Woman Equalization to Man Between Religion Conformation and Human Development

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In early Vedic society, consequently, women had a certain amount of freedom and status which emanated from a respect for the female power to give life, but they were expected to be dependent, docile wives whose husbands, like Father Heaven, were ordained to control them and their errant activities. The social effects of the enculturating myth went deep. Women had status in Hindu society because obviously women had power over life. But good women were to be subservient to men as dependent and docile wives.

By the fifth century B. Education and independence were lost. The salvation of a woman depended on her rebirth as a man in reward for having been a good docile wife who bore male children. Even after death, a man controlled his wife: Woman was, in effect, the creator of evil in the world. Whatever her power, however great her energy, she was obviously responsible for what came into the world and the disorder, disturbance and the downfall of social order that came with it.

And the deduction that followed was debilitating: If women were responsible for matter, then men were the carriers of the spiritual or higher life. The interpretation of the myth became a weapon against an entire class of people and the social effects are with us still. The Buddha, concerned with discovering the way to the fullness of life rather than with dealing with its origin took the position that nirvana — enlightenment and desirelessness — was possible to both women and men. That revelation, of course, should have guaranteed to women the education, authority, property, management, and the interpretation of the mysteries of the faith after the time of Buddha as it did during his life.

The interpretation of the myth of the Demon Mara, however, was used eventually to justify the suppression of women. The story reads that the daughters of the Demon Mara -Desire, Pleasure and Passion — were arrayed against Buddha to test his Desirelessness. Though Buddha prevailed, the message is clear. Women are an obstacle to the achievement by men of a full spiritual life. When celibacy is institutionalized as the highest state of desirelessness after the Buddha, women are seen as an enemy of monkish perfection and must be shunned.

True, Buddhist religious life, the Sangha, offered an alternative beyond marriage and motherhood that Indian women had not enjoyed in the past. Women, as a result, are permitted to participate in Buddhist religious life, but only in obedience to monks. Women can be abandoned at any time to enable men to pursue enlightenment.

Women are seen as having bad karma. Women are made dependent for life on the control and direction of men. Hinduism, which sees women as responsible for the creation of matter and its dangers, is now overlaid with Buddhism which sees women as responsible for spiritual entrapment and in need of structures that oppress. The stage is set, then, for systems that claim to be equal, look equal, and profess equality but which cling to patterns that justify the oppression of women in the name of salvation. Only in popular Indian devotions — Mahayana Buddhism and Hindu bhakti or tantrism — was dualism suspect, wisdom feminine, and all things said to be capable of triggering enlightenment.

In these faiths androgyny became the major religious symbol. Some depictions of divinity, in fact, were half male and half female beings in which the soft and the strong, the beautiful and the powerful dimensions of life were joined. Unfortunately, these cultic diversions were short-lived in the face of the older, longer traditions and without much social influence in the face of ancient beliefs.

In China Confucianism, the codification of Buddhist principles to bring harmony to society through filial piety, goodness, and social propriety, simply accepted the notion of female inferiority and corruption and set about to institutionalize it. Women, the religious thought continued, were by nature simply inferior beings whose undisciplined natures polluted attempts to contact the divine and would be punished after death as tradition maintained for having produced this pollution. Female infanticide, concubinage, girl sales, and footbinding became the natural outcome of a society unabashedly based on notions of hierarchy and domination.

Women existed only for the procreation necessary to maintain the ancestor worship that had become the logical continuation of the principle of the oneness of life. Women themselves, however, could offer no ancestor worship since tradition dictated that the feminine nature was a fundamentally corrupt one.

On the prescriptions and protocol of Confucianism rested the social patterns of the Far East for centuries. For Confucius, the Tao, or Way of God, was hierarchy, order, and ethics. In that hierarchy, women were subject to men and inheritors of social controls designed to assure their fidelity. In this way, family stability and the orderly continuance of the lineage so important to ancestor worship became the burdensome obligation of the woman.

