Simmering with Gender Violence: Does Kerala Call for Revisiting Empowerment?

Existing literature lays much emphasis on the role of women’s economic and educational progress in attaining gender equality and empowerment. This presumption appears to be contradictory when situated in context of recent evidence on growing violence against women in Kerala, highlighting the significance of women’s agency in the process of empowerment.

"…in becoming mainstream, the concept (of empowerment) has lost much of its radical potential to challenge and change oppressive social relations." (Batliwala 1994)

Recent evidence on the growing violence against women in Kerala has made it one of the worst-ranking states in India, in terms of crimes against women (Hindustan Times 2017). This evidence has brought much perplexity to the discourses that uphold the state’s decent literacy and sex ratio levels as an indicator of women’s better status in Kerala. An immediate conclusion that may be drawn from this, as also noted by others elsewhere, is that improved well-being and literacy levels of women do not necessarily indicate transformation in gendered norms and attitudes.

Dear Reader,

To continue reading, become a subscriber.

Explore our attractive subscription offers.

Click here

Notes

[1] Sex ratios based on live births in the five-year period before the survey (2005–06), and not the five complete calendar years before the survey.

[2] See Kabeer (2005) on well-being freedom versus transformative freedom. The latter has been discussed as the freedom that brings along transformation in attitudes and norms and is intrinsically important.

References

- Agarwal, B (1997): “Bargaining and Gender Relations: Within and Beyond the Household,” Feminist Economics, Vol 3, pp 11–51.
- Allendorf, Keera (2012): “Women’s Agency and the Quality of Family Relationships in India,” Population Research and Policy Review, Vol 31, pp 187–206.
- Batliwala, Srilatha (1994): “The Meaning of Women’s Empowerment: New Concepts from Action,” Population Policies Reconsidered: Health, Empowerment and Rights, Gita Sen, Adrienne Germain and Lincoln C Chen (eds), Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
- Choudhary, Neetu (2016): “Resource Access and Status versus Values and Agency: Is There a Correspondence?” Gender Issues, Vol 33, No 3, pp 235–57.
- Doss, Cheryl (2012): Intra Household Bargaining and Resource Allocation in Developing Countries, Background Paper: Gender Equality and Development, World Development Report.
- Hindustan Times (2017): “God’s Own Country? Not for Its Women Who Face Sexual Violence Daily,” 24 February, http://www.hindustantimes.com/editorials/god-s-own-country-not-for-its-women-who-face-sexual-violence-daily/story-tOCzFy5rQLMBkIif8HDQIJ.html.
- Kabeer, Naila (1999): The Conditions and Consequences of Choice: Reflections on the Measurement of Empowerment, Discussion Paper No 8, Geneva: United Nations Research Institute for Social Development.
- — (2005): “Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment: A Critical Analysis of Third Millennium Development Goal,” Gender and Development, Vol 13, pp 113–24.
- — (2011): “Between Afﬁliation and Autonomy: Navigating Pathways of Women’s Empowerment and Gender Justice in Rural Bangladesh,” Development and Change, Vol 42, pp 499–528.
- Kishor, Sunita and Kamla Gupta (2009): Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment in India, National Family Health Survey (NFHS-3), India, 2005-06, Mumbai: International Institute for Population Sciences, Calverton, Maryland, USA: ICF Macro.
- Klasen, Stephan (2004): Gender-related Indicators of Well-being, Discussion Paper No 2004/04, Helsinki: World Institute of Development Economics Research.
- Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (2006): National Family Health Survey-3, Government of India, New Delhi.
- Mukhopadhyay, Swapna (2007): “Understanding the Enigma of Women’s Status in Kerala: Does High Literacy Necessarily Translate into High Status? The Enigma of the Kerala Woman: A Failed Promise of Literacy, Swapna Mukhopadhyay (ed), New Delhi: Social Science Press.
- Narayan, Deepa (ed) (2005): Measuring Empowerment: Cross-Disciplinary Perspectives, Washington, DC: World Bank.
- PTI (2015): “Gender Equality Still a Distant Dream in India,” India Today, 13 November, http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/gender-equality-still-a-distant-dream-in-kerala-expert/1/522603.html.
- Rajan, S Irudaya and K C Zachariah (2008): Migration and Development: The Kerala Experience, Heimatkunde: Migrationspolitiches Portal, 1 September, http://www.migration-boell.de/web/migration/46_1806.asp.
- Rajan, S Irudaya and Sreerupa (2007): “Gender Disparity in Kerala: A Critical Reinterpretation,” The Enigma of the Kerala Woman: A Failed Promise of Literacy, Swapna Mukhopadhyay (ed), New Delhi: Social Science Press.
- Razavi, Shahra (1997): “Fitting Gender into Development Institutions,” World Development, Vol 27, pp 1111–25.
- Rondinone, Antonella (2007): “Reconsidering the Status of Women in Kerala (India): A Geographical Analysis Based on Recent Data on Emigration, Sex Ratio and Social Status,” Rivista Geografica Italiana, Vol 114, No 2, pp 179–205.
- Rowlands, Jo (1996): “Empowerment Examined,” Development and Social Diversity, Deborah Eade (ed), UK & Ireland: Oxfam, pp 86–91.
- Samman, Emma and Maria E Santos (2009): Agency and Empowerment: A Review of Concept, Indicators and Empirical Evidence, Background Paper for 2009 Human Development Report in Latin America and Caribbean on Agency, Oxford: Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative.
- Saradamoni, K (1999): Matriliny Transformed: Family, Law, and Ideology in Twentieth Century Travancore, New Delhi: Sage Publications India, and Walnut Creek: AltaMira Press.
- Sen, Amartya K (1985): “Well-being, Agency and Freedom: The Dewey Lectures 1984,’ Journal of Philosophy, Vol 82, pp 4169–221.
- Sudha S, S Khanna, Rajan S Irudaya and R Srivatsava (2005): “Traditions in Transformation: Gender Bias among the Nairs of Kerala,” Paper presented at the Conference on Female Deficit in Asia: Trends and Perspectives, Singapore.
- UNPFA India (2008): Trends in Sex Ratio at Birth and Estimates of Girls Missing at Birth in India (2001-08), United Nations Population Fund–India, http://india.unfpa.org/drive/SRBBookletSep2011Final_New.pdf.

Must Read

The Sundarbans At The Forefront Of An Impending Doom

Social Media: Heralding a New World Order

In the present times, we see that though social media gives us hope to reform traditional political discourse, yet at many levels, it merely replicates it. Social media thus is becoming this peculiar...