A relational perspective on women’s empowerment: Intimate partner violence and empowerment among women entrepreneurs in Vietnam

Abstract

Research has mainly studied women’s empowerment assessing personal (e.g., self‐esteem) or relational (e.g., decision‐making) empowerment indicators. Women are not isolated individuals; they are embedded in social relationships. This is especially relevant in more collectivist societies. The current research provides a relational perspective on how husbands may hamper women’s empowerment by inflicting intimate partner violence (IPV) assessing women’s self‐reported experience. We tested the link between self‐esteem and experienced IPV on financial intra‐household decision‐making power among women entrepreneurs (N = 1,347) in Northern Vietnam, a collectivistic society undergoing economic development. We report two measurement points. As expected, self‐esteem (and not IPV) was positively related to more power in intra‐household decision‐making on small expenditures, which are traditionally taken by women. However, IPV (and not self‐esteem) was related to less decision‐making power on larger expenditures, traditionally a domain outside women’s power. We test and discuss the directionality of the effects and stress the importance of considering women’s close relationship when investigating signs of women’s empowerment.

Radio as an empowering environment: how does radio broadcasting in Mali represent women’s “web of relations”?

“…Such "webs" suggest that the question of women's liberation and empowerment cannot be understood in terms of individual enrichment, but in terms of their intersubjectivity and relationship to others. Indeed, as Andrea Cornwall states (2005, 5), it is more useful to explore women's "multiple social identities and identifications" because examining women as individuals fails to take into account the influence of social structures and relationships on women's lives (Anne Huis, Anne Huis, et al 2020).…”

The Association Between Women Empowerment and Emotional Violence in Zimbabwe: A Cluster Analysis Approach

“…Undoubtedly, the relationship between men and women has long been characterized by the unequal distribution of power (Huis et al, 2020). Therefore, it is not surprising that women empowerment has often been identified as one of the approaches for addressing IPV forms (United Nations, 2012).…”

Revisiting Women Empowerment Through a Cultural Lens a In-Depth Analysis of Empowerment Methodologies in Horticulture in Rural Ethiopia

“…However, as the assumptions underlying this participative methodology are based upon Western norms and conceptualizations of empowerment, we need to be extremely cautious to interpret the results of the intervention and shed light on the insights from the experience of women being part of this intervention (Kurtiş et al, 2016). While the relational embeddedness of women and their impact on empowerment has been studied by various scholars (see Huis et al, 2017Huis et al, , 2020 for some examples) we focus in this paper on the dynamics of the differences in power distance between the facilitator and the receiving community and its impact on the empowerment intervention, in a cultural setting characterized by tight norms and strict gender roles.…”

“…Before we deepen the concept of power distance, we align with African postcolonial feminism that views power as relational and dynamic, framed within a certain cultural, historical and generational context ( Blay, 2008 ). The current conceptions of empowerment are mainly a product of WEIRD societies ( Henrich et al, 2010 ), hence previous research has mainly studied women as individual agents without considering the social relationships they are part of and that influence their behavior and adherence to gender norms ( Huis et al, 2020 ). In other words, prevailing gender norms in a specific cultural context influence how women experience empowerment ( Huis et al, 2017 ).…”