The Status of Women in the Pathway of Developmental Set Up in Kerala –An Eye View for Analysis

Abstract

Kerala, a state of thirty odd million people in the southern tip of India, has been hailed as the epitome of women’s development in a country that does not fare too well in terms of UNDP’s gender development indicator.2 Unlike many other states in this country of billion plus people, literacy levels are high among women as well as men in Kerala, and the differences between the two are relatively low, thereby contributing to a high level of recorded GDI in the state. Health indicators are equally impressive, with high levels of life expectancy for women and men, and indeed a fairly strong positive tilt towards women, which is as the case is in all developed countries and ---- given the greater biological vulnerability of the male of the species as compared to the female ---- is what it should be in all relatively gender neutral societies. Even those health indicators that do not enter directly into the GDI calculations, such as maternal mortality rates for instance, are pretty good in Kerala, the estimates being significantly lower than those in many other Indian states. It is little wonder that experts have cited the instance of Kerala as one that can and should be emulated as a case that ensures high levels of gender development and consequently a high status for women. Although initially investigations into the Kerala case was not part of the project design, somewhere during the first phase of the Gender Network, a number of contradictory signals from the state made it imperative that one looked into the Kerala story in some detail.

Keywords: Women, developmental mainstreams, feministic attitude.