ABSTRACT
Women in Kerala society have been symbolised by progressive “embodied female capital” with favourable demographic indicators, unique matrilineal systems and social progress. But this chapter shows that while the acclaimed model has indeed enhanced, and benefitted from, its “female capital”, it has not necessarily enhanced the women’s autonomy, as evidenced by the women’s persistent marginalisation through defeminisation of the labour force, invisibility in public spheres and rising violence against them – which resonate to some extent with Amartya Sen’s (1992) thesis of the “missing women”.
