While a new law that grants equal inheritance rights is the result of the empowerment of the women who brought about the law and not women in general, it encourages the empowerment of the latter (if they are aware of the law). Gender equality is hence both an outcome of the empowerment of the women who brought about the changes, and an encouraging factor for women's empowerment on the individual level. But where gender equality describes a state, empowerment describes a process."