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Issue - Watch Out Boy Here She Comes..... Part II
Posted by Preet Mohan S Ahluwalia Send Email to Author on Saturday, 7/28/2001 2:12 PM MDT
THE MAN EATER
(Part II)

Preet Mohan S Ahluwalia
July 28, 2001

Position of women in Hinduism is considered inferior to men. "Women have unsteady brains. They are untrustworthy."(Rig Veda 8-3-17) "The friendship of women does not last long. Their nature is like that of the hyena."(Rig Veda 10-95-10) A woman is referred to by her husband as his subordinate and slave.(Adharvana Veda 14.01.52) About women, the Hindu epic Mahabharta says: "No birth is worse than the birth of a woman. Women are the root-cause of all evil. Women are capable of producing harm equivalent to the combined effect of poisonous fungus, a tempest, Yama, the god of the underworld, a fire pit that throws out fire continuously, the source of a spring, the sharpness of a razor, strong poison, serpents and fire." "A woman will not hesitate to kill her husband or her children or her brothers or any other person in order to fulfil her aim."(Bagavatha Skundam. 4-14, 42-8, 4-36)

Women are said to lie, are unsteady, deceitful, stupid, greedy, impure, wicked and rash.(Sukra 3-163) Manu, the Hindu law giver, has laid down strict guidelines for treating women. A woman is not entitled to study the Vedas.(MS II: 67) A widow is not allowed to remarry.(MS V: 154) A woman is not fit for being free and independant.(MS IX: 3) Even Bhagvadgita describes women as being of "lower birth." (32:32) Sankara calls woman "the gateway to hell" and "of all the terrible aspirations of the world, woman is the ugliest."

Early Buddhism lacked sympathy for women and called her a temptress. Buddha felt women were soon angered. They are stupid, passionate and sensuous. Buddha wanted all monks to be celibate. He was originally reluctant to admit women to the Sangha. He believed it to be a mistake. Later when women did get admitted Buddha felt that their admission to the Sangha would reduce the life of Buddhism to half. Woman monk was junior to her male counterpart.

A male bhikhshu is not supposed to rescue a drowning woman, even if she were his mother. Buddha refused to meet with his step-mother Mahaprajapati on the death of her husband. On the insistence of Bhikhshu Ananada he finally agreed to a meeting. His conversation with Bhikhshu Ananada during his last days displays his attitude toward women in general.

Ananda: How are we to conduct ourselves, Lord, with regard to women?
Buddha: Do not see them Ananda!
Ananda: But if we should see them, what are we to do?
Buddha: Abstain from speech!
Ananda: But if they speak to us, Lord, what are we to do?
Buddha: Keep wide awake, Ananda.

In Islam, religious sanctions make it difficult for a woman to gain acceptance as equal. "Men are in charge of women, because Allah hath made the one of them to excel the other, and because they spend of their property (for the support of women). So good women are the obedient, guarding in secret that which Allah hath guarded. As for those [women] from whom ye fear rebellion, admonish them and banish them to beds apart; and scourge (beat) them. Then if they obey you, seek not a way against them Lo! Allah is ever High Exalted, Great." (4.34)

In the matter of inheritance a woman's share is less than that of man. "Allah chargeth you concerning (the provision for) your children: to the male the equivalent of the portion of two females."(4.11) In the old Islamic law, a man's worth is equal to the market value of 100 camels or 200 cows and a woman is half that of man. As a witness, a woman's testimony in court is worth half. "A [Khalifa] must be a man." This condition is based on the hadith where the Prophet states that a nation would not profit under a woman as its leader. Under a Hadith it is a sin for girls to remain unmarried once they start to menstruate. Many Islamic organizations use this argument to promote teenage marriages. In the Hadith, the Prophet says, 'If a man invites his wife to sleep with him and she refuses to come to him, then the angels send their curses on her till morning.'(Vol.7:121)

The Hadith also claims that majority of people in hell are women: The Prophet said: 'I was shown the Hell-fire and that the majority of its dwellers were women who were ungrateful.' It was asked, 'Do they disbelieve in Allah?' (or are they ungrateful to Allah?) He replied, 'They are ungrateful to their husbands and are ungrateful for the favours and the good (charitable deeds) done to them. If you have always been good (benevolent) to one of them and then she sees something in you (not of her liking), she will say, 'I have never received any good from you.'(Vol.1:28)

The eleventh century Muslim scholar, al-Ghazali, wrote, "a Muslim woman should stay at home and get on with her spinning. She should not go out often and must not be well-informed. Nor must she be communicative with her neighbours and only visit them when absolutely necessary... her only concern should be her virtue, her home, her prayers and her fast... she should be clean and ready to satisfy her husband's sexual needs at any moment."

St. Tertullian sums up the Judeo-Christian view of women: "Do you not know that you are each an Eve? The sentence of God on this sex of yours lives in this age: the guilt must of necessity live too. You are the Devil's gateway; you are the unsealer of the forbidden tree; you are the first deserter of the divine law; you are she who persuaded him whom the devil was not valiant enough to attack. You destroyed so easily God's image, man. On account of your desert even the Son of God had to die."

God made man in his image. Realizing that he needed a helper (Genesis 2:18) God created Eve out of Adam's ribs. At childbirth a woman is ritually unclean.(Leviticus 12:1-5) In inheritance, Moses preferred men to women. If a man dies, his son inherits the estate; his daughter gets nothing. If there are no children, then the estate is given to the man's brother(s); his sister(s) get nothing.(Numbers 27:8-11) A father could sell his daughter as a slave.(Exodus 21:7) New Testament forbids women authority over men. In Church a woman must always be silent.

Judeo-Christian tradition lays the blame for sin squarely on women. According to St. Augustine, "What is the difference whether it is in a wife or a mother, it is still Eve the temptress that we must beware of in any woman....I fail to see what use woman can be to man, if one excludes the function of bearing children." Even Martin Luther did not have justification for a woman's existence: "If they [women] become tired or even die, that does not matter. Let them die in childbirth, that's why they are there."


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