It is significant that more than two decades ago Human Development Report of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) recognized equal rights for women along with men and the determination to combat discrimination on the basis of gender as achievements equal in importance to the abolition of slavery, the elimination of colonialism and the establishment of equal rights for racial and ethnic minorities.1 On placing women’s struggle for gender justice on par with other major revolutionary battles that have had a transformative impact on humanity, UNDP has affirmed a principle that is fundamental to human beings becoming truly human. While women across the globe have succeeded in achieving equality in varying degrees, a good number of Indian women find themselves in an ‘increasingly unequal world’.2 It is not that Indian women make a monolithic category. Class, caste, religious and ethnic positioning marks their identity and mobility in life. Yet, gender inequality is a key thread weaving women’s experiences at different levels, even as many of them have stepped into the twenty-first-century developmental paradigm. A query into the ‘why’ behind this predicament that shadows the experiences of a great majority of Indian women is the main reason behind this work.
The emergence of women as significant participants in the development process is being acknowledged increasingly across the globe, thanks to women’s growing presence and engagement in the field of economic productivity, in the political arena, in addressing social concerns, in the different areas of nation building and in their commitment to sustaining life everywhere. All the same, gender equality remains a distant dream in many parts of the world. Taking the case of India again, despite the fact that the country is listed among the fastest developing economies in the world, the ‘women’s question’ continues to be a paradox. While visibility of Indian women in the socio-economic and political sphere is on the rise, the recent Global Gender Gap Report 2018 of the World Economic Forum glaringly projects the unredeemed face of Indian womanhood as India ranks 108 out of 149 countries.3 While India has the second-largest artificial intelligence (AI) workforce, the country also records one of the largest AI gender gaps, with only 22 per cent of roles filled by women. The country takes pride in having closed its tertiary education enrolment gap for the first time in 2018, and has managed to keep its primary and secondary gaps closed for the third year running. Yet, in the area of economic participation and opportunity, India has a ranking of 142 out of 149 countries and the Global Gender Gap Report (2018) calls the country to make improvements across the board, from women’s participation to getting more women into senior and professional roles.4
Even as India is leaping ahead and making significant progress in many other areas of development, many unresolved questions surface against the backdrop of its persistent gender gaps. What is really blocking the holistic growth of women in this country? What are the factors that disable women’s human agency and constructive participation in different areas of life? And, do women who receive the benefits of higher education contribute fully and productively to the economy or are they hindered by the many sociocultural barriers that get in the way of their progress? Certainly these questions do not have an easy answer. All the same, India’s dismal ranking in the Global Gender Gap Report is a critical pointer to the deeper ambiguities and contradictions afflicting Indian women positioned at the intersection of class, caste and religion with gender. Speaking of the ‘paradox’ marking the lives of Indian women on the occasion of International Women’s Day 2019, sociologist Sonalde Desai observes that ‘if barriers to work participation are not enough, young women’s lives are also circumscribed by social norms that shape their family situation. Marriage remains the only acceptable fate for young women in India’.5 The sociocultural underpinnings of the gender paradox continue to be the framework within which the identity of Indian woman is constructed, her roles defined and the path of her ‘development’ charted.
The paradoxical nature of the Indian gender question becomes all the more striking when set against the development story of Kerala, the south-western state of India. Kerala has drawn global attention for the highest Human Development Index (HDI) in India, the progressive status of women being an essential factor of this developmental model. As per the latest census,6 Kerala has a strong pro-woman sex ratio (1084 females per 1000 males),7 high female literacy rate (93.91 per cent)8 and high female life expectancy (77.9 years)9 in comparison with all other states of India. All these are decisive gender development indicators.10
Logically, these high scorings on the indices of human development, position Kerala women on an elevated pedestal of empowerment in the development discourse. However, the deplorable side of Kerala’s gender story is the fact that despite achieving parity in the field of education and having the highest literacy rates in the country, Kerala faces the ignominy of having also the highest female unemployment rate in India.11 The latest National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) data for 2011–12 indicates that the overall unemployment rate in Kerala is 6.7, with a wide gender gap of 14.1 per cent for women and 2.9 per cent for men.12 Representation of women in legislature and political movement is also extremely low in Kerala in comparison to their numerical strength. In the general election to Kerala legislative assembly 2016, there were only two women in the council of ministers.13 In addition, analysis of the crime rate trends over the past five years show that the crime rate of Kerala is much higher than the national level and Kerala has one of the highest rates of recorded crimes against women, including the highest incidence of domestic violence . The rate of rape cases in Kerala remained steady at a level significantly higher than for India as a whole. As per the latest National Family Health Survey results, among ever-married women aged 15–49 in Kerala, 13 per cent have ever experienced physical violence and 5 per cent have ever experienced sexual violence .14 According to analysts, even if one allowed for considerable reporting bias, the figures were far too high for comfort in a state that boasts of a high status for women, all these factors pointing towards Kerala’s gender paradox.15 Against the backdrop of these contradictions that colour the profile of an average Kerala woman, it seemed necessary to examine critically the cultural foundations that continue to define women’s identity and regulate the pattern of their growth processes. Accordingly, this work addresses the persistence of patriarchy and women’s engagement with the power question in a framework of gender intersecting with caste and religion.
I do not take the notion of patriarchy as a meta-narrative on a clear-cut premise polarizing women as victims and men as oppressors.16 I go with the observation by Maria Mies that women are active collaborators of a system that dominates them.17 Women become collaborators when they have internalized the hegemonic codes of a system which allots to them a subjugated status and transmits the traditions of this system uncritically. The notion of the ‘co...