O Woman

One purpose of religions is to keep certain sections of people under subjugation. The easiest way of subjugating people is to give them rules and regulations in the name of their god(s). The caste system in India is an example. Another example is the place of women in society.

All major religions in the world have kept women under male domination. The Bible, for instance, begins with laying on the woman the whole onus for man’s sinfulness. Then came the various ‘fathers’ of the Church to reinforce that male domination with their divine revelations. Saint Paul, for example, was an incorrigible male chauvinist. 

Perhaps, no other religion is as misogynistic as the Catholic Church whose holy Patriarchs have time and again denounced woman as the cause of all human evils. Thomas Aquinas, whose philosophy and theology play a major role even today in the formation houses of Catholic priests, viewed woman as a “defective and misbegotten” creature born out of the defective part of the “man’s seed”. Saint Augustine denounced women as the “cause of hideous and involuntary erections in holy men” and prohibited women from being “educated or enlightened in any way”. Tertullian described woman as “the gate to hell”. Even Martin Luther, the reformer, was of the opinion that “women were made either to be wives or prostitutes.”

All three Semitic religions have similar views of women. Islam has mathematically established gender inequality. The Quran gives each male “the equal of the portion of two females” when it comes to property inheritance. While giving testimony too, two women are required to equal one man. There are places in the holy book where a woman is likened to the man’s land which he may use whichever way he chooses. The woman is nothing more than a piece of property. The only women you’ll find in the Muslim heaven are the virgins kept there for men’s enjoyment; all other women are in hell.

India’s own Hinduism is no better. Right from the Vedas, women remain men’s objects of pleasure. Women were not to be given knowledge, property, rights, etc. The woman has to be under the care of a man all the time: first the father, then husband, son, or relative – in that order of preference or possibility. Widows were always considered an inconvenient burden. They were responsible for the death of their husbands! They were considered inauspicious. They were encouraged to die on the funeral pyre of their husbands. If they chose to outlive their husbands, they were treated on a par with the untouchable people.

Our attitudes are shaped by our upbringing and religion plays a dominant role in that. This is one of the main reasons why women find it difficult to obtain equality in conservative societies. The solution is to alter traditions and certain undesirable aspects of cultures even if they are religious in origin. Changing culture and tradition is always a slow process, almost impossible if religions are involved. But we live in a world which demands such changes. Sooner than later, women will certainly become equal to men.

Gone are the days when men were the producers and women the reproducers. Now women are in the production line. Soon they will be firing the shots. The writing is on the wall if you care to read.  

PS. Written for In(di)spire Edition 247 #GenderEquity