The equality of women is integral to Hinduism The Goddesses in Hindu myths are hardly reticent, coy, shy and handicapped by the nature of their physiognomy Advertisement Pavan K. Varma ISSUE DATE: Oct 15, 2018 | UPDATED: Oct 5, 2018 15:14 IST 3. Intimate Relations: Exploring Indian Sexuality. (+1) 202-419-4300 | Main ed., 1830) to Katherine Mayo's polemical Mother India, a best seller in England and the United States from its publication in 1927. Although many goddesses are depicted as consorts rather than as independent deities, there is the widespread notion that divine power is feminine (akti, meaning "power," is a feminine noun). Mayo, Katherine. 2 vols. While Indians in the South are less likely than those in the Hindi Belt to say, for example, that a wife must always obey her husband (75% vs. 94%), Southern adults are more likely to say that men in families should be responsible for making decisions about expenses (25% vs. 13%) and that women should be primarily responsible for taking care of children (44% vs. 30%). In addition to the MLA, Chicago, and APA styles, your school, university, publication, or institution may have its own requirements for citations. Women become emblematic of tradition, and the reworking of tradition is largely conducted through debating the rights and status of women in society. Delhi, 2002. 80% of Indian citizens), and discriminates against women. Calcutta, 1994. The survey also included several questions on gender roles in Indian society, but these questions were not analyzed in the previous report and are now being published for the first time. International convention is to present SRB as the number of boys per 100 girls. Consequently, sexual symbolism, ritual, and language pervade the sacred sphere and profane gender roles and sexual norms almost never fail to reference a cosmic order. Wadley, Susan, ed. . (Mani, 1989, p. 90). Like the woman question before it, the women's studies approach remained an integral part of the study of gender and Hinduism (e.g., Leslie, 1991; Bose, 2000). As Ashis Nandy noted in his groundbreaking work The Intimate Enemy (1983), colonial powers consistently viewed colonized peoples as weak and effeminate. Patton, L. Laurie. Some studies were more gender-critical, even overtly feminist, than others. Zwilling, Leonard, and Michael J. This gave rise to a range of woman-centered studies of Hindu beliefs and practices in the 1980s. London, 2002. Indians are less likely than people in North America (92% median), Western Europe (90%) and Latin America (82%) to place high importance on women and men having the same rights. Chowdhury-Sengupta, Indira. Vidyasagar fought to promote widow remarriage (1855) andas a kuln brahman himselfthe abolition of kuln polygamy (1871, 1873). The author demonstrates that their models of femininity form a curious amalgam of brahmanic ideals and middle-class Victorian values. This article collects the most relevant scholarship that demonstrates significant theoretical engagement with gender and sexuality as analytical categories. To others, his human rights violations are ushering in an era of Hindu nationalism and it's rapidly spreading in the U.S. Pew Research Center does not take policy positions. For example, while about four-in-ten Indian adults say that sons should have the primary responsibility to care for aging parents, just 2% say the same about daughters. This figure (72%) comes from the 2019 Global Attitudes survey and is slightly lower than the share (80%) who said this in the 2019-2020 India survey on which most of this report is based. Boulder, Colo., 1995. In Rajasthan, Lindsey Harlan (2003) examined narratives relating to Rajput masculinity, the hero as protector, sacrificial victim, and devoted "goddesses' henchman." 2019Encyclopedia.com | All rights reserved. To some, Modi represents the face of a new, better India. Heller, Birgit. Encyclopedia of Religion. Hinduism and Gender Equality - Hindu Website This study is part of Pew Research Centers most comprehensive, in-depth exploration of India to date. Hawley, John Stratton, and Donna Marie Wulff, eds. Views on womens place in society, Indians perceive more discrimination against women than religious minorities, but most say women do not face a lot of discrimination, How Indias gender attitudes compare globally, Indians with a college degree are less likely to hold traditional views on gender roles, Muslims more likely than other Indians to say men should provide a familys income, Support for legal abortion is widespread in many countries, especially in Europe, Freedom of speech and LGBT rights: Americans views of issues in Supreme Court case, How people in 24 countries view same-sex marriage, Nearly