[creshal]

Why is it not empowering to give women more economic independence, in way that's sustainable in their societies?

Suffragettes in Europe had to fight for more economic rights for fifty years after getting the right to vote, and it was messy, protracted battle. (Until the 1970s, German husbands could dictate whether their wife were allowed to work or not, and kept control over their earnings for even longer.)

[cplease]

It's "empowering" in that sense for anyone to get more money. It's "empowering women" to give them opportunities, including economic opportunities, which they don't already have or to which there are barriers.

What I'm saying is that chickens are not "empowering women" in societies where it is and always has been acceptable, status quo, and already conventional for women to raise chickens; a "woman's animal," small and "close to home," for domestic purposes. They already have that opportunity!

Empowering would be raising goats and challenging the notion of a "woman's animal." Or maybe, you know, getting some education and having a life beyond subsistence farming.