Gender Equality in Local Governance in Kerala

Table 1: Assessment of Gender Attitudes

l ocal governments have been called upon to deal with dowry, with the vulnerability of single women and to generate avenues of women’s employment. The responses to these issues may reflect this exposure. Also, dowry and sex education have been subjected to considerable public attention in the recent past.7

Favourable attitudes found in the assessment may be shaped within different even conflicting perspectives. Let us consider the opposition to dowry. A prominent view among Christians in particular is that dowry is an inherently beneficial and time-honoured social custom that has been distorted, through excessive commercialisation. In this view, dowry is the appropriate channel for the transfer of property from parents to girl children but extortion is inappropriate. Certain groups reject dowry as it is unacceptable under Islam, but they openly endorse early marriage of girls and other aspects of patriarchy.8 Even the position that dowry is a social evil could be complicit with patriarchy when the opposition is primarily b ecause dowry stands in the way of getting

there was difference of opinion on whether men too should be similarly restricted from seeking work abroad. One group maintained that as men too faced exploitation, there should be an effort to impose restrictions on their movement.

The participants recognised the inequality in exercise 1 and were unwilling to justify it despite its everyday occurrence but they did not reject the protectionism it invoked by beseeching men to

cations of protectionism were substantiated more fully in the response of participants’ to exercise 2. This exercise brought to the fore the tensions aroused by sexual m orality. Even when the adverse implications of the measure were pointed out, for instance, in forcing women to resort to

less exploitative work within the country –

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INSIGHT

the high value society attaches to women being married. The deviation could indicate that marriage defines the parameters within which women are allowed to negotiate other rights, in which case, dowry may be a price to “achieve” marriage. Indeed, during the discussions only the rare participant was of the view that women should have the space to d ecide whether they wanted to be married or not.11 The sharp deviation between the opposition to dowry and the belief that men receive higher wages because their work is more strenuous too suggests the influence of a restrictive gender norm.

Areas of greater cohesion as between the opposition to dowry and the endorsement of equal employment opportunities for women are instructive. Other statements that refer to women’s suitability for tasks or jobs generally identified with men or men’s suitability for housework show relatively high levels of cohesion with the opposition to dowry. In these instances, the claims entailed are not perceived as threatening the gender norm.

Challenges and Opportunities

During a discussion on women’s reservation, when the oldest participant welcomed the measure as a part of secular reform-oriented change that in the past had seen feudal structures crumble, one of the younger participants had retorted that he (the oldest participant) could afford to say so because (at his age) he did not stand to lose very much. Clearly there were undercurrents of resentment but few participants opposed the measure outright. Only one panchayat president was

Table 2: Rights

vocal about what he called its severe negative impact on governance arising from women’s inabilities. He revealed that in the previous term he had fielded a woman candidate and with her as president had run the affairs of the panchayat. We analyse here some of the issues that came up in the discussion and also outline the challenges that the data present for the LSG, more importantly, for male representatives in their dual capacity as LSG functionaries and as members of mainstream political parties.

Politics as a Masculine Space: Student politics was the major route of entry of the participants.12 It is widely acknowledged that women face barriers to entry into politics through the same routes as men. Notably, the majority of participants reported that members of their families were in politics. In the case of a little more than half the participants with family members in politics, their wives were in politics (Table 3). Ten out of 16 panchayat presidents reported that their wives were in politics and one out of three of the wives were LSG representatives. This suggests that in the face of reservations,

Table 3: Representatives with Family Members in Politicsa

a Six participants did not provide this information. Figures in parenthesis are percentages.

Correspondence Score

girls married and causes financial hardships for their families.9 Importantly, these perspectives were voiced during the workshops. The problem with them is that they fail to make the link between dowry and a patriarchal institution of marriage. The propositions with the lowest index values could represent the boundaries within which representatives conceive of women’s legitimate claims. For instance, most participants endorsed the need for girls to dress modestly and thought women should value chastity above all else, n otions that implicate sexuality, even as they endorsed the idea of sex education for children, bringing into question the values they may expect sex education to promote. Adherence to the dominant gender norm was substantiated further in their responses to other statements regarding gender socialisation – that girls should be more disciplined and should learn to do housework or that boys should not cry (index values between

0.21 and 0.40).