a Year After Roes Demise, Americans Views of Abortion Access Increasingly Vary by Where They Live, Many people in U.S., other advanced economies say its not necessary to believe in God to be moral, Pew-Templeton Global Religious Futures Project, A record-high share of 40-year-olds in the U.S. have never been married, Why Muslims are the worlds fastest-growing religious group, Asian Americans Hold Mixed Views Around Affirmative Action, Gun Violence Widely Viewed as a Major and Growing National Problem, Hospital emergency rooms see boom in patients around the Fourth of July, These statistics are referred to as sex ratio at birth (SRB). Draws primarily on textual sources. While opinion does not vary substantially among Indians of different ages or educational backgrounds, a sizeable gap does emerge around religious commitment. Expand or collapse the "in this article" section, Colonial and Contemporary Politics and Culture, Expand or collapse the "related articles" section, Expand or collapse the "forthcoming articles" section, 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199360079.001.0001, Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyaya (Chatterji), Bengal and Surrounding Areas, Hinduism in, Contemporary Globalized and Commercialized Yoga, ISKCON (International Society for Krishna Consciousness), Jyotirliga Tradition: Pilgrimage, Myth, and Art, Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP) and Hindu Nationalism. For instance, 62% of adults say both men and women should be responsible for taking care of children. Many Indians express egalitarian views toward some gender roles in the home. Due to the open-ended and fluid nature of the subject matter, generalized treatments of gender and sexuality tend to cover a broad swath of subject matter. For example, while nearly three-quarters of Indian Muslims (74%) say that sons should have the primary responsibility for a parents burial rituals, just 29% of Sikhs say that sons alone should handle last rites. Kalamazoo, Mich., 1994. Similarly, a slim majority (54%) says that both men and women in families should be responsible for earning money, but many Indians (43%) see this as mainly the obligation of men. Manushi: A Journal about Women and Society. Although Said himself was criticized for his lack of attention to women, postcolonial criticism in general may be seen to act as a bridge in the transition from Indian women's studies to the study of gender in Hinduism. This three-phase pattern may also be applied to the study of Indian religions and, more specifically, to the study of gender and Hinduism. The purua-prakti dichotomy is clearly intended to apply to all existence and all individuals, including women. There were also several wide-ranging edited volumes on Hindu goddesses and female divinities (e.g., Hawley and Wulff, 1996; Pintchman, 2001). The report on its findings revealed that "large masses of women in this country have remained unaffected by the rights guaranteed to them by the Constitution and laws enacted since Independence" (Committee on the Status of Women, 1974, preface). General Overviews Due to the open-ended and fluid nature of the subject matter, generalized treatments of gender and sexuality tend to cover a broad swath of subject matter. Indians value having both sons and daughters: Nearly all Indians say it is very important for a family to have at least one son (94%) and, separately, to have at least one daughter (90%). McDermott, Rachel Fell, and Jeffrey J. Kripal, eds. International convention is to present SRB as the number of boys per 100 girls. The Powers of Tamil Women. The list of women-related social reforms advocated by the British is long: the eradication of child marriage, especially the marriage of child brides because of the high probability that they would become child widows; the remarriage of widows; the abolition of female infanticide, sati (the death of a woman on her husband's funeral pyre), and kuln polygamy in Bengal (where the need for high-caste brahman girls to marry before they reached puberty and to marry only high-caste men had led to the practice of kuln men of all ages being paid to marry large numbers of prepubertal kuln girls without further economic obligation); and the education of women. Eight-in-ten people surveyed including 81% of Hindus and 76% of Muslims say it is very important for women to have the same rights as men. Patriarchal constructions of Hindu womenwhether those of the colonial British, those of Indian nationalists, or those of what may be termed Hindu "traditionalists"were closely analyzed, whereas the perceptions of real Hindu women were brought into the foreground. New Brunswick, N.J., 1982; reprint, with a new