Women and Hinduism in U.S. Textbooks

[Guest guest]

Here is an interesting piece from "Sulekha," a large online magazine

about Indian culture. It is about the poor light in which Hinduism is

portrayed in U.S. textbooks, re: the place of women, compared to the

much more apologisist tone taken in the case of Islam and

Christianity. The article contains some interesting thoughts

pertinent to the relationship between Hindu veneration for the

Goddess and respect for human women, which has been a recent topic of

conversation in this forum. The article is dated Feb. 5, 2003, and is

written by Dave Freedholm, an instructor in the Dept. of Religion and

Philosophy, Princeton Day School, Princeton, NJ, USA:

 

WOMEN AND HINDUISM IN U.S. TEXTBOOKS

 

In a recent article on Sulekha, Sankrant Sanu examined [the

electronic encyclodeia] Microsoft Encarta's treatment of Hinduism,

Islam and Christianity. He concluded that Encarta's portrayal of

Hinduism was decidedly skewed and negative in comparison to the more

even-handed and sophisticated treatments granted Islam and

Christianity.

 

Sanu's article prompted me to look closer at the world religions

textbook I have often used in my teaching. This textbook, Mary Pat

Fisher's Living Religions (5th ed., Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice

Hall, 2002), is published by one of the largest textbook publishers

in the U.S. and is an often-used text in American colleges,

universities and prep schools.

 

In my view, Fisher's book is, on the whole, a very good textbook and,

in comparison to others, presents relatively balanced and sympathetic

portrayals of the world's religions. But, that being said, I have

always contended that Hinduism and, in comparison to the other major

world religions, does not receive equal treatment in Fisher's book

and is at times painted in decidedly negative ways. What follows is a

brief case study comparing how Fisher treats women's issues in

Hinduism, Christianity and Islam.

 

Fisher gives relatively short attention to women's issues in Hinduism

despite her claim in the introduction to the 5th edition

that "coverage of women's contributions and women's issues has been

increased."(p. 13) Fisher's treatment of women's issues in Hinduism

comes in the context of a longer section on devotion to various forms

of the devi. Her transition sentence is quite telling and reveals the

overall tone of her coverage of women's issues in Hinduism:

 

"Worship of the goddess in India and Nepal continues to exist side by

side with social attempts to limit and confine women's power." (p.

105)

 

Fisher goes on to accent the historical and

contemporary "ambivalence" in Hinduism towards women which is

revealed in the contrast between the veneration of the feminine in

Hindu thought and practice and the pronounced patriarchalism of Hindu

society.

 

In the three short paragraphs that follow this opening, Fisher

stresses what she sees as the negative treatment of women in Hindu

society. She notes that while the ideal of Hindu marriage is for

husband and wife to be spiritual partners,

 

"A women's role is usually linked to that of her husband, who takes

the position of her god and guru. For many centuries, there was even

the hope that a widow would choose to be cremated alive with her dead

husband in order to remain united with him after death." (p. 105)

 

This is a rather astonishing shift of gears which leaves the

impression that sati was somehow the ideal historically in Hinduism.

There is no explanation or qualification of this claim. The

uninformed reader, most of whom are young American students, would

assume that sati, the burning of widows on their husbands' pyres, was

and maybe even is the normal expectation for Hindu wives.

 

What Fisher does not say is that sati was never widely practiced in

India and in the modern period is very, very rare. Also, as Madhu

Kishwar (editor of Manushi, one of India's foremost feminist

journals) writes of the practice of widow burning "There is

absolutely no evidence that any of our vast array of religious texts

sanctified such murders as sati."[ii] As well, Fisher fails to note

that sati is universally abhorred by Hindu leaders, thinkers and

practitioners. Placing such an unexplained and unqualified statement

in this context is very misleading and unfair. As Yvette Rosser has

said:

 

"Defining Hindu practices through a discussion of sati is no more

accurate than defining Christianity by delving at length into

the 'Burning Times' in Medieval Europe when as many as nine million

women, and even children, were burned at the stake as witches through

the encouragement and official approval of the Christian Church. The

burning of women does not define Christianity any more than the

burning of widows defines Hinduism – both are long discarded

practices of the past." [iii]

 

In fact, given that the objective in the American classroom should be

to help students gain an appreciation of a minority religion's

central ideas, the topic of sati is as irrelevant and unsuitable as

witch burning would be for a discussion of Christianity.

