I've been re-reading some Gandhi quotes from a beautiful book I picked up many moons ago in Mumbai, and two in particular caught my eye, both on gender equality and women's rights. They got me thinking - Here they are with a bit of my own analysis and thoughts (Both quotes are directly reproduced but italics are my own in order to highlight particular points):
"I am uncompromising in the matter of women's rights. In my opinion she should labour under no legal disability not suffered by men. I should treat the daughters and sons on a footing of perfect equality.
Equality of sexes does not mean equality of occupations. There may be no legal bar against a woman hunting or wielding a lance. But she instinctively recoils from a function that belongs to man. Nature has created sexes as complements of each other. Their functions are defined as are their forms." - M.K Gandhi
In this, Gandhi clearly separates out the 'roles' of men and women and seems to say that it is correct that they should differ due to physical differences between the bodies of males and females, going so far as to say that women 'recoil' from a male 'roles'. He puts this down to instinct. Given that functions and occupations are so caught up in who we are as people, I wonder how gendered roles can co-exist with equality and the upholding of women's rights ....I maintain that they cannot.
Here's the second:
"Of all the evils for which man has made himself responsible, none is so degrading, so shocking or so brutal as his abuse of the better half of humanity to me, the female sex, not the weaker sex. It is the nobler of the two, for it is even today the embodiment of sacrifice, silent suffering, humility, faith and knowledge.
Women must cease to consider herself the object of man's lust. The remedy is more in her hands than man's. She must refuse to adorn herself for men, including her husband, if she will be an equal partner with man." - M.K Gandhi
I feel the second quote is particularly at odds with his 'uncompromising' stance on women's rights. He writes that to stop themselves from experiencing abuse at the hands of men, it is the women that must change so that they are no longer attractive to men. It's the word consider that immediately jumped out to me as it sounds like what he is saying that because women see themselves as beautiful, sexy, etc, or go to lengths to make themselves so, then men are more likely to violate them, thus removing any male ownership on such matters.
Sounds like the age old argument to me...and it seems that not much has changed. Still, we seem to be stuck in a society where the general public thinks that women wearing tight/short skirts/low cut tops are to blame for being raped or attracting unwanted attention (take a look at everyday sexism). Many of the old misconceptions still stand - read this article from the Daily Mail.
Only will real equality exist when everyone, whatever your sex, takes responsibility for their actions and for eliminating all of this folklore - gendered roles, blame culture... Maybe then we can all say we are uncompromising on women's rights. Until then, we live in hope - I certainly do. At the end of the day, it's in all of our favour.
