Money Is Power, and Women Deserve Both
Why economic empowerment is the feminist fight we can’t afford to abandon
We often talk about feminism in terms of rights, voice, and visibility. But without financial independence, those ideals remain out of reach for too many women.
In every session I facilitate, whether with policy leaders or young African entrepreneurs, one reality stands out: when women lack access to economic resources, their choices shrink, their voices quiet, and their freedoms stall.
Until women have the power to make, keep, and grow money, we’re still fighting for the basics. Economic empowerment isn’t a side note in the development conversation. It isn’t the final lap we run after tackling rights, voice, and representation. It is the feminist fight that we cannot afford to stop fighting.
When women are locked out, everyone loses
In the communities I work with, women are already leaders. They are farmers, traders, innovators, and caregivers. They run households, drive local economies, and mentor others. But they do so within systems that consistently undervalue, underpay, and under-resource them.
Too often, they lack access to land ownership, credit and financing, business training and networks, fair trade, and export opportunities. Women remain underserved across the board:
- Just 15% of landholders in Sub-Saharan Africa are women, despite contributing .
- Women entrepreneurs face a in Africa.
- In low-income countries, .
- Most informal women workers still lack protections like maternity leave, insurance, or pensions.
- As of 2023, , with women having only 64% of the legal protections of men.
And the consequences go far beyond lost income. Economic exclusion exposes women to greater risk of exploitation, gender-based violence, and political marginalisation.
Far too often, poverty wears a woman’s face.
Economic empowerment is intersectional feminism in action
Economic empowerment must go beyond surface-level interventions. It’s not enough to offer training or microloans while ignoring the systems that hold women back.
If we’re serious, we must address how sexism, racism, classism, and colonial legacies have historically excluded women, especially Black, Indigenous, rural, and low-income women, from building wealth.
When we fight for women’s economic rights, we are fighting on multiple fronts:
- Against patriarchal laws that still restrict land ownership by women.
- Against banking systems that demand collateral women are not legally able to provide.
- Against trade systems where women grow the goods but are locked out of the profits.
Even today, in 102 countries, women are still solely because of their gender. And even in African nations with gender-equal constitutions, customary laws continue to override women’s rights to land and inheritance.
So, when we talk about economic justice, we are not just talking about income. We are talking about redistributing power. We are talking about structural change.
This is what intersectional feminism in practice looks like.
Hope is a strategy and women are building it
Despite the odds, women are not waiting for permission or perfect conditions. Across Africa and the rest of the world, women are leading the charge, mobilising, innovating, and pushing boundaries every day. I’ve seen women:
- Form cooperatives to negotiate better prices and market access.
- Navigate export systems to get their products beyond borders, even without full access to capital.
- Build digital platforms to bypass gatekeepers and reach global customers.
- Challenge land and trade policies in their communities through local advocacy.
- Mentor each other, build WhatsApp business networks, and create safe spaces outside traditional structures.
Every time a woman accesses capital, owns land, registers a business, or enters a new market, she is rewriting the rules.
- From survival to ownership.
- From exploitation to leadership.
- From poverty to power.
That’s where the real power shift is happening. And it’s just getting started.
The fight must continue
Economic justice is not charity. It’s not “empowerment programmes.” Until every woman can control her own resources, her own land, her own labour, and her own destiny, the feminist fight must continue.
We cannot claim progress while millions of women remain trapped in unpaid care, informal work, or landless labour. We cannot celebrate freedom when so many still lack the basic resources to make decisions about their lives. And we cannot speak of gender equality without demanding economic equality — not eventually, but now.
Because there’s no true freedom without economic freedom.
And there’s no feminism without economic justice.
So, if you care about this fight, here’s what you can do:
- ✅ Support women-led businesses.
- ✅ Push back against discriminatory policies.
- ✅ Invest in women-centred cooperatives and funds.
- ✅ Challenge the policies and norms that keep wealth out of women’s hands.
- ✅ Elevate grassroots leaders already doing the work.
The work continues. We are not done yet.
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