Political Mobilisation of Kerala Women

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................................................... 2 WOMEN IN PANCHAYAT......................................................................................................... 3 FACTORS AFFECTING PARTICIPATION OF WOMEN IN PANCHAYAT .......................................... 4 POLITICAL EMPOWERMENT AS A PROCESS ........................................................................... 6 REFERENCES ...................................................................................................................... 10

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INTRODUCTION

Despite Kerala’s higher human development and gender development index, there is still an entrenched patriarchy and reduced space for women’s voices in public and private spaces. It has been observed in the literature on the Kerala Model that the political field remained inaccessible to Malayalee women despite their impressive social developmental achievements in the twentieth century. More than a decade after that observation was made, and after many years of effort to mainstream gender concerns into local government, there is little effective change in sight. There is no doubt that more women have entered local bodies now. However, whether this will lead to a rise in the numbers of active women politicians, and to a greater articulation of women's interests via the broader politicization of women as a group is still to be seen. Ironically enough, since mid-90s, feminists have been demanding gender justice from the state and battling the major political parties over a series of well-publicized cases of rape, traffic and sexual harassment, in which leading members of major parties, both on the left and non-left seemed implicated. The large numbers of women in local governance have not yet become part of the ‘gender equality lobby’, and that senior male leaders still control the decision whether or not to support it. 'Womanly' qualities --...