introduction, Delhi, 1990. But even when considering education, Muslims are far more likely than Sikhs to support traditional gender roles in the family. Roles and Rituals for Hindu Women. The study of gender in Hinduism has progressed through a series of overlapping yet transformative phases: the woman question, women's studies, postcolonial criticism, and a more full-fledged gender studies proper. Gender Equality in Buddhism - Video & Lesson Transcript - Study.com Sax, William S. "Fathers, Sons, and Rhinoceroses: Masculinity and Violence in the Pav Ll." 99132. Within South Asia, Indians are somewhat more likely than Pakistanis to say it is very important for men and women to have equal rights (72% vs. 64%). Richmond, U.K., 1996. The monitoring is taken care of by the Law of Karma operating automatically. The equality of women is integral to Hinduism - India Today New Delhi, 2003. (+1) 202-419-4372 | Media Inquiries. The readings on Oxford Bibliographies in Hinduism articles like Women in Hinduism, Marriage, Goddess, Tantra, and others serve to complement such perspectives. Although the primary focus of women's studies was the rights of Indian women, there was a general consensus among scholars working in the field that religious ideology played a powerful role in maintaining the status quo. Albany, N.Y., 2001. A gendered, and therefore essentially sexualized, view of the cosmos is fundamental to many Hindu schools of thought, beginning with early Vedic sacrificial culture. Bennett, Lynn. Hallstrom, Lisa Lassell. New York, 1999. . Roughly a quarter of Indians (23%) say there is a lot of discrimination against women in India today. 2d ed., rev. Feldhaus, Anne. Voices from Within: Early Personal Narratives of Bengali Women. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010. A comprehensive volume containing multiple chapters on the issues of sexual symbolism, transformation, and ambiguity that have animated the body of Donigers scholarship. The 1980s also saw the emergence of a school of history referred to as subaltern studies. [21] In the last thirty years, homosexuality has become increasingly visible in the print and audio-visual media, with many out LGBT people, an active LGBT movement, and a large Indian LGBT presence on the Internet. For example, the regulations introduced in the Bengal presidency in 1812 distinguished between two categories of sati: voluntary sati (considered legal, perhaps even praiseworthy) and coerced sati (deemed illegal and to be condemned). Myth provides a ground for analysis in Doniger 1980 and Doniger 1999, as well as Good 2000 (cited under Regional Rituals). Dev, Goddesses of India. 87105. Indians also broadly accept women as political leaders, with a majority saying that women and men make equally good political leaders (55%) or that women generally make better leaders than men do (14%). GENDER INEQUALITIES IN MUSLIM PERSONAL LAW. Early studies of ritual tended to favor the public or formal arena involving male priests and actors. Gender and Religion: Gender and Hinduism | Encyclopedia.com Oldenburg, Veena Talwar. The survey also included several questions on gender roles in Indian society, but these questions were not analyzed in the previous report and are now being published for the first time. For instance, Southern women tend to be more highly educated and to live longer. NAIDU, SAROJINI Encyclopedias almanacs transcripts and maps. In Invented Identities: The Interplay of Gender, Religion, and Politics in India, edited by Julia Leslie and Mary McGee, pp. Doniger O'Flaherty, Wendy. There was also a growing interest in the gender implications of male asceticism (e.g., Chowdhury-Sengupta, 1996). Unsurprisingly the Indian response was to produce positive historical accounts of the position of women. Women, Androgynes, and Other Mythical Beasts. (+1) 202-857-8562 | Fax "Because It Gives Me Peace of Mind": Ritual Fasts in the Religious Lives of Hindu Women. "Reconstructing Spiritual Heroism: The Evolution of the Swadeshi Sannyasi in Bengal." (See Southern states not necessarily more egalitarian than Hindi Belt states in gender attitudes for more on state and regional differences across India. Article 14 of the Constitution guarantees equality to all citizens of India. Berkeley, Calif., 2003. On the whole, however, Indians seem to share an egalitarian vision of womens place in society. In the Indian case, however, it is essential to realize that an acute interest in the role and position of women, at this point referred to as the woman question, predated the women's studies phase by more than one hundred years. This careful study of medieval temple inscriptions demonstrates the centrality and significance of temple