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Indian Rape cases and protests | PKKH.tv

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Tell your Indian law because the Indian Penal Code does not recognise any concept of marital rape.


I dont want to post facts about Hinduism here so NVM.

Indian law regarding at least "rape" is still deeply flawed(hence there is intense pressure on the govt to reform such laws), but it still recognizes such as an 'act of domestic violence'.

Neither am I involving any religion in it, but at same time, I would like point out, that just because such acts were practiced by certain revered individuals in history, does not make them an acceptable standard.
 
Krait focus on the topic.

dont want to drag religion into it.

i can counter your claims in the above post too but leave it. bad or good keep religion out of it.

give us suggestion for changing male mentality

Thank you.. Now can you please tell this to your Pakistani brothers/sisters too.. Why are they screwing up an extremely serious topic. ?
 
Taking the aggression out of masculinity

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CELEBRATING MANHOOD: Religious customs, such as Karva Chauth openly propagate male-worship. Photo: Rohit Jain Paras

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CELEBRATING MANHOOD: Swami Vivekananda’s masculine photographic-pose is revealing of how Indian nationalism encouraged a deeply masculine notion of modernity. Photo: R. Shivaji Rao

The Indian family has been a long-standing site for reinforcing and perpetuating male privilege and entitlement

Sexual crimes derive from social attitudes and no serious effort at lessening their occurrence can ever depend upon cosmetic measures such as greater policing and calls for the death penalty. This is not to deny either the legitimacy of the anger over the terrible event that led to the recent rape and death of a young woman, or that the Indian justice system frequently subjects rape victims to as much trauma as the original act itself. Rather, that there is more urgent need than ever to think about the cultures of masculinity in India. While there have been good reasons why women’s studies departments and many non-governmental organisations have been resistant to including a focus on masculinity as a way of understanding gender, the time is ripe for a change in this attitude. Now, more than ever, we require an understanding of masculine cultures that is informed by feminist methods and perspectives. Gender is always a relationship between women, men (and other genders) and unless we have a sense of how boys are socialised as men, our understanding of the ways in which gender oppression unfolds will always be incomplete.

Socially produced

Masculine cultures infuse all significant aspects of modern life and masculinity refers to the socially produced ways of being male. That is to say, men learn to be men and this “learning” is expressed both in terms of social structures as well as in the ways in which men present themselves in everyday life. So, for example, the idea of “men’s work” and “women’s work” relates to social structure whereas the ways in which men speak, behave, gesture, and interact with other men (as well as women) reflect the behavioural aspects of masculinity. Linked to this is the idea that some ways of being a man are better than others. These ideas about gender are produced at specific sites, and these might include educational systems, customary laws and regulations, the state and its mechanisms, the family, religious norms and sanctions, popular culture, and, the media.

Finally, in this context, it is important to remember that in all societies there exist multiple ways of being a man, but that certain aggressive models of masculinity become dominant. That is to say, masculinity is not just a relationship between men and women, but also between men. Some ways of being a man are considered more manly than others.

The notions of “making” and “producing” are crucial to the study of masculine identities, for they point to their historical and social nature. The various discourses of “proper” masculine behaviour — in novels, films, advertisements, for example — would be unnecessary if it was a naturally endowed characteristic. The very fact that masculinity must consistently be reinforced — “if you buy this motorcycle you’ll be a real man” — says something about the tenuous and fragile nature of gender identities. It also suggests the possibility of foregrounding alternative models of masculinity.

Colonialism

A great deal of neglect of masculinity as an object of study lies in the celebratory ways in which we have tended to understand Indian nationalism which — in its reactions to colonial rule — produced a deeply masculine culture of modernity. So, if colonists sought to justify colonial rule by suggesting that Indians were not “manly enough” for either self-rule or rational thinking, nationalists simply inverted argument through providing “evidence” of Indian masculinity as well as “reforming” a number of social institutions to more closely reflect European ideas about “proper” families, intimacies, etc. Colonialism did not, of course, invent Indian masculinities, but it did help to cement and highlight certain regressive tendencies within it. Swami Vivekananda’s masculine photographic-pose was only one aspect of the cult of masculinity encouraged and tolerated by nationalism.

Beyond the historical context, masculine bias proliferates itself in a number of areas that have immediate bearing on everyday life. The masculinity of spaces and institutions is one of these. It has become commonplace to understand certain spaces and institutions (say, the street and Parliament) as public, and others (say, the home) as private. The terms “public” and “private” have, in turn, become linked to ideas about the “proper” realms for men and women. Women are tolerated in public spaces and within public institutions but are expected to behave “properly.” Otherwise they suffer ridicule and violence. The media quite often provides accounts of public women (say parliamentarians) through describing what they wear, or, how many children they have; women’s primary identity continues to be defined through an implicit understanding that public institutions possess (and should possess) a masculine identity. Our legal institutions just as frequently bring to bear masculine bias when dealing with gender-sensitive issues. It is not unusual, therefore, that while judges may express revulsion towards rape crimes, they may also say something like “what was this young woman doing at an ice-cream parlour at that time of the night?” The idea that women frequently contribute to their own ill-treatment through behaving in an “inappropriate” manner is part of the set of masculine attitudes that characterise a great deal of thinking on gender.

