Women in Kerala are able to be educated and have the opportunities that education affords them such as participating in politics, keeping up to date on news, reading religious texts, etc. Every Kerala girl or woman above the age of six can read and write. Women are largely educated and daughters are thought to be as prized as sons. Christian missionaries also influenced Malayali women in that they started schools available to girls from poor families.
Kerala has been praised for its treatment of women because of characteristics such as these. Kerala's women have become doctors and pilots, Supreme Court justices, ambassadors of India; they have shone in sport, in politics, in the armed forces