Taoism BCE softened the situation somewhat. Human nature, Lao Tzu the Master said, was an admixture of yin and yang energies that could be balanced through meditation and nonviolence. The power gained by practicing Tao was symbolized by water, valley, infant, and female.

Yin was not subservient to yang as tradition had it, the Taoist claimed, but correlative and indispensable for the balance and wholeness of nature. There was to be no female infanticide in Tao. But Taoism was overshadowed by both Confucianism and Buddhism and in its ascendancy gained only one cultural consequence of note, the legal eradication of female infanticide.

The social profile is a clear one: In the face of a warring society and social upheaval, authoritarianism prevailed in China and with it the creation myth of domination rather than equality. Concubinage, female infanticide, the sale of girls, and footbinding, the height of Confucian misogyny, lasted until the twentieth century. Order, it seems, is the need to assure power to the powerful and to equate those with force with the force of God. In Japan, women fared well for a time. Women, as a result, had both religious and social import in early Japanese society.

Shamanesses, female religious figures, could become channels for the spirits, the kami, and so women gained a modicum of social and cultural importance for a limited time. But the Japanese, in their respect for Chinese culture, eventually adopted Confucian ethics and, in turn, its depreciation of women. Under the Samurai, women lost civil rights, political power, and education.

Now, instead, a young girl was instructed in the obligation to suicide if her chastity was violated, if her husband was in danger, or if her relationship with her husband threatened his loyalty to his Lord. Women were used for pleasure; wives for the management of the home. Both existed as second-class citizens in a world that purported to bring harmony to a universe where rational men were intended to dominate the demonic power of women. But a religion of fertility goddesses is one thing, monotheism another.

What can possibly be the association between sexism and militarism in a world view that claims that everything that such a God made is good? In Western civilization two religious world views predominate, one the root of the other. Judaism and Christianity claim a common vision of human creation: Their sin led to their banishment from paradise and to their punishment, he to earn bread by the sweat of his brow and she to bear children in pain.

In both religious traditions women are said to be honored, but the stage is small and the lines totally biological. The social structures of each society reflect the ideology of male rationality and female immorality and decrepitude to this day. Unfortunately, what made a woman valuable also made her unclean and therefore a spiritual threat to Jewish men on whom all major religious responsibility devolved. Women were segregated, dependent, and limited.

They did not have the right to full religious participation, public intervention, or authority. Just as the Jews had struggled to define themselves against the Caananites whose religious practices included women, the early Christian communities trod a line between Judaism and gnosticism. With vowed celibacy in the third century came the dread of women and the need to control them. Augustine argued that woman was no full image of God unless joined to a man who was her head.

By the thirteenth century, Thomas Aquinas, working from Aristotle and Augustine, had defined woman as weaker in substance than men, defiled in intellect and in moral character, sexually promiscuous, and without spiritual strength Aquinas ; Now God was male, though pure spirit. In this cosmology, males are, of course, closer to God. Everything else follows logically; the dictum marks Western culture to this day. On the basis of this world view, Western women have taken a vow of obedience to men, been denied full spiritual participation by their churches, been defined by their biology. Their abilities are limited, their purpose sexual, their function domestic.

In seventh century Arabia, Islam brought to life the same creation myth and religious history that Jewish monotheism had already described.

Mohammed did not preach a new religion; he simply preached a new prophecy of the religion that was endemic to the area. In his telling, as in Genesis I and in Jesus, women enjoyed a fundamental religious equality with men. Mohammed outlined, too, the social effects of that philosophy in ways uncommon to the area: Good women are obedient. The move rendered women socially marginal and socially incompetent.

She could be imprisoned, even killed, for disobedience and divorced both without cause and without cult. To this day, over seventy four million cliterodectomies are performed in continental Africa alone. This established practice remains to assure against infidelity and to release women from what is said to be their insatiable bondage to sex Hosken 3. It is clear, then, that whatever its motive and whatever its source, religion as inherited by us validates violence against women.

Creation stories are used to prove that some humans are more human than other humans. The corruption of the creation myths of each major religion of the world, including Christianity, has been used by men to assure the ascendancy of men. Set up a giveaway.

