Abstract
M.A.
In the modern world knowledge is a form of power, and those who have no access to it are by and large excluded from and marginalised by mainstream society. Being illiterate, therefore, equals being powerless and voiceless. For women, who form a two thirds majority of the illiterate adult population in developing countries, this is particularly true. Not only are they regarded as socially inferior, heavily burdened with domestic labour, child care, subsistence farming and/or outside work and have little say over their own sexuality or reproductive behaviour, but they are also unequal beneficiaries of education
and thus doubly disempowered. One way of empowering illiterate women at the grassroots level so as to enable them to negotiate things like fairer work loads and family planning, and to give them a voice both in family management and in the community is by
providing them with literacy skills — not only the basic reading, writing, numeracy and income-generating skills, valuable as these may be, but also higher critical thinking skills.
Women, being the ones who bear and rear the children, play an important role in society and can, if they have the knowledge and the power to do so, contribute to development and economic growth by practising birth control and by being knowledgeable about nutrition and health matters, so reducing disease epidemics such as tuberculosis and AIDS, and saving the state large sums of money. Literacy may not necessarily provide women with jobs, and may not even be able to help women overcome deep emotional scars, but it does provide the opportunity to do things not done before, explore, think, seek help and perhaps make different choices.