Political participation and empowerment of women in Kerala George Bobichan1, Mathew Jasmine2,* 1Assistant Professor, Department of Social Work, Anugraha Institute of Social Sciences, Dindigul, Tamil Nadu, India 2PhD Scholar, Department of Social Work, Rajagiri College of Social Sciences (Autonomous), Kochi, Kerala, India *Corresponding Author jasminemsajan@gmail.com
Online Published on 24 July, 2023. Abstract The laudatory literature on Kerala Model Development brought international attention to Kerala Women. The government’s flagship programme Kudumbashree and 50% seat reservation for women in Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs) envisaged a complete empowerment of Kerala Women. However, critics pointed out the apparent paradox of women’s empowerment by highlighting male dominance in all walks of life. Moreover, the abysmal female representation in the higher orders of parliamentary institutions and political parties demands an investigation of women’s political participation and empowerment. This rapid review (RR) adopted a modified SALSA framework and incorporated expert suggestions for literature selection. A predesigned protocol guided this RR. The databases searched were SCOPUS, Web of Science and Google Scholar, and the keywords used were women’s political participation and women’s empowerment. The article search was further customised by setting the locality to Kerala and the date to 2013–2023. The screening process selected nine articles for review. Reviewers created a template in Microsoft Excel for data charting. Thematic analysis of charted data answered the review questions. Based on the RR result, this paper suggests that women should follow egalitarian gender ideologies to ensure their vertical mobility through the power hierarchy of Kerala’s social fabric. Top Keywords Women’s political participation, Women’s empowerment, Rapid review, Male dominance, Kudumbashree, Kerala. Top |