There's a problem loading this menu right now. Learn more about Amazon Prime. Get fast, free shipping with Amazon Prime. Get to Know Us. English Choose a language for shopping. Explore the Home Gift Guide. Amazon Music Stream millions of songs. Amazon Advertising Find, attract, and engage customers. Amazon Drive Cloud storage from Amazon. The study of female reproduction and reproductive organs is called gynaecology. Women's health refers to health issues specific to human female anatomy.

There are some diseases that primarily affect women, such as lupus. Also, there are some sex-related illnesses that are found more frequently or exclusively in women, e. Women and men may have different symptoms of an illness and may also respond to medical treatment differently. This area of medical research is studied by gender-based medicine. The issue of women's health has been taken up by many feminists , especially where reproductive health is concerned. Women's health is positioned within a wider body of knowledge cited by, amongst others, the World Health Organization , which places importance on gender as a social determinant of health.

Maternal mortality or maternal death is defined by WHO as "the death of a woman while pregnant or within 42 days of termination of pregnancy, irrespective of the duration and site of the pregnancy, from any cause related to or aggravated by the pregnancy or its management but not from accidental or incidental causes.

More than half of them occur in sub-Saharan Africa and almost one third in South Asia. Reproductive rights are legal rights and freedoms relating to reproduction and reproductive health. The International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics has stated that: Violations of reproductive rights include forced pregnancy , forced sterilization and forced abortion. Forced sterilization was practiced during the first half of the 20th century by many Western countries. Forced sterilization and forced abortion are reported to be currently practiced in countries such as Uzbekistan and China.

In many prehistoric cultures, women assumed a particular cultural role. In hunter-gatherer societies, women were generally the gatherers of plant foods, small animal foods and fish, while men hunted meat from large animals. In more recent history, gender roles have changed greatly. Originally, starting at a young age, aspirations occupationally are typically veered towards specific directions according to gender.

For poorer women, especially working class women, although this often remained an ideal, [ specify ] economic necessity compelled them to seek employment outside the home. Many of the occupations that were available to them were lower in pay than those available to men. As changes in the labor market for women came about, availability of employment changed from only "dirty", long hour factory jobs to "cleaner", more respectable office jobs where more education was demanded. Women's participation in the U. These shifts in the labor force led to changes in the attitudes of women at work, allowing for the revolution which resulted in women becoming career and education oriented.

In the s, many female academics, including scientists, avoided having children. However, throughout the s, institutions tried to equalize conditions for men and women in the workplace. Even so, the inequalities at home stumped women's opportunities to succeed as far as men. Professional women are still generally considered responsible for domestic labor and child care. As people would say, they have a "double burden" which does not allow them the time and energy to succeed in their careers. Furthermore, though there has been an increase in the endorsement of egalitarian gender roles in the home by both women and men, a recent research study showed that women focused on issues of morality, fairness, and well-being, while men focused on social conventions.

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According to Schiebinger, "Being a scientist and a wife and a mother is a burden in society that expects women more often than men to put family ahead of career. Movements advocate equality of opportunity for both sexes and equal rights irrespective of gender. Through a combination of economic changes and the efforts of the feminist movement, [ specify ] in recent decades women in many societies now have access to careers beyond the traditional homemaker.

Although a greater number of women are seeking higher education, their salaries are often less than those of men. CBS News claimed in that in the United States women who are ages 30 to 44 and hold a university degree make 62 percent of what similarly qualified men do, a lower rate than in all but three of the 19 countries for which numbers are available.

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It also states that " violence against women is a manifestation of historically unequal power relations between men and women ". Violence against women remains a widespread problem, fueled, especially outside the West, by patriarchal social values, lack of adequate laws, and lack of enforcement of existing laws.

Social norms that exist in many parts of the world hinder progress towards protecting women from violence. Specific forms of violence that affect women include female genital mutilation , sex trafficking , forced prostitution , forced marriage , rape , sexual harassment , honor killings , acid throwing , and dowry related violence. Governments can be complicit in violence against women, for instance through practices such as stoning as punishment for adultery.

