Empowering Women Doesn't Mean Disempowering Men, with Landesa's Tim Hanstad | Big Think

The majority of poor people in the world are women and girls. In developing countries, where the single largest occupation for women is agriculture, and increasingly in Africa and Asia in particular, women are doing the bulk of the farming. Yet, women are almost always locked out of ownership over the most important asset… land.

So it's extremely important that we pay attention to who within the household holds legal rights. The ugly truth is that it is mostly men who are holding women back. Men dominate the policy arena; men dominate the decision-making at the community level, at the household level. We have to address the misconception that empowering women means you're disempowering men. That's a myth. It's a misconception. Empowering one empowers all.

Empowering women empowers men, children, families, and ultimately the entire society. Women's economic empowerment is not a women's issue; it's a societal issue. If we're going to address some of the largest challenges we have, such as poverty and food security, we're going to have to empower women.

They have been underutilized as social and economic change agents; they are the ones doing much, if not the bulk of the farming. So their relationship to land and to other productive resources is critically important. The way that we have gone about trying to fight against, I would say, the opposition is to get men to understand two things: one, it doesn't disempower men, and two, it's a societal issue.

If you want to address this societal issue, you just have to empower women in the society. One of the lessons learned for us is that when appealing to men about the importance of empowering women, we often find more success appealing to them in the interest of their daughters rather than their wives. Most fathers do want the best for their daughters. When you appeal to them in the interest of their daughters, they find it, I think, somehow less threatening than appealing to them in the interest of their wives.

Even in the most patriarchal societies, men understand that women are entrusted to do some of the most important work, that is caring for children and raising children. You can often appeal to them from where they are coming from. I mean, trying to shove some Western notions of equality down the throats of people who see it as threatening isn't always the most effective way.

But if you appeal to them in terms of what is the best for your community, what is the best for your broader society, and what is the best for your families, you often can address that resistance.