The variation in index values of statements could suggest inconsistency. The participants agreed that boys and girls are brought up to believe they have the same opportunities, but at the same time, maintain that girls should be taught to be more disciplined than boys or should be taught housework so that they can grow up to be good wives and mothers. To understand such variations better we have probed the level of internal consistency by examining the correspondence between participants’ responses on the statement with the best index value (best gender attitude) in a specific domain and each of the other statements in the same domain.10 The findings are presented in Table 2 for the domains of rights. Some of the statements were inflected in specific ways so as to elicit unfavourable gender attitudes, where they may exist or where issues posed in more general terms may blur discrimination owing

to the familiarity of participants with a gender discourse. For instance, the statements on dowry, the mother-in-law’s culpability in domestic violence and women’s employment opportunities were inflected to reveal gender bias.

There is least consistency between the opposition to dowry (which had the highest index value in the domain of rights) and

women from the families of male politicians may furnish a significant pool for drawing candidates.13 It does not follow necessarily that wives of male politicians are fielded as “proxies” for their husbands. Incidentally, the president who claimed that he had fielded a proxy was not referring to his wife but to a young woman in the panchayat, who held a government job, clearly an atypical case of a proxy. It has been argued that women from “party families” are able to survive better than others (Devika and Thampi 2010: 182). A survey by the Kerala Sasthra Sahitya Parishad found that a majority of women representatives cited family environs as the main factor motivating them to participate in local governance (Suresh 2009: 202). Yet, women from political families may survive on patronage, requiring compromises on individual abilities and restraint against exceeding norms of femininity.

Lack of a Critical Mass of Women in the Political Arena: Participants from the central and southern parts of Kerala pointed out that many women representatives were simply unable to cope with work. This was not because of a scarcity of capable women in the electorate but because electoral compulsions drove political parties to select women candidates according to their community background. Women with prior experience of public work through avenues like Kudumbasree, who were known to be capable, were bypassed as candidates.14 This draws attention to a fundamental problem – that of the lack of a critical mass of women in the political arena, from across social and economic strata. It is not necessarily the case that the best candidates are selected from among men either but there is usually a critical mass of them in public life to choose from. A major challenge thus would be for political parties, in their own interests, to create space for women in ways that would enable their mobilisation. This issue needs to be incorporated into discussions that are parts of gender training efforts for political parties as well as for local government representatives.

Politics of Patronage towards Women:

Two sections of male representatives from north Kerala maintained that they did not

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experience a scarcity of potential women candidates. They were from the areas where a single party dominated the political scenario. A CPM member pointed out that women organised into Mahila Samajams (local units of the All India Democratic Women’s Association) under the party furnished a ready pool of candidates. Muslim League members too said they did not experience a scarcity of women candidates. Throughout the workshop, the latter had been vocal in attempting to define limits to equal opportunities for women on the grounds that sexual differences shaped different capabilities. Their perception of lack of scarcity seems to have been mediated by the view that women are not expected to shoulder the same responsibilities as men. The responses from members of political parties seemingly at two extremes of the political/religious divide implicate them in different ways of articulating a politics of patronage towards women. Single party dominance of an area makes available a larger pool of resources for the LSG from outside its formal confines of elected representatives to facilitate governance. In such contexts, the work of governance may be shared more widely (among men) or taken over by a local leadership (male).15 Not only does this hinder the development of women’s capabilities, but also it may lead to suppression of individual initiative and stifle differences of opinion emerging from genderbased experiences.

Sexual Politics to Discipline Women Representatives: Women representatives fall easy prey to political rivalries when sexual morality is invoked against them. A participant pointed out that a capable woman president in his panchayat during the previous term had to face sexual slander from political rivals because she was seen moving around with her male colleagues. She was able to withstand the harassment only because her husband, who works in the Gulf, supported her.16 Sexual politics may be used to get rid of effective women who could affect their political party’s fortunes favourably but it may be used generally to “discipline” women. Where a husband is suspicious, women need to fall back on resources such as politically powerful families, which are less available to women from poor families and dalit backgrounds (Devika and Thampi 2010: 186). The problem is fundamental as sexual morality subjects women’s rights as citizens to the institution of marriage. The current scenario of reservations presents an excellent opportunity to initiate a critical debate on r estrictive sexual codes.

