The Women and Development discourse has been experiencing a continuous shift in its policy approaches from the 1950s onwards. The Empowerment, which is the most recent approach, can be considered as a critical response to the earlier ones. Experiences with the earlier approaches, particularly those of the Third World women, contributed significantly to the development of the Empowerment. A discussion that starts with the evaluation of the earlier approaches would help to bettter understand the rationales of the Empowerment. In the case of past failures, this would help to avoid repeating them. And, in the case of past achievements, we can seek convergence points between the Empowerment and the earlier approaches, which would be useful when working in the framework of the Empowerment.
