A Society That Empowers Its Women Does Not Just Rise; It Soars Beyond Limitations

Sadhguru says, Empowering a woman is not an act of charity; it’s a return to justice. A woman’s freedom is the soul of civilisation. When a woman rises with awareness, an entire society awakens.

Article | Shree Siddhashram | March 08, 2025

Sadhguru: The Measure of a Civilisation: The true measure of any civilisation is not in its technological advancements or military might but in how it treats its women. History has shown time and again that societies that marginalise or silence women often stagnate, while those that uplift and empower them experience renaissance—not just in the economic or political sphere but in the moral, spiritual, and emotional dimensions of life. The phrase, “A society that empowers its women does not just rise; it soars beyond limitations,” is not a poetic abstraction—it is a profound truth rooted in history, anthropology, spirituality, and human evolution.

1. Historical Context: When Women Were the Torchbearers

Before patriarchy solidified its grip on civilisations, many ancient societies were matrifocal or matrilineal. In ancient Egypt, women could own property, rule as pharaohs (e.g., Hatshepsut), and practice medicine. The Vedic period in India celebrated rishikas like Gargi, Maitreyi, and Lopamudra, whose discourses are found in the Upanishads. In pre-Islamic Arabia, women like Khadijah bint Khuwaylid were wealthy traders, independent and respected.

These were not anomalies but indicators of what societies could be when women are not subjugated but embraced as equal partners in evolution. However, the rise of monarchical, feudal, and industrial structures brought about a power shift that often relegated women to the background. Yet, even then, empowered women found ways to reshape societies.

To educate a woman is to plant the seed of limitless change.

2. Empowerment Redefined: Beyond Tokenism

Empowerment is not merely giving women voting rights or employment. It is the internal and external cultivation of agency, where a woman can choose, decide, speak, and live without fear or dependence. A society that truly empowers women focuses on five key pillars:

• Economic independence

• Educational access and equality

• Legal rights and protections

• Social recognition and respect

• Spiritual and emotional space to express and evolve

Without all five, empowerment is incomplete. And when even one of these is missing, a society cripples its own potential.

3. Societal Transformation: The Ripple Effect of Female Empowerment

When a girl is educated, she marries later, earns more, raises healthier children, and breaks generational cycles of poverty. The United Nations and World Bank have repeatedly highlighted how every dollar invested in women’s education and health results in multiple dollars of return in community well-being. Consider these transformative effects:

True empowerment begins not in laws, but in the eyes of a girl who no longer fears to dream.

a. Economic Growth and Innovation

Companies with gender-diverse leadership are more profitable. Women bring different problem-solving perspectives, risk assessments, and creativity. Nations like Rwanda, which implemented gender quotas post-genocide, now have over 60% female representation in parliament and are among Africa’s fastest-growing economies.

b. Healthier Families and Communities

Empowered women prioritise health. Their understanding of nutrition, sanitation, and child care results in healthier future generations. Programs like the Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) in India have shown how rural women transformed healthcare and hygiene in entire villages.

Global recognition of Project Kanyashree

c. Cultural Enrichment and Balanced Expression

When women create art, music, literature, and film, they bring untold stories to light—stories of birth, suffering, joy, resilience, and transcendence. The balance of masculine and feminine creative energies enriches culture. A society without women’s voices is spiritually impoverished.

A nation that lifts its daughters plants the wings of its own destiny.

4. The Spiritual Dimension of Empowerment

Empowerment is not just structural—it is deeply spiritual. Many Eastern philosophies, including Tantra, Buddhism, and Sanatana Dharma, recognise the woman as Shakti—the primordial energy without which Shiv, or pure consciousness, remains inert. In Ancient Bengal Shaivism, the world itself is a play of divine feminine power.

When society recognises this inherent divinity of the feminine, empowerment is not seen as granting rights but as removing the veils of ignorance. The greatest shift happens when a woman starts seeing herself not just as someone to be protected, but as a sovereign being, a creator of reality.

You can measure a nation’s strength by how freely its women laugh.

5. Cultural Examples: Empowered Women Across Continents

a. Iceland: A Model for Gender Equality

Iceland ranks consistently as one of the best countries for gender parity. Women make up nearly half of parliament, and the nation has had female presidents and prime ministers. Parental leave is equal for both genders, reinforcing shared responsibility.

b. Kenya: Women Driving Economic Upliftment

In rural Kenya, microfinance organisations like Jamii Bora and Grameen Bank clones have empowered thousands of women to become entrepreneurs. These women, once trapped in poverty, now send their children to school and reshape the village economy.

c. India: From Sati to CEOs

India’s journey has been complex. From Rani Lakshmi Bai to Kalpana Chawla, and from Savitribai Phule to Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, the country is witnessing a slow but powerful rise in female participation. Schemes like Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao, in Bengal Kanyasrhee, a unique concept for women's education and empowerment, and rising voices against patriarchal violence are reshaping narratives. Yet, more needs to be done.