women's activities as donors. The foundation of Hindu thought is made of sacred tales of gods, kings and sages. In thinking about the topic as it relates to the ancient world, one must consider, Women's Rights Movement New research interests emerged too: women as subjects rather than as objects of study (e.g., Kumar, 1994); Hindu notions of masculinity (e.g., Sax, 1997); the androgyne, eunuch, or third sex (e.g., Zwilling and Sweet, 2000); Third World and Indian feminisms, usually defined in opposition to Western feminism (e.g., Gedalof, 1999); the vexed question of who speaks for whom (whether texts or informants for the subjects of study, researchers for texts and informants, men for women, higher castes for lower castes, Western women for Hindu women, or educated middle-class urban feminists for rural and low-caste Hindu women); and gender theory, especially in relation to the Other. That this was a strategy for the control of women is evidenced by the total lack of a parallel opposition between the ideal husband and the essential wickedness of all men. Within all of Indias major religious communities, the most common response is to teach boys to respect all women. However, while Christians and Sikhs are somewhat less likely than other groups to say this, they are more likely than people in other religious groups to say that both kinds of teaching are important or that the right approach depends on the situation. This idea has recurred throughout the history of the study of women and gender in India. Similar shares of Indian men said they had faced recent gender (14%), religious (17%) or caste (15%) discrimination. For more information, see the Methodology for this report. Interestingly, Hindu ethics can be con-sidered as secular in the sense that it does not require a fierce, monitoring god. Roy, Kumkum. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999. The prominent roles occupied by women in the legends and myths of that complex and diverse part of the world called Asia sugges, In the medieval period, few women described women's lives; mostly, the record was written by men, expressing men's perception. These statistics are referred to as sex ratio at birth (SRB). Particularly disturbing are the frequent overtones of both casteism (i.e., the denigration of low-caste women in favor of the higher castes) and communalism (i.e., anti-Muslim rhetoric). For example, Listen to the Heron's Words, an ethnographic study of some North Indian villages published in 1994 by Ann G. Gold and Gloria G. Raheja, challenged local ideologies of gender and kinship that routinely subordinate women to men. This controversial book focuses on the gender reversals implicit in the writings about Ramakrishna, giving rise to a sensitive analysis of the homosexuality of a man regarded as a saint by a largely homophobic Indian society. This report does, though, describe differences between two commonly discussed regions: the Hindi Belt and the South. Bringing gender equality in the Hindu Succession Act: An overdue reform Borthwick, Meredith. In the context of devotional religion (bhakti), the male-female relationship receives a different emphasis: God is supreme, the only male in a world of devotees represented as feminine. Goldberg, Ellen. New York, 1983. As some of these volumes demonstrated, there was also an increased contribution from male scholars researching aspects of gender and Hinduism. HomeBlogsGENDER INEQUALITY IN HINDU AND MUSLIM PERSONAL LAWS 5 By JusCorpus Blogs August 31, 2021 INTRODUCTION Cultural identity in India is diverse and it is preserved because of different religious personal laws as each religion has its own laws which govern the matters like marriage, divorce, etc. The survey results reflect this comfort with women in politics. There are, however, other representations of the malefemale relationship. College graduates are somewhat less inclined than others to completely agree that men should have more rights to a job when employment opportunities are scarce (49% vs. 57%). Conversely, for women, St represents the perfect wife, and Kaikey stands for the inherent wickedness of women. Delhi, 1992. Respondents were selected using a probability-based sample design that would allow for robust analysis of all major religious groups in India Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists and Jains as well as all major regional zones. sexuality. To improve respondent comprehension of survey questions and to ensure all questions were culturally appropriate, the Center followed a multiphase questionnaire development process that included expert review, focus groups, cognitive interviews, a pretest and a regional pilot survey before the national survey.