Uneven Empowerment: A Case Study on Women Beekeepers in Central Iran

The Association of Women Beekeepers included 53 rural women andwas formed in 2000 based on a developmental intervention named Land and Water project. They received an interest and collateral free loan plusa grant from an international program named Small Grants Program (SGP)to implement an environmental project. These women worked for 10 years and then decided to split up into five smaller groups. Inthe earlyyears they showed some very important features of empowered women who could work together easily and successfully. After splitting up, near the end of 2010, they did little collective action.The question is while they seemed so successful why were theynot empowered enough to continue their interaction with the society. Werethey empowered personally and not collectively? For answering these questions a mixed method was designed. The observation showed that the process of personal empowerment was more successful than the collective one. Based on the theoretical approaches the women’s empowerment process, especially based on the microcredit schema, usually keeps women in the informal sector which means they cannot connect with social and economic infra-structure.