Gendered Citizenship: Women’s ability to access their (civil and political) rights is circumscribed by a social concern for their “security”, a factor that is invariably inflected by sexual morality. Restrictions on basic civil rights such as mobility or right to sell labour power on the market are effected by families/marriage blurring the responsibility of state to protect persons. Indeed, in cultural terms, marriage is framed as the means of protecting women, i e, as the institutional framework mandating discipline and enabling women to function in socially appropriate ways. This not only detracts from the responsibilities of governance, but also vests in men significant powers to curtail the civil and political rights of their wives. In this context, protectionist measures taken by LSG – such as schemes to facilitate women’s marriage, even when it is part of a campaign to resist dowry – curtail a women’s ability to claim her rights independent of marriage. Cleary, local governance must resist the perceived trade-off between women’s security and their rights.

INSIGHT

Conclusions

We had earlier identified three aspects of the conceptualisation of gender in governance that subvert the use of a gender perspective and serve to blur the accountability of male representatives. Gender just outcomes would require much more than a minimal transfer of resources to women or an opposition to widely recognised offences against women. It would require the formulation and implementation of projects in ways that address patriarchal power. Greater focus on gender education for male representatives could be a part of the process of instituting the accountability of male representatives as it could promote reflexivity regarding gender/sexual norms.

The currently popular approach to project formulation addressing gender is by identifying the category of needs the project would satisfy, which obscures the embeddedness of “needs” in patriarchal power relations (Wieringa 1998). For instance, even an intervention that imparts training in self-defence, apparently a strategic need, may merely serve to reinforce extant power relations by framing it as a skill that enables women to preserve their chastity and their families (and nation’s) honour. In contrast, an intervention to pro mote self-employment by training women in sewing, a skill conventionally associated with women, serves a practical need, but could be formulated in a way that addresses power relations, i e, when it is imparted with the perspective the skill may be used to reduce women’s dependence on their family and could be the basis of a new and more diversified set of new interests.

The lack of familiarity with a gender perspective detracts from the ability of panchayats’ to tap project funds that are available on a competitive basis because they are unable to formulate projects that meet the required standards. An interested panchayat president, whose panchayat had successfully applied for a grant that was available on the theme of gender and highland forestry narrated the difficulties he faced in preparing a project proposal, which eventually he outsourced to an NGO at a considerable consultation fee. He was in search of resources that could be extended to panchayats to develop such projects. Of course, this would require the coming together of different kinds of expertise. But the point here is that the routine approaches are clearly inadequate when panchayats attempt to reach out to wider sources of funding. However, these issues rarely come to the fore as many representatives are not even aware of such funds. At the workshop, there were participants who complained of scarcity of funds for gender projects, when there are routine reports of underutilisation of funds.

Our assessment of gender attitudes, suggests that male representatives are less open to change when it concerns differences that are fundamental to the gender norm, differences they associate with sex and sexual morality. This may be linked to the manner in which the now familiar sex/gender distinction is routinely drawn into gender training programmes. The workshop participants justified differences in socialisation of boys and girls, which arises from the social construction of sex and sexuality but were open to change on rights in the civil domain such as equal employment opportunities or freedom from violence, which they seem to associate more readily with gender (as distinct

from sex). Yet, this distinction did not hold in the exercise of specific civil rights such as that of domestic workers to seek work abroad. Here restrictions are justified as a form of protection that women must submit to on account of their vulnerability, particularly to sexual abuse. Perceived differences of sex continue to be used to rationalise discriminatory (protectionist) a ttitudes towards women even where a n otion of gender seems to advocate change. Problems of sexual violence or abuse continue to be deflected on to the mobility of women, to employment abroad in menial tasks or to improper socialisation leading to lack of adequate discipline in women.

