Women and Leadership
Female Goddesses
Hinduism recognizes the female aspects of divinity. Worship of female divinities has begun since the pre-Vedic times. Devi, The Great Mother, is portrayed in both loving and cruel forms. She is frequently worshiped with extreme human feeling, for example a worshiper may take on the emotions and even the clothing of a child or spouse of the Great Mother. The Divine Feminine appears as several goddesses, including Durga and Kali to be the most popular. Durga is represented with eight arms, full of implements used to destroy evil. She rides a tiger, which helps her conquer all dangerous obstacles. Kali is a more fearsome goddess. Her many arms are full of weapons, which are thought to be dangerous to enemies but protective of her children. The goddess Saraswati is the consort of Brahma and more powerful than Brahma himself. She is the patron of music, arts, and culture. Goddess Lakshmi is the consort of the god Vishnu, and she dispenses good luck and protection. The god Shiva has many shaktis, and Shiva is portrayed as androgynous: half of his body is masculine, while the other side shows a female breast. The important role of the Divine Feminine is that they are shaktis ("energies") to the male gods because they allow the male gods to be effective in the human world. Male gods cannot be active without the Divine Feminine. |
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The Bindi
Many Hindu women stick out from the crowd because of the Bindi, a red dot worn on their foreheads. The Bindi is traditionally worn to symbolize a woman's marital status, however; now it is simply used as a beautiful fashion sense. It symbolizes female energy and is believed to protect women and their husbands. It is placed between the eyebrows where attention is focused during meditation. The most common Bindi is a red dot made from vermilion. Bindis today are used as a decorative accessory worn by unmarried women and non-Hindu women as well. |
A Shift in Roles
The role of women has expanded and changed. In the pre-Vedic era, there are many female deities that were worshiped and many female gurus. In the second century BCE, male domination has been canonized in India by the law code of Manu, which made female subservient to the male. A good wife was expected to treat her husband as a god, no matter what his character or treatment of her. Women were not trained to read and write, as this was thought to detract from their principal roles as wives and mothers.
According to the Manu Smriti, women go through three stages:
1.) As a child she is protected by her father. Traditionally, girls do not receive a formal academic education. A woman's role was to stay at home and preserve cultural values.
2.) As a married lady, she is protected by her husband. Girls were married at a very young age. Wife's roles were centered on the home and she was not burdened with contributing towards the family income.
3.) If the husband died or took sannyasa, she is protected by the eldest son. Elder ladies were always treated with great respect.
Today Hindu women commonly learn to read and write, and many go on to higher education and important public roles; however they are limited to a few career areas such as teaching, secretarial work, nursing, and medicine. In some villages women are under threat of violence form their husbands. If the dowry payment made by a bride’s family is insufficient, the wives are threatened and sometimes killed by the husband’s family members so that the husband is free to marry again.
Women equality is working every day. First it targets education by trying to keep girls in school and raise the literacy rate and social capability of women. The second concentrates on the improvement of women’s health through greater self-awareness and more frequent medical testing. Testing for breast cancer is a current focus today. A third addressed issue is relating to marriage. It tries to gain acceptance for inter-caste marriage and for marriages that are arranged by the couple, rather than by the parents. It also tries to stop child marriages and promotes the enforcement of laws regulating proper marriage age. And it opposes the persecution of wives who, even after the marriage, are considered unsuitable. The fourth emphasis is the opposition to gender testing of fetuses; male children are valued more highly than female children, and the ratio of male children to female children is unbalanced. A study about abortions in Bombay show that 999 out of 1000 abortions were performed on female fetuses. Female infants were even abandoned. Most couples want boys more than girls.
The role of women has expanded and changed. In the pre-Vedic era, there are many female deities that were worshiped and many female gurus. In the second century BCE, male domination has been canonized in India by the law code of Manu, which made female subservient to the male. A good wife was expected to treat her husband as a god, no matter what his character or treatment of her. Women were not trained to read and write, as this was thought to detract from their principal roles as wives and mothers.
According to the Manu Smriti, women go through three stages:
1.) As a child she is protected by her father. Traditionally, girls do not receive a formal academic education. A woman's role was to stay at home and preserve cultural values.
2.) As a married lady, she is protected by her husband. Girls were married at a very young age. Wife's roles were centered on the home and she was not burdened with contributing towards the family income.
3.) If the husband died or took sannyasa, she is protected by the eldest son. Elder ladies were always treated with great respect.
Today Hindu women commonly learn to read and write, and many go on to higher education and important public roles; however they are limited to a few career areas such as teaching, secretarial work, nursing, and medicine. In some villages women are under threat of violence form their husbands. If the dowry payment made by a bride’s family is insufficient, the wives are threatened and sometimes killed by the husband’s family members so that the husband is free to marry again.
Women equality is working every day. First it targets education by trying to keep girls in school and raise the literacy rate and social capability of women. The second concentrates on the improvement of women’s health through greater self-awareness and more frequent medical testing. Testing for breast cancer is a current focus today. A third addressed issue is relating to marriage. It tries to gain acceptance for inter-caste marriage and for marriages that are arranged by the couple, rather than by the parents. It also tries to stop child marriages and promotes the enforcement of laws regulating proper marriage age. And it opposes the persecution of wives who, even after the marriage, are considered unsuitable. The fourth emphasis is the opposition to gender testing of fetuses; male children are valued more highly than female children, and the ratio of male children to female children is unbalanced. A study about abortions in Bombay show that 999 out of 1000 abortions were performed on female fetuses. Female infants were even abandoned. Most couples want boys more than girls.