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Summary of Question:	Depicting Sikhi
Category:	General Sikhism
Date Posted:	Friday, 4/05/2002 11:25 AM MDT

i'm curious about how we depict sikh men and women. on the front page of this site, the banner is comprised mainly of sikh men. and the youth page has a "fair" skinned sikh woman in a turban and a "darker" skinned man in a turban. i was wondering about the entrenched sexism and internalized racism in our sikh community.

i was born in a small rural town in british columbia, canada. i was raised in a sikh, punjabi household. both of my parents are respectful individuals and were a wonderful coupling that truly lived to get over life's bumps and bruises together through their sikhi spirituality.

my father, whose energy, spirit, wisdom will forever guide my life, truly believed in equality among genders in his family and in the larger community. i have two older brothers, and i can honestly say i never experienced "double standards" from my father. (from my brothers and mother is another story)

i recently visited punjab to take my father's ashes to keetpur sahib - well more specifically the river that flows steadily near keetpur sahib gurdwara. part of the trip i spent visiting various gurdwaras and sikh historical spots with my mom and one of my older brothers.

we went by amritsar and did a walk through of the sikh museum there. the last section of the museum had paintings of various "granthis" and sikh men. i commented on teh way out to my brother that it was unfortunate, that in a religion based in equality, our most sacred holy space practices sexism in the history of our religion.

i totally understand the need to tell the stories of our male gurus. i respect that...and quest more knowledge daily it seems. but why then, are the women of our community not held to equal stature as the men. i'm not speaking of the gurus here...i'm talking about who ends up being valued as true sikhs. whose story is told. who ends up visually representing our religion and spirituality. how are community is visually seen as male dominated, and such misbelief is perpetuated within our community, in part i believe, because there is VERY little ownership of gender equality by sikh men.

it truly is a personal journey to become a real ally to women, your sisters, mother, aunts, wives, etc...because men rarely truly understand the lives of women...in terms of the systemic oppression we face in mainstream society and wihtin our communities and homes. my father was on that journey. he definately did treat me as his equal, his friend, and thus i respected (and continue to repsect him) as my parent (and now guiding ancestor as his wise words continue to comfort me and keep me company)...my brothers on the other hand...well they are taking their steps to understand what true equality looks like, talks like, lives like.

having said ALL that...i wonder if the folks who adminster this site could pay a little more attention to their own patriarchal tendencies. for you to recognize it is an unfair representation, visually, of sikhs adorning this site.

on the "lighter skin vs darker skin" - i simply caution us all from internalizing the colonial preferences and racism given us through British rule in India...as well as the wests general preference for lighter skin over darker. again...i don't need to remind us all of the main roots of our religion - equality, harmony with oneself, others and nature, honesty and respect.

as for this forum, thank you. it has been an interesting morning for me to scan through previous posts and feel connected.

in sisterhood and solidarity,
nnkn

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Sat Siri Akal, nnkn.

Thanks for your thoughts and comments. The challenges of any spiritual tradition is how to tranlate the principles into actions-and when it comes to equality of the genders, this is an area that will probably see much activity in the Sikh community over the coming years. SikhNet is open to suggestions about how to make this a more "woman-friendly" site, especially since 75% of our visitors are men and we would like to see more women come and spend time here. (Also-the visual depiction is to show that there are Sikhs who come to this site of European descent, as well as Indian.) If anyone wants to do a project on Sikhs and women, contact us and let's see how we can work together on it. Artwork is also always appreciated, if anyone has artwork that might help equalize the women/men feel of the site.

You can contact Ek Ong Kaar Kaur with project ideas and artwork: [email protected].

Thank you again for sharing your thoughts.

Sincerely,

GPK