In schools

Schools are another site where masculine cultures are both produced and refined. Many of us too frequently make the simplistic assumption that there is a direct connection between girls’ education and women’s empowerment. The truth of the matter is that girls’ education continues to seen through a masculinity lens: that educated girls will make better mothers, rather than that they might be able to exercise individual autonomy. If on the one hand, schooling can reinforce dominant notions regarding “appropriate” male and female behaviour, we need also to realise that formal education is an inadequate measure of women’s autonomy. We need to move away from masculine notions of the significance of educated women as good wives and mothers.

The family and religious customs are two other extremely significant contexts for the making of masculine cultures. The Indian family has been a long-standing site for reinforcing the most pernicious aspects of masculinity. Our family lives contain elaborate formal and informal means of reinforcing and celebrating male privilege. Sons are brought up to both perpetuate and condone gender hierarchies and are nurtured with a sense of entitlement.

It is this that lies at the heart of male violence towards women. Indian “family values” are contexts of a great deal of jingoistic celebrations about what is special about Indian society. Such jingoism keeps us from turning a critical eye towards what is genuinely rotten within one of the most basic units of social life. It keeps us from critically examining the masculine cultures that impact upon the relationship between genders. It is important for women and men to protest against the crime of rape. But, it is just as important to ask why such a large number of women have taken to celebrating the Karva-Chauth festival, and, why there has been no significant public examination of such rituals of male-worship.

(Sanjay Srivastava is professor of Sociology and co-editor, Contributions to Indian Sociology, Institute of Economic Growth, New Delhi.)


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I'm glad of all news papers that The Hindu posted this article. calling out misogynistic hindu culture inherent and ingrained in india.And in past too i 've tried to draw attention towards this being major reason for crime against woman but under rules many a time my threads were closed with reason religion discussion not allowed.And now this Delhi incident has blown out of like avolcano now indian main stream media is calling out same.
 
@Andromache Okies. Just wanted to tell that there are bad and good interpretation. So bringing religion in this crime is not worthy.

My post was not to offend you or any Muslim but to tell them how a Christian twisted the Holy Quran's words to propagate his own agenda.
 
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Thank you.. Now can you please tell this to your Pakistani brothers/sisters too.. Why are they screwing up an extremely serious topic. ?

report any for trolling. thats what can i do.

even told PKKH where their editorial is has flaws.
 
Krait focus on the topic.
dont want to drag religion into it.
i can counter your claims in the above post too but leave it. bad or good keep religion out of it.
give us suggestion for changing male mentality
Before changing mentality of men, let me tell you few issues with Indian family.

A family near my home invested Lakhs in education and coaching of their son whereas they never sent their daughter who was far more intelligent than her brother. Even then she got highest marks in the district and got place in one of the elite institution in India.

Now I am not talking about a uneducated, poor family. I am talking about a middle class family, with father being himself a Lecturer in College and even her mother is a graduate.

Problem here comes is that even with education, people take sons as priority because their son will take care of them in their old age whereas the girl will go to other's home after marriage.

They think as an investment.
 
It is this that lies at the heart of male violence towards women. It is important for women and men to protest against the crime of rape. But, it is just as important to ask why such a large number of women have taken to celebrating the Karva-Chauth festival, and, why there has been no significant public examination of such rituals of male-worship.[/B]

(Sanjay Srivastava is professor of Sociology and co-editor, Contributions to Indian Sociology, Institute of Economic Growth, New Delhi.)

TheHindu is a good newspaper and has quality. the writer a learned professor asked the above question to which i can only say that all over the world its women who are supposed to please the men to prove that they love them . this is funny because only a woman has to be clad in skimpy outfits or buraqs just because men find these as something accomodating their happiness.

so why cant we reverse it? why men cant have a karva chauth for their wives.

and this is universal phenomenon not limited to India only.

all over the world only women have to please men just to prove that they love them

@Andromache , @Oscar,

the OP has started 2 separate threads with the same article . with an obvious intent to flame.


http://www.defence.pk/forums/central-south-asia/227585-rape-india-rape-pkkh-tv.html

No it was one thread which was infested with trolls hence Asim rebooted it with a different title.
 
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TheHindu is a good newspaper and has quality. the writer a learned professor asked the above question to which i can only say that all over the world its women who are supposed to please the men to prove that they love them . this is funny because only a woman has to be clad in skimpy outfits or buraqs just because men find these as something accomodating their happiness.

so why cant we reverse it? why men cant have a karva chauth for their wives.

and this is universal phenomenon not limited to India only.

all over the world only women have to please men just to prove that they love them



No it was one thread which was infested with trolls hence Asim rebooted it with a different title.

not true
All over the world both men and women have different pressures.
Women have the pressure to produce children, run the family afairs etc, but men have the pressure to sacrifice their lives to provide for the women.

No woman in her right mind would want to reverse these roles if they were forced to take up jobs like this

NSCMCB9-coal-miners-1938.gif


tumblr_lkhk7xdgmv1qfd0a8o1_400.jpg


Both men and women have an obligation to each other, to make it seem otherwise is unfair.
 