Where women walk without fear, the land breathes in peace.

6. Myths and Cultural Barriers that Limit the Feminine

Despite progress, many societies still operate on deeply entrenched myths:

• Myth of weakness: Women are not physically or emotionally weaker. They are wired differently, not inferiorly.

• Myth of purity: The idealisation of women as ‘pure’ often becomes a cage, limiting expression and freedom.

• Myth of dependence: Financial and emotional dependence is often culturally induced, not biologically inherent.

These myths feed customs that restrict movement, education, and voice. True empowerment must begin by dismantling these internalised beliefs, not just changing external structures.

The first school of every society is the mother, who is empowered.

7. The Feminine as a Force of Balance

A society without empowered women becomes imbalanced, overly aggressive, competitive, and hollow. Empowered women bring compassion, intuition, empathy, and resilience into systems dominated by logic and conquest. In ecological terms, this is the Yin-Yang balance necessary for sustainability.

Take, for example, women-led environmental movements like the Chipko Movement in India or the Green Belt Movement in Kenya. These were not merely conservationist actions but deeply spiritual responses to exploitation. When the feminine speaks through the land, forests, rivers, and rituals, it speaks of preservation over consumption, nurturing over domination.

Literacy gives words; education gives voice.

8. Education: The Most Powerful Tool

The most potent instrument of empowerment is education. But not just literacy—education that fosters critical thinking, self-worth, and courage. In places where girls' education is prioritised, there is a dramatic drop in child marriage, domestic violence, and maternal deaths.

Education enables a woman to say “no,” to walk away, to dream. It rewires her perception of herself from someone waiting to be saved to someone capable of transformation.

9. Men and Empowerment: Co-Travellers, Not Opponents

Empowering women is not a zero-sum game. It doesn’t diminish men; it liberates them, too. Patriarchy binds men in toxic roles of aggressor, provider, and protector. When women rise, men are freed to be vulnerable, emotional, and expressive too. In healthy societies:

• Fathers encourage daughters to lead.

• Sons learn respect from their mothers.

• Brothers see sisters as equals.

• Husbands become partners, not patriarchs.

The re-education of men is crucial for women’s empowerment. It is not about guilt or blame but evolving together.

Leadership is not masculine by design; it becomes whole when women lead with their soul.

10. From Rise to Soar: What Soaring Looks Like

A society rises when women are included. But it soars when:

• A woman walks home at midnight without fear.

• A transgender girl receives love and legal identity.

• A rural grandmother becomes a solar engineer.

• A mother chooses whether or not to have children.

• A daughter doesn’t inherit dowry but legacy.

Soaring is not about quotas or headlines—it is the silent, everyday freedom a woman feels to just be.

An equal seat at the table is not enough—she must be heard when she speaks.

11. Policy and Structural Suggestions

To facilitate this soaring:

• Equal pay for equal work must be enforced by law.

• Mandatory female representation in politics and on boards.

• Gender-sensitive curricula in schools.

• Free legal aid for victims of domestic violence.

• Universal childcare and parental leave policies.

• Tax breaks and funding for women-led enterprises.

Policy must work with grassroots education, spiritual awareness, and cultural renaissance. Legislation without transformation is temporary.

12. Final Reflection: The Mother of a New Humanity

A woman is not a commodity, a womb, a role-player. She is a portal between the invisible and visible world. When you empower her, you’re not just improving GDP or literacy—you’re initiating a new way of being. The woman holds both life and wisdom, form and formless, desire and renunciation.

A society that empowers its women creates not just doctors or engineers, but priestesses, warriors, creators, mystics, and visionaries. It gives birth to a future where wholeness, not power, is the goal.

In such a society, humanity is not divided by gender but united in sacred harmony. And from this harmony, we do not merely rise—we soar beyond all imagined limitations.

Conclusion: The Time Is Now

Empowering women is not charity. It is justice. It is evolution. It is dharma.

As you read this, ask not only what policies must change, but what inner attitudes must dissolve. A change in government is fleeting. But a change in consciousness lasts through centuries.

Let us not merely empower women—let us celebrate them, learn from them, and walk with them. For when they soar, we all do.