Begum Rokeya was probably the first Bengali Muslims to raise voice against the wretched condition of women in the Bengali Muslim society. Although Muslim women were in a better social condition than the Hindus as the later were victims of inhuman social and religious customs like burning wives alive with the husband after his death, lack of provision of remarriage of widows, dowry etc, the Muslim women were deprived of education and hence has little scope of economic empowerment. She realised that education was the key to women development and established a school by herself for girls and wrote a number of books on women rights. Although her movement was not based on religion, she considered Islamic values as one of the key inspiring factors in spreading female education. Her articles and lectures use to contain quotations from the Holy Quran and Hadith.

After the British left, the then governments took initiative to increase the level of education among women and extend educational facilities. A large number of girls' schools were established and seats were reserved for female students in universities. Steps were also taken to encourage women joining government service by reserving quotas for them.

In the non-government sector movements targeted to women development continued. Those were mostly cultural and were politically motivated. Although those movements helped create awareness on men-women equity, there influence was limited to educated middle class and contributed little in elevating the socio-economic conditions of the women. Moreover, because of left-wing political and atheist ideological influence, those movements were found more interested in denigrating the social and religious values rather than empowering women resulting in strong social resistance against them.

The two streams of women development - one run by the government and with slow progress, and the other run by political and cultural activists continued after the independence of Bangladesh.

In late 80's non government organisations (NGOs) started to flourish. Most of the NGOs obtained their clientele from poor women and played an important role in empowering them by providing credits. Although, impact of such organisations have been greatly applauded in international media, researchers are now coming out with skepticism about the real contribution they made to

Another initiative in women development started in late 80's. Shah Abdul Hannan, a top bureaucrat and a leading intellectual of the country realised that women development would gain maximum momentum if it could be integrated with the religious values of countrymen as the people of Bangladesh have strong bondage with religion. He started arranging lectures on 'Women in Islam' and other related issues for brilliant female students. He eventually developed a set of Islamic scholars from highly educated young women. Despite limited financial and media support, this initiative brought astronomical success. Within a decade, this initiative not only produced dozens of women activists who were renowned at their own fields and Islamic scholars at the same time, it also helped changing the mindset of the religious community due to his position among them.

In early 90's the government took an ambitious initiative to provide stipends for female students. It received a grand success as the ratio of male and female students at secondary schools became 47:53 (female students 6% higher than male) in 2006 which was 74:26 (female students 48% lower than male) in 1980.

We are still long way to go in women development. There are still parents among the educated elite who do not become equally delighted if a baby girl is born. Our society is still bearing the shame of dowry. It is time to reevaluate the women development strategies and adopt the ones which are less confronting.