Empowerment of Women

Abstract

Technology empowerment of rural women is identified as a crucial element to ease out their work stress, reduce drudgeries and to improve productivity. In developing countries, technology development and training programmes have not been responsive to household drudgery associated with different production activities undertaken by women. Hence, rural women’s needs for technology that improves their productivity while reducing drudgery must be recognised. Present article attempts to highlight the need of effective Technology transfer for empowerment of rural women. In Section I of the article an overview is presented about empowerment, technology transfer and women’s work which is hidden and multitasked and having many misperceptions. Considering women’s different needs and widening gaps in rural technologies, this article affirms the critical need of technology transfer for enhancing and widening the process of technology diffusion in rural India. The focus of Section II is on the observations of an extensive study carried out to identify the gaps in technological transfer process in Andhra Pradesh and suggests definite pointers to develop appropriate technologies and transfer practices to ignite the process of women empowerment and social equity in India.