TheHindu is a good newspaper and has quality. the writer a learned professor asked the above question to which i can only say that all over the world its women who are supposed to please the men to prove that they love them . this is funny because only a woman has to be clad in skimpy outfits or buraqs just because men find these as something accomodating their happiness.
so why cant we reverse it? why men cant have a karva chauth for their wives.
and this is universal phenomenon not limited to India only.
all over the world only women have to please men just to prove that they love them
No it was one thread which was infested with trolls hence Asim rebooted it with a different title.
Every year I visit my sister with gifts and she tie a knot on my hand as she demands me to protect her and I swear that I will.
She is the one who is considered at higher ground.

Similarly, in every marriage, during 7 fere, in 3 fere man is ahead while in last 4 fere woman is.

Also a man can't marry a woman if he doesn't agree to vows she ask him to make. Similarly a man can't marry a woman unless she says Kabool Hai. Same in case, where a woman has to say I do.

We are going to religious customs which are skewed because of Patriarchal society and and pre conceived notion that Man is superior to woman.

The solution lies in mother to teach her son to respect woman and same way father to his son that you are nothing without your mother, sister, wife and daughter.
 
Every year I visit my sister with gifts and she tie a knot on my hand as she demands me to protect her and I swear that I will.
She is the one who is considered at higher ground.

Similarly, in every marriage, during 7 fere, in 3 fere man is ahead while in last 4 fere woman is.

Also a man can't marry a woman if he doesn't agree to vows she ask him to make. Similarly a man can't marry a woman unless she says Kabool Hai. Same in case, where a woman has to say I do.

We are going to religious customs which are skewed because of Patriarchal society and and pre conceived notion that Man is superior to woman.

The solution lies in mother to teach her son to respect woman and same way father to his son that you are nothing without your mother, sister, wife and daughter.


I humbly disagree with this notion as there is no such thing as a "patriarchy"
It's a myth designed to allow silly laws that say that a woman just has to accuse a man of rape and he will be deemed guilty, regardless of it he did it or not.
 
not true
All over the world both men and women have different pressures.
Women have the pressure to produce children, run the family afairs etc, but men have the pressure to sacrifice their lives to provide for the women.

No woman in her right mind would want to reverse these roles if they were forced to take up jobs like this

NSCMCB9-coal-miners-1938.gif


tumblr_lkhk7xdgmv1qfd0a8o1_400.jpg


Both men and women have an obligation to each other, to make it seem otherwise is unfair.

women have an extra pressure of earning too all over the world so please dont try to look like a man-victim
 
@Rusty I agree with you in some sense. Both have their part to play in the society.
I can quote from personal experience why this sync is needed.
 
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TheHindu is a good newspaper and has quality. the writer a learned professor asked the above question to which i can only say that all over the world its women who are supposed to please the men to prove that they love them . this is funny because only a woman has to be clad in skimpy outfits or buraqs just because men find these as something accomodating their happiness.

so why cant we reverse it? why men cant have a karva chauth for their wives.

and this is universal phenomenon not limited to India only.

all over the world only women have to please men just to prove that they love them
Seems like to male ego is hurt by women asking these question in past i had called out same questions with respect to raksha bandhan,karwa chauth,bhai dooj festival .ultimately my threads were closed by mods under general rule of religious discussions not allowed.It seems that to people here calling customs as wrong as attack on religion.and same is the case with resident mullahs over pdf for every islamic thread or burqa thread.Hindustan times has published an apt cartoon for male chauvinists.

prez's%20son.jpg
 
women have an extra pressure of earning too all over the world so please dont try to look like a man-victim

really? Where?

Every society I have ever seen has made a woman who earns as "independent" and a man who does not as "lazy dead beat"
How non working fathers have you met? how many housewives have you met?
Yeah, exactly
And this i not a victim card, this is just fact. When you try to make it seem like women are the only victims and there is a conspiracy against them, then I have no choice but to show you facts.

And you didn't get at the topic. Would you exchange your life with a coal miner for even a day?
 
"Women are the Root of All Evil" : The Misogyny of Religions

The pervasiveness of religious intolerance obviates the need to devote much space to its demonstration. One needs only to think of both historical and contemporary clashes between Muslims and Hindus, Christians and Jews, Muslims and Christians, Hindus and Buddhists[1] to realize that religions are monopolistic (for a social psychological perspective see Argyle, 2000, pp.165-166; Batson & Burris, 1994). That intolerance should be a core characteristic of most religions is hardly surprising, for this trait goes well with their inherent lack of democracy, egalitarianism and liberalism.[2] In many cases, bigotry is doctrinal, strongly supported by a given religion's founding documents and articles of faith.[3] Deep-set opposition to pluralism is not limited to the inter-religious realm, but creates bitter intra-religious wrangling as well. Persecutions, sometimes mutual, often one-sided, between Catholics and Protestants, Sunnis and Shiites, main-stream Christians and Hussites, Huguenots, Puritans, Mormons, and others, are all painful reminders of a ubiquitous lack of ecumenism. (Armstrong, 1986, p. 308: "Christianity made a virtue of creating enemies--first outsiders like Jews and ******* and then other Christians"; cf. Herek, 1987).

