Involvement of Women in Politics and Their Empowerment: A Sociological Study in Madaripur District, Bangladesh

Abstract

Like all over the world in Bangladesh especially in Madaripur Sadar, women have been involving in politics with the passage of democratic revolution. They have participated in politics for their empowerment in political and other sectors. The purpose of the study was to investigate the actual empowerment of the women who were involved in politics either elected on non-elected, by identifying their decision making and controlling power over political party and family. 120 respondents up to 18 years old were selected as sample from the study area following cluster and purposive sampling procedure. This study has been conducted by both qualitative and quantitative data. Although there were some limitations of the researcher like limited time and resources, limited access to resources, limited information and so on, it has been found valuable result. Such as many women have been involving in politics in recent years but they have not been empowered actually. Because, they depend on male persons of the party and are controlled by senior male leaders. Most of the women are elected in their areas in different elections with the help of the popularity of their father or husband. They have participated in the election for the reserved seats. Sometimes, they are known to the general people by the name of their father or husband. Even though they are political leaders, they have no control over the family members. But almost all of them said that political participation has empowered them although a large portion of the respondents said the difficulties of doing politics besides male.