Abstract:
The study explores and assesses the impact of cultural practices and beliefs on the empowerment of women
within the Kasena Nankana Municipality. The focus was to examine how these cultural practices and beliefs in
the patriarchal society discriminate against women and female children. The study also investigates the
perceptions of community members towards the empowerment of women. Under empowerment of women, the
study narrowed on the decision making rights of women, how women effect their own desired outcome and
women’s accessibility and ownership of productive resources although the study acknowledge other forms of
women empowerment. The study also investigated the perceptions held by the community members towards
women empowerment and empowered women. During the conduct of the study, the study made a discovery of
an interesting revelation about the belongingness of a woman in the communities of the research area.
The study adopted qualitative research strategy and the research tools were developed under cross sectional
research design. Employing both convenient and simple random sampling techniques to select participants, data
gathered from the fields were analysed thematically.
The significance of the study cannot be over emphasized because it has been pointed out by UNDP (2003) that
attempting to achieve the MDGs without promoting women empowerment and gender equality will both raise
the costs and decrease the likelihood of achieving the other goals. Hence, the study sought to ascertain the
cultural obstacles that impeded the realization of Women Empowerment under the MDG 3. In this case, policy
makers can put measures in place to tackle these obstacles for community development. According to CARE
(
2010) improving women with health, knowledge and skills is not enough to empower them, women must also
contend with social structures, cultural traditions and personal relationships that affect their success.
The study’s main findings were that; women in the study have inadequate sense of empowerment and this is due
to cultural ascription of gender roles and the woman has no strong connection to any culture structure. The study
further highlighted that, gender socialization perpetuates society’s expectations of what a woman is supposed to
do in the societies.