Now one might think that once the safe haven of one's own sect is reached, harmony reigns. Yet a more thorough examination of the underlying mechanisms suggests that intolerance has no boundaries. An institution that discriminates outward is likely to practice inward discrimination as well.

Two apparently opposed arguments are occasionally used to counter these claims. According to the first, religion is egalitarian and even salutogenic [i.e. respect-inspiring] at its core, but has been corrupted by some of its practitioners. Such a stance has been taken, inter alia, by Armstrong (1993, p. 158) vis a vis Christianity and Islam, by Abdalla (1982, p. 32) regarding Islam, by Tappa (1986, p. 101, quoting Moltmann, the German eschatological theologian) regarding Christianity, as well as by many others who attack "the Church", while embracing religion. While this line of thought ignores easily demonstrable doctrinal prejudice, discrimination and feuding, it concedes the claim of the current inequality of religion.

Another assertion, to an extent contradicting the above, holds that modern religions are actually egalitarian, when compared to their less enlightened origins. This is the message in Gross (1993, p. 4; though she also supports the previous claim; see pp. 42, 115) with reference to Buddhism; it can also be discerned in Grenfell (1978) regarding Christianity. The major problem with this claim is that, while partially supported by current dogma (e.g. John Paul II, 1995), endless practical examples refute it. A woman singer is banned from a Jewish religious rally; a two-year-old girl dies when refused treatment at a "men's only" Muslim hospital; an Italian archbishop and cardinal makes racist statements; Hindu women are forbidden to enter a shrine or to draw water from the temple well. These are not medieval events but rather news items from the year 2000.

In this article we concentrate on one specific type of ecclesiastic discrimination--the one practiced against women. In her History of God, Armstrong (1993, p. 124) writes as follows: "A religion which looks askance upon half the human race and which regards every involuntary motion of mind, heart and body as a symptom of fatal concupiscence can only alienate men and women from their condition. Western Christianity never fully recovered from this neurotic misogyny." Yet, it appears to us that Armstrong is unnecessarily selective. It is not just Western Christianity that suffers from this shortcoming. By examining selected writings and exegeses of the major world religions, we shall show that they are all inherently misogynic. Based on our background as psychologists and our experience as family therapists, we attempt to analyze such misogyny and inquire into its roots and consequences.

The religions we examine include both those three traditionally regarded as monotheistic, and the two largest Eastern religions. By necessity, our reading is both selective and tendentious; as Moore (2000) has maintained, it is impossible to perform a systematic sampling of the scriptures and liturgy of even one, let alone several major religions. We shall not claim that the religions surveyed below offer nothing but misogyny, but rather that they contain abundant material promoting and legitimizing hatred of women among some 2 billion Christians, 1.3 billion Muslims, 900 million Hindus, 360 million Buddhists and 14 million Jews. Our method of analysis derives from orientational inquiry (cf. orienting theory in Carspecken & Apple, 1990): This approach makes explicit the theoretical perspective of the researchers that guides the inquiry from its outset.

Judaism

Erich Fromm (1973, p. 221; also Figes, 1986, p. 41) attributes the rise of patriarchalism to the "urban revolution" of the 3rd millennium B.C.E. Though the early Israelites of some two thousand years later inherited this social system from preceding and neighboring civilizations, they certainly contributed a great deal to its taking solid root. Vestiges of Neolithic matriarchalism had not yet disappeared, and the worship of fertility goddesses was still practiced in biblical times; Astarte and Anath played an especially great role among the Canaanites (Albright, 1957, p. 233; Moscati, 1953, p. 100. See also Gross, 1996, ch. 5, for a discussion of the prepatriarchal hypothesis). Within the Jewish religion that evolved during these times the influence of female deities was bitterly contested (see the numerous instances in which "asherot" are destroyed: Ex. 34:13; Judges 6:25; 2 Kings 23:14; 2 Chron. 14:2; 31:1, etc.), with the male YHWH being repeatedly declared as the Highest of the Gods. It is hard to say to what extent this religious ideology affected social customs; there is however no doubt that the Israelite family was completely patriarchal, with the husband acting as absolute master of wife and children (de Vaux, 1965, p. 20; Moscati, 1953, p. 138).

The Hebrew Bible contains numerous examples of what Trible (1990, p. 24) calls "the inferiority, subordination and abuse of women in Scripture".[4] Four particularly painful cases (Hagar, Tamar, the concubine from Bethlehem, and Jephthah's daughter in Trible, 1984) serve as evidence for the general attitude toward women; Fields (1992) adds to these two more misogynic vignettes to show that women were considered expendable in biblical times. (For other pathological family patterns in the Hebrew Bible, see Kramer & Moore, 1998).

