7 Practical Ways to Empower Women and Girls

Practical ways to empower women and girls include helping girls get to school, making hiring and promotion fairer, and sharing unpaid care work. Start by asking what gets in the way. A ride to school, clear promotion criteria, or taking full responsibility for a household task can give someone more room to make her own choices.

Empowerment means having the resources and freedom to make decisions about your own life and act on them. What you can do depends on your role. A parent can protect a girl’s study time. A manager can open up a project to more applicants. A community group can change where and when it meets.

1. Remove the Barriers That Keep Girls Out of School

Ask where attendance becomes difficult. A family may be able to pay tuition but struggle with transport, supplies, or the time a girl spends caring for younger siblings. UNICEF’s overview of girls’ education identifies poverty, child marriage, and gender-based violence among the barriers, while stressing that conditions vary across communities.

If you’re a parent or caregiver, protect time for homework and ask the school what support is already available. If you work with a community group, find out whether students need transport, tutoring, menstrual supplies, or a safe place to study before collecting donations. Ask girls how they would use the support and what might still get in their way.

The same approach applies to learning beyond school. If a girl shows an interest in science, sport, or art, ask what she’d like to try next. When you’re helping a child develop her interests, access to a club, a borrowed set of tools, or time to practice may be the useful next step.

2. Make Hiring, Pay, and Promotion Fairer

At work, some of the most practical ways to empower women are decisions managers make every week. Publish the pay range when you can. Use the same core interview questions and scoring criteria for everyone applying for the same job. Make the requirements for promotion visible before people are evaluated, so staff know which experience and results count. The International Labour Organization’s principle of equal pay for work of equal value goes beyond comparing people with the same job title. It also asks whether different jobs with comparable demands and responsibilities are valued fairly. A pay review should therefore look at how roles are evaluated as well as how salaries differ within a role.

If you don’t set pay, look at who gets opportunities to do visible work. When the same people present to clients or lead projects, others have fewer chances to demonstrate those skills. Share the criteria for those assignments, invite people to put themselves forward, and give them the time and support to do the work.

If the selection process is unclear, use an assertive request: “Could we share how the next project lead will be chosen?” Once the criteria are public, check who hears about the opportunities. Send the notice beyond the usual group. Check when the work happens, too: a project that routinely meets after hours can shut out people with care responsibilities. Predictable schedules and flexibility can make an opportunity easier to accept. Offer that flexibility to everyone who needs it.

3. Share the Work That Keeps a Household Running

Think about what happens before a task gets done. Someone notices the school form, checks the deadline, finds the information, signs it, and makes sure it goes back. Splitting the last step leaves most of the work with the person who was already managing it.

Choose one recurring job and agree who will handle it from planning through follow-up. That could mean arranging appointments, making dinner on certain nights, or checking what needs replacing before the next grocery trip. Let children practice everyday life skills, such as simple meal prep and tidying up, without assigning jobs by gender. Sharing the work behind chores is one way to address gender inequality in everyday roles.

Review the arrangement after two weeks. Ask whether the person who used to manage the task is still sending reminders or fixing things at the last minute. If so, agree on what the new person needs to take it over. The free time is theirs to spend, including on rest.

4. Help Women-Owned Businesses Win Real Work

Placing an order, introducing a founder to a buyer, and paying invoices on time are practical ways to empower women in business. A recommendation can help, but an order, an introduction to a buyer, or prompt payment can be more useful. If a business offers something you already need, consider it alongside your other options. If you manage purchasing, tell suppliers how decisions are made and give smaller vendors enough time to prepare a quote.

Ask a founder what would make a difference before offering help. Someone who needs repeat customers may prefer an introduction to a buyer over an invitation to another workshop. A founder with more work than she can handle might want an introduction to a reliable supplier. If you’re exploring barriers women entrepreneurs face, start by finding out which one is relevant to the person in front of you.

Respect the terms of the work. Pay the agreed rate, settle invoices on time, and ask permission before using a founder’s story in a campaign. If you recommend her work, describe what she does well so the next customer knows why to call.

5. Make Public and Online Spaces Safer

Women and girls should be able to use public transport, attend events, and participate online without being harassed. UN Women’s work on safer public spaces involves women and girls in identifying problems and designing local responses. A school or community group can start by asking where people feel unsafe, what makes reporting difficult, and what changes they want.

If you organize an event, tell people who can help if something happens and how to reach them. Check whether the route home is usable when the event ends. If the walk to the bus stop is poorly lit, ask participants whether a different venue or a staffed pickup point would help. Online, give group moderators a clear process for handling harassment and removing posts that reveal someone’s private information.

If someone tells you they were harassed, listen, ask what support they want, and avoid sharing their story or screenshots without permission. Use the relevant safeguarding process if a child may be at risk, and explain that you may need to involve someone who can help keep them safe. Let the person know what you’re doing when it’s safe and appropriate to do so.

6. Challenge Stereotypes in Film and Social Media

Notice who gets to make decisions in the stories you watch, share, or commission. Does a woman drive the plot, change her mind, or make mistakes that matter? Is a girl presented as skilled at something, or is every comment about how she looks? These questions are useful for choosing what to recommend and for discussing media with children.

If you hire writers, book guests, or run a publication, bring women in for their expertise on the topic. Credit their work and agree payment up front. When a post turns into a thread about someone’s looks, step back from sharing it. If you moderate the group, apply your rules consistently. You can talk about body shame and how it shows up online without making the person who was targeted defend herself.

7. Include Women and Girls Before Decisions Are Made

One of the simplest ways to empower women and girls is to ask for their views while there is still time to change the outcome. Invite students to help choose when a school club they’re expected to attend will meet. Before introducing a workplace policy, ask the people who will use it where it might cause problems. For decisions about money, study, or care at home, ask how the change would affect the person whose time is involved.

Make participation practical. Offer a way to share input in writing, schedule around care or transport needs where possible, and credit the person who proposed an idea. If you find yourself planning your reply while someone is speaking, try listening for what they want you to understand before offering a solution.

Tell participants what changed because of their input. If a suggestion couldn’t be used, explain why. For example, if students say the club ends after the last bus, move the meeting earlier or work with them on another option. Then check who can attend under the new arrangement. People can decide whether it’s worth offering their time and ideas again.

Where Should You Start?

Choose one of these ways to empower women based on a decision you can influence this month. Ask the people affected what changed. A new schedule matters only if the people who asked for it can actually attend.

If you can change…	Start here	Check in a month
A home routine	Take over one recurring care task	Is the person who used to manage it still sending reminders?
A workplace process	Share criteria for a visible assignment	Who heard about it, and who got to apply?
A community program	Ask participants what makes attendance hard	Did you remove one barrier they named?

Final Thoughts 

The best ways to empower women and girls begin with listening and end with a change people can use. Take responsibility for one task, make one decision fairer, or remove one obstacle that someone has named. Then ask whether the change helped. Use their answer to decide what to keep or change next.