The relationship between women and water, women and sanitation is integral; women are inseparable from WASH. A natural corollary of this relationship is an assumption that women should be involved in any WASH work in their localities and that such involvement is empowering for them. Lessons from practitioners and research tell us that these assumptions may be fraught with issues. This section, while introducing a variety of studies linked to women and WASH illustrate the diversities and complexities in these relationships. Insensitive ways of involving women can actually result in additional burdens on women rather than empowering them. At the same time, women’s empowerment processes, once initiated, can be so powerful that they can transcend the WASH sector and move to other domains like local governance, health, financial inclusion, education, enhancement of livelihoods and community relations. Further on, measures for empowerment in these domains can have positive yields for WASH, and similarly, effective inclusion of women in WASH can result in positive outcomes in other domains. What does this mean for policy? What does an insensitive intervention mean? What can effective inclusion mean? For some answers to these questions, we first need to move away from our assumptions and understand how, and in what ways, women are dominated. How can some of these realities be changed? Written by Dr. Amita Bhide, JJM Chair Professor, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai [Published in NIWAS Vartika - Vol-I, Issue-3 (Oct-Dec'25): A WASH magazine by SPM NIWAS, MoJS, GoI]