Now, admittedly, misogyny is a harsh word. The reader may ask whether we use it advisedly. On the one hand, the Hebrew Bible does not directly revile women, and has few such direct and blunt anti-feminine statements compared to its descendants and sister religions.[5] On the other hand, through its treatment of women as chattel, it legitimizes the subsequent development of blatant misogyny. A handful of particularly aggressive women, such as Deborah and Jael, are occasionally conjured up to support the scriptures' positive attitude towards women, but they prove as little as Golda Meir, Indira Ghandi or Margaret Thatcher would, were they used for a similar purpose in their respective cultures. (Lerner, 1986, pp. 176-177, voices a similar opinion). The road from here to the institutionalized, daily deprecation of women in the Jewish morning prayer is a short one: "Blessed art thou, O Lord our God, King of the universe, who hast not made me a woman" (Hertz, 1959, p. 21; for additional pathogenic aspects of prayers, see Moore, 1999).

Though the Hebrew Bible may be only an oblique source of misogyny, its exegetes are far more direct. The Babylonian Talmud often places together women and slaves (e.g. Yebamot 122/A; Nazir 61/A; women, slaves and children in Berakhot 20/A and 45/B; women, slaves and cattle in Kidushin 2/A, 14/B, 25/B); it practically bars women from public appearances by declaring that "a woman's voice is nakedness" (or obscenity, Berakhot 24/A); objects to fathers instructing their daughters in religious matters ("equivalent to teaching her depravity", Sota 20/A), and straightforwardly declares: "Happy is he whose children are males, woe is him whose children are females" (Baba Batra 16/B). Bialik & Ravnicki (1948) gathered a large number of short legends and sayings from Jewish religious writings (both from the Talmud and the Midrashim, the latter being compilations of post-Talmudic exegeses); here are some that refer to women:

"Women are said to have four qualities: gluttony, obedientness, laziness, and jealousness. Rabbi Yehuda says: wrathfulness and loquaciousness. Rabbi Levi says: also stealing and harlotry" (p. 488-489, # 110).
"Even the most righteous of women has witchcraft' (p. 489, # 118).
"Women cannot be instructed and their words cannot be trusted" (p. 489, # 121).
"Anything a man wants to do with his wife, he shall do. It is like meat that has come from the slaughterhouse; wants to eat it salted, he eats it. Roasted--he eats it. Boiled--he eats it." (p. 491, # 165).
"Yossi ben Yohannan from Jerusalem said: Don't talk much with a woman. They meant one's wife, and even more so with a friend's wife. Hence the saying of the wise: When a man talks much with the woman, he harms himself, neglects his studies and will end in hell" (p. 491, # 168).
"A woman is a bag full of excrement and her mouth is full of blood--and everyone runs after her" (p. 492, #181).
In their introduction to the anthology, Bialik & Ravnicki (1948, p. iii) claim to have gathered "the best and the most characteristic" of Jewish legends. Modern readers cannot fail to absorb the derision with which women are held by the very fundaments of their religion.

Christianity

Though largely disregarded by the Hebrew biblical tradition, misogynic aspects of the creation myth received great attention during the intertestamental period (Milne, 1989) and were later put to use by Christian exegetes. Outstanding among these are:

Tertullian (c. 150- c. 230): "Do you know that you are each an Eve? On account of your desert even the Son of God had to die";
Augustine (354-430): "It is still Eve the temptress that we must beware of in any woman", (both quoted in Armstrong, 1993, p. 124; on Augustine's attitude towards women see also Power, 1995, esp. p. 229);
Aquinas, the Angelic Doctor (1225-1274), who refers to women as "defective and misbegotten" (Summa Theologica I/92).
When we add to these highly influential Fathers of the Church such a significant character as Martin Luther ("a rabid anti-Semite, a misogynist, ... convulsed with a loathing and horror of sexuality...", in Armstrong, 1993, p. 279), we must not be surprised of the antagonism that has developed between feminism and Christianity. A few excerpts from contemporary writers should suffice to illustrate this state of affairs:

Ranke-Heinemann (1990, p. 6) writes of the "disturbing history of the misogyny and sexual despair of the Catholic Church" and of its "nonsensical hatred of marriage and the body". Armstrong (1993, p. 124) says of Christianity that a "religion which teaches men and women to regard their humanity as chronically flawed can alienate them from themselves. Nowhere is this alienation more evident than in the denigration of sexuality in general and women in particular". Loades (1987) suggests that "Christian feminism" is a contradiction in terms (p. 2), that it becomes increasingly difficult for a feminist to profess Christianity (p. 15), and that "women's self-recovery will depend upon their refusal to bother any more with the Churches and their theology" (p. 99). Casagrande (1992, p. 90), mentions the "divine curse" in Gen. 3:16, which is "echoed in the life of every woman to follow, condemning her irrevocably to the domination of men". (See also Armstrong, 1986; Buhrig, 1993; Maitland, 1995, p. 92; Milne, 1989; Power, 1995).

The Church's anti-feminism has not been fed by ancient creation myths alone. The New Testament itself is a rich source for such an attitude, mostly coming from St. Paul:

"Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience, as also saith the law. And if they will learn any thing, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church" (I Cor 14: 34, 35).
"Let the women learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression" (I Tim. 2: 11-14; probably pseudo-Pauline).
"Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife..." (Ephesians 5: 22-23).
These often quoted verses (see also I Cor. 11: 2-16) have all served, generation after generation, as documents authorizing the putting down of women. The last mentioned (having become an integral part of the liturgy; see the Book of Common Prayer, 1968, pp. 310-311), was only recently re-affirmed in an amendment adopted by the 1998 Southern Baptist Convention to the effect that "A wife is to submit graciously to the servant leadership of her husband." (Time, 1998, 151, No. 25, p. 15).

