Empowerment

As you may know, my thesis is about women involved in environmentally-related organizations on the US-Mexico border. In my thesis I investigate whether or not women are becoming empowered as a result of this activism. Of those women who consider themselves empowered, I want to know if they consider themselves feminists or if they are participating in any kind of activities that seek to improve the lives of women in their community, even if they don't embrace the term "feminist."

One of the biggest challenges has been the use of language. First of all, the term "empowered" is not literally translatable into Spanish. I asked one bilingual informant who was born in Mexico and went to grad school in Great Britain if they have a term that encompasses this, if the literal translation "empoderad@" works. She told me that she would know what I meant by that term, but I have a feeling it would require an understanding of English, Spanish and the idea of empowerment in the first place in order to embrace this term.

Another challenge with language is how to define the term empowerment, even in English. Trying to find a consensus of empowerment in the academic literature is understandably hard. But I have trouble, even in casual conversation, describing what exactly empowerment is. It might be the ability to control your own life and have equal control over resources despite class, race, sex, sexuality, ethnicity... For some people, it could mean obtaining knowledge. Some may think an empowered woman is an unmarried woman because she does not rely on, or have to compromise with a partner. It varies with each individual, and I don't think it can be quantified by comparing a list of traits (i.e. person A is more empowered than person B because she exhibits more of these traits).

My own personal empowerment is not something I was born with. I didn't achieve it in high school or even early on in my undergraduate experience when I studied abroad for the first time or took my first women's studies class. It didn't even come as a result of my chainsaw-wielding experience in the deserts of New Mexico (ok, maybe just a little. I miss those chainsaw muscles). It has been a slow process, for which I don't think I could pinpoint the exact milestones of empowerment achievement. (So how do I expect my interviewees to do the same?). I do know that one aspect of my empowerment was achieved this quarter, and it has nothing to do with my academic achievements per se.

I have been taking the Women's and Gender Studies capstone course this quarter. It was my final official class of graduate school. It has been quite a departure from the gender and development courses I have taken up to this point. My previous classes have had a strong focus on the theory and literature. We would spend most of our time talking about (sometimes) abstract concepts as applied to the readings, and it felt a little detached from reality. Other students in the course would complain that talking all of this theory did not help when it came to the real world and how they would bring empowerment through their actual development work. It did not feel necessarily practical. This quarter, although the readings have been intense, the class discussion has been heavily based on personal experience. We would read about "hegemonic masculinities" and "heteronormativity in schools," for example, and then we would talk about our experiences in high school and beyond. How do you see hegemonic masculinities in your own lives? Several (many?) students in this class complained that we did not focus enough on the theory. I understand their complaints, but coming from a history of classes that went overboard on theory, it was a welcome change. It is expressly because of the emphasis on personal experience in the class that I personally felt empowered. Empowerment, to me, is feeling that your own experiences matter and are relevant to the things you dedicate your life to studying. I have spent 2 years taking classes like global feminisms where the focus is primarily on women from other nations (read: developing world, global south, etc.) and their experiences. I feel that women from other countries and their experiences were favored in this class, while the only thing I could offer were second-hand accounts of my experiences in other countries. No one ever really asked me how my life related to any of the readings. I felt distant and removed from the subject matter a lot of the time, and that shouldn't be, because I AM a global feminist!

It was nice to have a class where I could finally relate the readings and subject matter to my own life. It gave me a new perspective on things and made me feel that my experience counted for something. I was disappointed on the last day of class when our discussion mostly centered around negativity. Some students felt the class was too western-centered and that it was not theoretical enough. Once again, I understand their complaints because I have felt the same way but on the other side of the spectrum. It is sad that not everyone could take away the same empowering experience from that class as I did. Though I suppose they may have felt empowered through their participation in classes like global feminisms. The only thing is, at the end of the quarter in global feminisms, we didn't have such a discussion.

It is my hope that everyone doing research in a realm that may seem miles away from their own reality can step out of the intellectual side of big theoretical terms, just every once and a while, and see that their personal experience is important, too.