Empowering women through women cooperatives in developing countries

Women’s empowerment is important, especially for developing nations trying to improve development and stimulate economic growth. However, gender parity still exists even in many developed countries, and attaining worldwide gender equality may take another 100 years from now. Here are some steps all countries should consider taking to speed up the process:

Involving women in business and labor markets so they can have access to decent jobs is an essential step in empowering women. In both developed and developing countries, there are “masculine” labor markets and business environments where women face many visible and invisible barriers while trying to attain better business opportunities. The dominant cultural structures in many countries approve and support these barriers, with traditional tasks being assigned to mostly women. In this case, a woman trying to be economically free faces many difficulties, thus failing to be successful. Even worse, society often makes the situation worse by discouraging and preventing women from overcoming their failures and trying again. However, when a man fails, it is considered “natural” and even inspirational. 

Although some men support women in their efforts to gain economic freedom, women can usually get more support from other women because they understand each other's difficulties better. Thus, women’s cooperatives can provide great opportunities and benefits to women looking for employment. For instance, a group of women farmers in Turkey got together to form their own organization, and have become successful together without the help of other companies or organizations. Considering that Turkey is a highly traditional society with traditional labor market structures, their efforts were even more remarkable. Moreover, in March 2019, the SADA Women’s Cooperative was also created in Turkey to provide income generation opportunities and a safe space for marketing, production, and sales of goods made by women, proving that women’s cooperatives can be a highly effective strategic approach to women empowerment, especially in developing nations. 

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