Islam

In her book on genital mutilation of Islamic women, Abdalla contrasts the theoretical equality of the sexes in the Koran (4:1) with the actual inferior position of women. True, the Prophet permitted their presence at prayer ("Do not stop your women from going to the mosque, although their houses are better for them"; in Al-Hashimi, 1996, ch. 1), but after his death, women were prevented from praying in public mosques (Abdalla, 1982, p. 32; cf. Gross, 1993, pp. 9-10 for a similar development in early Buddhism). Such domination of women has doctrinal foundations; for the same Koranic chapter also informs believers that "men are in charge of women, because Allah hath made the one of them to excel the other--those from whom ye fear rebellion, admonish them and banish them to beds apart, and scourge them" (4:34). It is the widespread reliance on such verses (see Moore & Kramer, 2000) that has lead Abdalla (1982, p. 102) to say: "Religious teachings ... have been manipulated to demonstrate that men have a sacred as well as a secular right to dominate ... and even mutilate women ... for their own good...!" (See also Armstrong, 1993, p. 158: "Unfortunately, as in Christianity, the religion was later hijacked by the men, who interpreted texts in a way that was negative for Muslim women").

To what extent both the Koran and the Hadith are being used for the institutionalized oppression of women can be seen in a contemporary volume devoted to proper female conduct. Al-Hashimi (1996, ch. 4), a religious teacher and writer, summarizes the ideal Muslim wife's traits: "She is obedient, kind and loving towards her husband, ever eager to please him. She does not disclose his secrets or upset his plans. She endears herself to him by the way she looks and behaves, and fills his life with joy and happiness. She encourages him to obey Allah in different ways, and motivates him by joining him in different activities. She respects his mother and family. She refrains from looking at other men. She keeps away from foolish and worthless talk. She is keen to provide an atmosphere of peace, tranquility and stability for her husband and children. She is strong of character without being rude or aggressive, and is kind and gentle without being weak. She earns the respect of those who speak to her. She is tolerant and forgiving, overlooking errors and never bearing grudges". The writer concludes: "eing a good wife is not only a quality that she may boast about among her friends, but it is also a religious obligation for which Allah will call her to account: if she has done well, she will be rewarded, but if she has fallen short she will have to pay the penalty".

Al Hashimi has ample scriptural basis for the above; here are a few examples of the Prophet's sayings about women (both Koranic and reported), which he cites (1996, ch. 4):

"If I were to order anyone to prostrate to anyone else, I would have ordered women to prostrate to their husbands."
"The Messenger of Allah said: 'Any woman who dies, and her husband is pleased with her, will enter Paradise.'"
"Allah will curse those procrastinating women who, when their husbands call them to their beds, say 'I will, I will . . .' until he falls asleep."
"O womenfolk, if you knew the rights that your husbands have over you, every one of you would wipe the dust from her husband's feet with her face."
"'O Messenger of Allah, are they not our mothers and sisters and wives?' He said, 'Of course, but when they are treated generously they are ungrateful, and when they are tested, they do not have patience.'"
Al-Hashimi's book does not stand alone. Similar messages, inculcating a subservient image of women and an attitude towards them that is at best patronizing, appear in countless books and articles (e.g. those published by Umm Publications of Yagoona, Australia, and by the Muslim Creed Journal of Miami, Florida).

Hinduism

From the vast amount of sacred Hindu writings we have selected two major texts: the Srimad bhagavatam and the Bhagavad-Gita; we have also consulted a collection of Sanskrit scriptures edited by O'Flaherty (1975) and selections from both the Mahabharata and the Ramayana. The Bhagavad-Gita is the most famous portion of the Mahabharata, providing a synopsis of Indian religious thought and experience. Srimad bhagavatam is considered as "the ripened fruit of the tree of Vedic literature".

Hinduism (as well as Buddhism, below) is free from the influence of the Judeo-Christian matrix; the 2500-year-old texts we have perused developed their anti-feminine bias independently of 3500-year-old Middle-Eastern creation myths. Their patriarchal Weltanschauung [Worldview] is nonetheless clear. The "Disposition of Women" receives considerable attention in the Mahabharata (Anusasana Parva). Having declared that "women are the root of all evil", and that they "wish to transgress the restraints assigned to them" (# 38; see also O'Flaherty, 1975, pp. 36-37), this sacred source embarks on a lengthy attack on women. The latter are described as unintelligible, insatiably lustful, deceitful, and gluttonous, akin to death, poison, snakes and fire, created for the express purpose of corrupting men (# 38 - 40 and elsewhere). Undeserving of independence (# 20), their only end is "obedient service to their husbands" (# 59). Rarely observed righteous women are also described: The main characteristic of such a woman is that she "looks upon her husband as a god, waits upon and serves him as if he is a god, surrenders her own will completely to that of her lord" (# 146).

