"30 SOCIAL SCIENTIST i.e., they employ essentially labour-intensive technologies despite the fact that they are engaged in capitalist production and employs wage labour. Based on the labour absorption characteristics, these various traditional industries can be said to be ranging between formal and real subordination of labour to capital. Formal subordination of labour to capital is associated with that stage of capitalist production in which the objective of the capitalist is to maximise absolute surplus value using traditional technology.8 Though nost traditional industries in Kerala are characteristic of a process of formal subordination of labour, some industries such as coir and cashew are closer to large scale industries in which real subordination of capital exists. Under real subordination of capital, the whole of organisation of production is carried forward to higher stages, involving introduction of machinery, introducing greater division of labour and. close control of workers and work processes, leading to the emergence of large scale production, increased productivity and consequent realization of relative surplus value. However, since these industries do not employ modem technology, they can be called "factories" only in the sense of workshops in which numbers of persons An examination of the effects of different types of production organisations or\ the gender-based division of labour is important as it gives insights into the effects of such employment on women's social autonomy.9 There are two important aspects relating to this : Firstly, the discussion on the effect of employment on women's emancipation; and secondly, the way in which industrial production in the Third World country like India is being integrated into the world capitalist system. The first aspect centres around the way 'class* and 'gender' structure women's employment in industrial production, and the opportunities and limitations this poses regarding the goal of women's emancipation. The process of international capital accumulation and the integration of industrial population of developing countries with the World system have important implications on women's employment. This leads to increasing marginaliza-tion as it happened in the case of coir workers in Kerala due to mechanization. At the same time, as rightly pointed out by some authors, there has been specific recruitment of a group of young unmarried women in the new export-oriented manufacturing industries located in developing countries.10 This has been most rampant in industries such as electronics and garment making which are mostly operating in Export Processing Zones. Their exploitative nature has been recognised by even the U.N. agencies.11 Employers have used the criterion of gender in o'rder to discriminate against the integration of Women in wage employment on the basis of equality. This phenomenon has been explained by writers in two ways: The first explanation is that capitalists use both gender and socio-economic factors as tools of exploitation and that such exploitation increases as developing countries are integrated with the world production system. The second argument xs that wale dominance permeates all sodetal^rtt^iires.12