The understanding of sexual differences as pre-given (rather than variable even in the minimal sense of distinctions over age categories), provides a foil for discrimination/protection and thereby limits the possibilities of using gender as a political tool. Clearly it is time that gender education recognised the greater complexity of biological sex. Research shows that the sexual dichotomy is founded on the erasure of significant variations in its constituent elements, whether hormones, chromosomes, genitals or body structures (Fausto-Sterling 2000). The gender assessment shows quite clearly the need for gender education that advances a gender perspective, distinguishes it from a protectionist one and clarifies the implication of both for women and men. Such education would be a necessary basis for enforcing the accountability of male representatives to an agenda for gender equality in local governance.

Notes

1 Bhaskaran et al (2006: 14) point out that the women’s component plan allocation was stipulated to be used for strategic gender needs in the understanding that merely focusing on practical needs and catering to economic needs would not serve to reverse subordination. Their review of government orders issued with respect to the women component plan shows that an attention was on the nature of projects and on women as direct beneficiaries.

2 This is assumed in studies such as GoK (2009: 5274), which seek to assess women representatives success in using plan resources “for the benefit of the women community” and their role as mediators in solving the problems of women.

3 For instance in GoK (2009: 63) finds that women electorate approached women representatives most importantly for problems associated with family, with neighbours and for government aids and services.

EPW

4 The participants were asked whether they agreed, were undecided or disagreed with each statement and their response was scored using weights (Agree 1, Undecided 2 and Disagree 3).

5 Socialisation – statements 1 to 6, Rights – statements 7 to 18, Reproduction – statements 19 to 21 and Sexuality – statements 22 to 27. Given the nature of these domains itself, it is not possible to draw sharp distinctions between statements in different domains. Several statements may overlap across domains.

6 This was computed from the score for each statement in relation to the maximum and minimum scores possible (x – min/max – min).

7 The State Women’s Commission and Kerala M ahila Samakhya organised anti-dowry campaigns in 2010. A campaign launched by the N ilambur panchayat in Malappuram district in 2009 received considerable publicity.

8 An anti-dowry campaign by the Kerala Women’s Front between 7 and 13 January 2007, the women’s front of the National Democratic Front, a conservative Muslim organisation, underlined the role of dowry in undermining social order in the community by “shattering the dreams of young girls and motivating them to elope with boys from other communities, throwing to the winds their religious beliefs and their ties with their families” (KWF 2007).

9 Dowry-less marriages rather than the expansion of women’s opportunities is the favourite solution advanced by anti-dowry campaigns. Nilambur panchayat is a case in point. Civil and political

o rganisations, including the Democratic Youth Federation of India, that have conducted mass marriages in the past reinforce the connection between women’s identity and marriage.

10 A higher correspondence score reflects greater agreement in responses. Correspondence scores are computed as a percentage of respondents whose answers in a given domain are in agreement with their response to the statement that has the highest index score.

11 During the previous term a panchayat in Kannur district, Pinarayi, formulated a social security scheme to “assist” unmarried women over 35-years to get married (Matrubhumi, 6 July). Marriage assistance to daughters of widows is frequently reported as part of women’s component plan expenditures of local self-government bodies (GoK 2009: 92-95).

12 About 70% of participants indicated student politics as their routs of entry. Six relatively older participants indicated entry through this routs though they had only school level education. Four of them were members of Muslim Students Federation and two of Kerala Students Union. Two participants with higher secondary education had entered through this route when the predegree system in colleges was followed.

13 Bhaskaran et al (2006: 50) found that in the three panchayats they studied less than 10% of women were members of political parties (ranged from 7.6% to 0.4%) and less than 5% were in trade u nions.

14 Between 30% and 40% of women in three panchayats were mobilised into self-help groups (Bhaskaran et al 2006: 50).

15 Women’s representation tends to be negligible in the powerful committee structures of political parties that take policy decisions (Suresh 2009: 203).

16 Support from family and the husband in particular seems to be critical to women representatives, especially for achieving “success” in terms of staying power in politics (Devika and Thampi 2010: 182; GoK 2009: 65).

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