India's other great religious epic, the Ramayana, concurs: Women are impure by their very birth, they blight all virtues, their nature is to be vicious, fickle and sharp-tongued. A woman's only duty is devotion of body, speech and mind to her husband (Aranya Kanda). Many other selections, both from the Srimad bhagavatam (Prabhupada, 1978) and from the Bhagavad-Gita (Prabhupada, 1972), complete this picture: The ancient texts, as well as their contemporary interpreter, repeatedly describe women as unintelligent, untrustworthy, interested only in worthless material enjoyment, and, in sum, an obstacle to spiritual fulfillment. (Cf. women depicted as sex objects in Confucius' Analects 18:4).

Buddhism

A vignette from Digha Nikaya (a part of the Tipitaka, the doctrinal foundation of Theravada Buddhism) serves to set the tone of Buddhist attitudes toward women:

"'How are we to conduct ourselves, lord, with regards to womankind?' 'As not seeing them, Ananda.' 'But if we should see them, what are we to do?' 'No talking, Ananda.' 'But if they should speak to us, lord, what are we to do?' 'Keep wide awake, Ananda'" (# 16, quoted in Gross, 1993, p. 44)

The anti-feminine stance of Buddhism is apparent in many other writings as well. Women are described as undeserving of any worthy undertaking because they are irritable, jealous, greedy and unintelligent (Anguttara Nikaya 4:80, in Nyanatiloka/Nyanaponika, 1984); they are out to trap men to such an extent that they are described as the snare of Mara, the Evil One (6:55); they can never become fully enlightened (1:15; for more texts on the opposition between Buddhahood and femininity see Gross, 1993, pp.60-63). Neither is sensual pleasure, closely associated in these writings with women, spared. In a lengthy allegory in which monks are warriors and shapely women are the enemy, the Buddha compares such pleasure to a chain of bones, a lump of flesh, a grass torch, a pit of glowing embers, a slaughterhouse, spears, swords and a poisonous snake (Anguttara Nikaya 5:76 in Nyanatiloka/Nyanaponika, 1984). Gross (1993), who goes to great lengths to save Buddhism's good name [6], cannot but summarize: "In any major period or form of Buddhism, we can find opinions and texts demonstrating varying levels of negativity to women, from outright misogyny to compassion for beings with such a difficult slot in the samsaric ocean" (p. 115; see also Paul, 1979).

China's other great system of thought, Confucianism, is more of an ideology than a religion. Yet, we must consider its influence on hundreds of millions of followers. The latter are exposed to a philosophy whose tenor, with regard to women, is identical to what is found in both Hindu and Buddhist sources: Women are the source of disorder; they are foolish, lowly and weak; their sole duty is to serve their husband (see Confucius' Analects 8:20, 17:25, 18:4, as well as Reese, 2000, for a list of Confucian inspired sayings, some attributed to Confucius, others neo-Confucian). Chung (1994) has suggested that the contemporary subordination of women in South Korea is directly tied to the traditional patriarchal ideology derived from Confucianism.

The psychology of misogyny

"Are the world's religions inevitably sexist?" asks Gross (1996, Ch. 4), but gives no answer. In our opinion, the answer is a barely qualified yes. There is no inevitability, because religion, in the abstract, could be egalitarian both in doctrine and practice. However, many of those who have invented and/or propagated the major religions, have chosen to employ their immense power for the perpetuation of discrimination, intolerance and bigotry. They did not invent misogyny, only legitimized it first through its inclusion in scriptures, then through a misogynic interpretation of the latter.[7] In the writings of the religions examined, a highly motivated and diligent reader can find some messages of equality and mutual respect. However, for thousands of years these voices have been, and largely still are, silenced at the expense of the blaring voice of discrimination against various groups, amongst them women.

The antecedents of social stratification are complex. Contemporary sociology applies to this field a combination of two seemingly rival theories: functionalism vs. conflict. According to functionalists, preindustrial families' survival depended on a gender-based division of labor; this created servile women and dominant men. Conflict theorists elucidate the persistence of this pattern even when it is dysfunctional: those in power are resistant to surrender their dominant position. Religion, as a major force in society, illustrates both of these trends. It has generously contributed both to the establishment of patriarchalism and to its upholding, long after it ceased to be functional.

While Marxist conflict theories and Parsonsian functionalism provide an overarching sociological explanation for social stratification, misogyny has several psychological determinants as well.

Both Winnicott (1964) and Mahler, Pine & Bergman (1975) apply the tools of psychoanalysis to "the fear of women". Winnicott recognizes in this phenomenon the fear of being lured back into a state of infantile dependence; Mahler & al. write of a fear of re-engulfment. These notions (not unlike the "masculine protest" in Adler; cf. the generalized prejudice concept of the Authoritarian Personality in Adorno et al., 1950) seem to beg the question, for they assume that women have, ab ovo, undesirable characteristics, which men try to escape.

