. When you open your heart to others, they will open theirs back to you.
7. Set goals: An empowered woman knows that she can accomplish anything she sets out to do; no goal is too big or unobtainable.
8. Empower others: An empowered woman encourages other women to strive for what they want. Although the most difficult, it also happens to be the most rewarding.
A prevalent figure today in politics that best exemplifies an empowered women is Hillary Clinton. She recently attended a Women-In-Tech conference to inform the 5,000 women standing before her of her presidential campaign plans for the 2016 election, specifically how she hopes to break every last glass ceiling in regards to gender equality. She made it very clear that she would not be shying away from her gender when she runs. Hillary Clinton precisely embodies the ideals of an empowered women through her courageous decision to run for president in next year’s election.
The Center for Student Involvement and Leadership here at the University of Arizona is a great resource that promotes women’s empowerment through involvement on campus. The mission of the center is to provide quality involvement and leadership opportunities for all University of Arizona Students. CSIL has five distinct divisions that include Campus Activities, Commuter Student Affairs, Greek Life, Leadership, and Student Organizations. The work of all five divisions is focused on the mission of CSIL – student learning through involvement and leadership.
Through the CSIL, the Women’s Resource Center is a non-discriminatory on-campus student center which provides programming, education, internships, and resources to the University of Arizona’s community of Women. They essentially work to enrich the community through educational programming by nurturing holistic individual growth through activism, events, and consciousness-raising engagement. The WRC consists of five programs accessible by students called The Men’s Project, NEW Leadership Arizona, FORCE, Women’s Interests Collaborative, and SPEAKOut that engage issues of sex, gender, and equity with critical but supportive thinking and conversation.