There have also been many forms of violence against women which have been prevalent historically, notably the burning of witches , the sacrifice of widows such as sati and foot binding. The prosecution of women accused of witchcraft has a long tradition; for example, during the early modern period between the 15th and 18th centuries , witch trials were common in Europe and in the European colonies in North America.

Today, there remain regions of the world such as parts of Sub-Saharan Africa, rural North India, and Papua New Guinea where belief in witchcraft is held by many people, and women accused of being witches are subjected to serious violence.

In Saudi Arabia , witchcraft remains a crime punishable by death , and in the country beheaded a woman for 'witchcraft and sorcery'. It is also the case that certain forms of violence against women have been recognized as criminal offenses only during recent decades, and are not universally prohibited, in that many countries continue to allow them. This is especially the case with marital rape. Sexual violence against women greatly increases during times of war and armed conflict , during military occupation , or ethnic conflicts ; most often in the form of war rape and sexual slavery. Contemporary examples of sexual violence during war include rape during the Armenian Genocide , rape during the Bangladesh Liberation War , rape in the Bosnian War , rape during the Rwandan genocide , and rape during Second Congo War.

In Colombia, the armed conflict has also resulted in increased sexual violence against women. Laws and policies on violence against women vary by jurisdiction. In the European Union , sexual harassment and human trafficking are subject to directives. Women in different parts of the world dress in different ways, with their choices of clothing being influenced by local culture, religious tenets, traditions, social norms, and fashion trends, amongst other factors.

Different societies have different ideas about modesty. However, in many jurisdictions, women's choices in regard to dress are not always free, with laws limiting what they may or may not wear. This is especially the case in regard to Islamic dress. These laws are highly controversial. In , the highest estimated TFR was in Niger 6.

In many parts of the world, there has been a change in family structure over the past few decades. For instance, in the West, there has been a trend of moving away from living arrangements that include the extended family to those which only consist of the nuclear family. There has also been a trend to move from marital fertility to non-marital fertility. Children born outside marriage may be born to cohabiting couples or to single women.

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While births outside marriage are common and fully accepted in some parts of the world, in other places they are highly stigmatized, with unmarried mothers facing ostracism, including violence from family members, and in extreme cases even honor killings. The social role of the mother differs between cultures. In many parts of the world, women with dependent children are expected to stay at home and dedicate all their energy to child raising, while in other places mothers most often return to paid work see working mother and stay-at-home mother.

Particular religious doctrines have specific stipulations relating to gender roles , social and private interaction between the sexes, appropriate dressing attire for women, and various other issues affecting women and their position in society. In many countries, these religious teachings influence the criminal law , or the family law of those jurisdictions see Sharia law , for example.

The relation between religion, law and gender equality has been discussed by international organizations. Single-sex education has traditionally been dominant and is still highly relevant. Universal education, meaning state-provided primary and secondary education independent of gender, is not yet a global norm, even if it is assumed in most developed countries.

In some Western countries, women have surpassed men at many levels of education. World literacy is lower for females than for males. Younger women today are far more likely to have completed a tertiary qualification: In 21 of 27 OECD countries with comparable data, the number of women graduating from university-level programmes is equal to or exceeds that of men.

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There is a common misconception that women have still not advanced in achieving academic degrees. According to Margaret Rossiter, a historian of science, women now earn 54 percent of all bachelor's degrees in the United States. However, although there are more women holding bachelor's degrees than men, as the level of education increases, the more men tend to fit the statistics [ clarification needed ] instead of women.

At the graduate level , women fill 40 percent of the doctorate degrees 31 percent of them being in engineering. While to this day women are studying at prestigious universities at the same rate as men, [ clarification needed ] they are not being given the same chance to join faculty. Sociologist Harriet Zuckerman has observed that the more prestigious an institute is, the more difficult and time-consuming it will be for women to obtain a faculty position there.

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