In contrast with the psycho-dynamic approach for explaining outgroup members' rejection, several social psychological models have been proposed for intergroup conflict. These range from Sherif's functional interpretation of artificially induced competition and cooperation between groups (Sherif et al., 1961), through Campbell's (1965) similarly functionally oriented Realistic Group Conflict Theory, to Tajfel's Social Identity Theory (Tajfel & Turner, 1986). The latter proposes that individuals strive for a positive self-concept and obtain it by membership in positively evaluated groups. Such positive evaluation is obtained through favorable social comparison with other groups. This simple desideratum leads to the need to (mis)perceive ingroup and outgroup so as to create the largest possible differential between them. Many well known social processes are corollaries of this process: perception of ingroup similarity and distinctiveness, ingroup favoritism combined with outgroup discrimination and prejudice, escalating ethnocentrism, intergroup bias, pseudospeciation, the ultimate attributional error, scapegoating and more (cf. Moore, 1993). All of these processes assume an external locus of control.

Taking responsibility for one's fate, i.e. having an internal locus of control, runs counter to religious ideation. The existential theologian Bultmann expresses this well when he says, "that it is an illusion to suppose that real security can be gained by men organizing their own personal and community life." (1960, p. 39. For a discussion of religion and locus of control, see Moore & Kramer, 2000). A concomitant of external locus of control is blaming. When one's life, health and general welfare depend on inscrutable and not necessarily benevolent divine forces, it becomes indispensable to externalize the sources of one's inevitable calamities, frustrations and failures. Where a draught (national) and disease (individual) are attributed to sins committed against the divinity, one also needs to blame various groups and individuals for any mishap, both within and outside the family. Clearly visible groups (racial, religious, ethnic minorities, neighboring countries) serve this purpose at the national level. Owing to their availability, vulnerability and distinctiveness, women have always provided a ready target for domestic purposes.

Man-made religions have played an important role in the inculcation of this process. It is not only the Hebrew Bible and Christianity that have placed the blame on Eve for humanity's tragic condition (see Tertullian and Augustine, quoted above).[8] O'Flaherty (1975, pp. 36-37), for instance, writes of the orthodox Hindu view, according to which woman is the root of all evil: "For there is nothing more evil than women; ... The lord Grandfather, learning what was in the hearts of the gods, created women by a magic ritual to delude mankind... those wanton women, lusting for sensual pleasures, began to stir men up. Then the lord of gods, the lord, created anger as the assistant of desire, and all creatures, falling into the power of desire and anger, began to be attached to women" (From the Mahabharata [9]).

In our opinion, religious misogyny is therefore but one manifestation of the extremely widespread war of the sexes. An important aspect of this war is the institutionalized ignorance to which religions have traditionally subjected women. In her analysis of major world religions King (1987) finds that women "were always excluded from formal education once sacred knowledge became transmitted in an institutional manner". Chan (2000) writes of the exclusion of women from receiving Confucian education. We have quoted above the Talmudic injunction against instructing daughters, and the Koranic reluctance to female participation in public prayer. Only recently, we have witnessed the closing of schools to girls by the Taliban regime of Afghanistan.

A related analysis of the war of the sexes, based on Bowen's (1976) version of Heiderian balance theory (see in Moore, 1978), relies on a family therapy oriented approach. We may safely assume that in preindustrial societies women and children, thrown together by anatomy and environmental forces, create a bond, which excludes men. The necessity to leave home for shorter or longer periods in order to assure the family's survival undermines the spousal dyad and strengthens the mother-child dyad, turning men into outsiders; the latter, in their turn, find partners with whom they can build coalitions against women. Dyads are unstable structures, into which a third person is triangulated when tension and disagreement arise. Now a coalition of two against one is formed. The latter, in its turn, may seek support outside the triangle, thus creating interlocking structures. Bowen's example of the need to shift the blame in the father-mother-child triangle is especially helpful for our present purpose: "Patterns vary, but one of the most common is basic tension between the parents, with the father's gaining the outside position--often being called passive, weak, and distant--leaving the conflict between mother and child. The mother--often called aggressive, dominating, and castrating--wins over the child, who moves another step toward chronic functional impairment" (1976, pp. 76-77; see also Satir, Stachowiak & Taschman, 1975).

Children are the most precious assets of every society, they are the key to its future. To counterbalance mothers' influence, and to assure their own dominance over future generations, men form and control various social bodies (military, political, leisure etc.), that either de jure or de facto discriminate against women. Institutionalized religion is perhaps the most powerful among them.

Conclusion

"Devotion to her lord is woman's merit; it is her penance; it is her eternal Heaven" (Anusasana Parva # 146).

Democracy and several social values derived from it are a recent invention. An adherence to basic human rights (the equal treatment of individuals "without distinction of any kind, such as race, color, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status"; see Article 2 of the United Nations' 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights) is such a novel concept that it is barely accepted by many even as an abstract principle, much less so as a rule to live by. Religions are fixated at an earlier stage. Based on received authority, and anti-pluralistic in their fundaments, they cannot allow new thought. Their misogyny is rooted in patriarchalism, the latter being shot through with "Woman as a source of danger, as a repository of externalized evil" (Figes, 1986, p. 45). So long as hundreds of millions of people subscribe to blaming the victims by such statements as the one opening this section, there is little hope for change.
 
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