If this isn't disconcerting enough, Fisher concludes her brief

treatment of women's issues by again contrasting the ideal view of

women in Hindu society with the very bad treatment that women

actually receive. She says:

 

"By the nineteenth century, however, wives had become the virtual

slaves of the husband's family. With expectations that the girl will

take a large dowry to the boy's family in a marriage arrangement,

having girls is such an economic burden that many female babies are

intentionally aborted or killed at birth. There are also cases today

of women being severely beaten or killed by the husband's family

after their dowry has been handed over. Nevertheless many women in

contemporary India have been well educated and many have attained

high political positions."

 

Again, Fisher does not indicate in what manner horrible practices

such as infanticide and dowry murder are linked to Hindu thought and

practice (because, of course, they are not). She simply implies that

they must be linked, because there are such societal problems in

India they must somehow be related to Hinduism. This would be akin to

claiming that because there is considerable violence against women in

American society it is due to Christianity!

 

All in all, the above paragraph is a rather remarkable string of

sentences which seems to claim that some women in India have

succeeded despite the widely prevalent "slave" status of wives,

infanticide of female babies, and dowry violence and murder. The

uninformed reader would assume from Fisher's four paragraphs on

women's issues that, due to Hinduism, women are very seriously

mistreated in Hindu society and have very unequal status. Before

commenting further on this, it will be helpful to look at how Fisher

deals with women's issues in her chapters on Christianity and Islam.

 

In contrast to Hinduism, Fisher's treatment of women's issues in

Christianity concentrates not on the historical role of women in

Christian societies nor on the current attitudes towards women in

contemporary Christian societies but on Christian feminist theology.

In so doing, Fisher completely separates societal treatment of and

attitudes toward women from Christian institutions and theology. This

is a move that Fisher refused to make with Hinduism. Given that

Christian societies have not been any less patriarchal than Hindu

societies, either historically or in many current contexts, one

wonders why Christianity is exempted from the same responsibility.

Would it be any less true, for example, to declare of Christianity

that "Devotion to Mary in Christian societies continues to exist side

by side with social attempts to limit and confine women's power"? As

well, why doesn't Fisher note that domestic violence against women

and murder of wives and girlfriends is a widespread (and, by the way,

is statistically far more frequent than in Indian society) in

Christian societies?

 

Well, one of the reasons seems to be that Fisher contends that

patriarchy and the mistreatment of women is not consistent with the

ideals of Christianity. In fact, she goes to great lengths to make

this clear this in her section on women's issues, explaining that,

 

"The Church institution has historically been dominated by men,

although there is strong evidence that Jesus had active women

disciples and that there were women leaders in the early churches."

(p. 354)

 

Also, acknowledging that one can find statements in Christian

scripture that "seem oppressive to women" (p. 354), Fisher explains

that Christian feminist theologians have tried to "sort out the

cultural and historical as well as the theological contexts of such

statements" (p. 355) and have looked to stress the positive "role

models for women in the Bible." (p. 355) Fisher also recognizes that

while church dogmas about Mary "may be inflated, they nonetheless

reveal a wellspring of hope for women." (p. 355)

 

What is interesting here is that, in contrast to her portrayal of

Hinduism, Fisher has tried to paint Christianity in the best possible

light with regard to women's issues. In her Hinduism chapter, Fisher

went to great lengths to emphasize the large inconsistency between

Hindu veneration of the Devi and the supposed widespread mistreatment

of women in Hindu society. However, the same inconsistency between

the actual treatment of women in Christian societies and the

egalitarian ideals of Christianity is ignored.

 

In fact, in the case of Christianity, Fisher goes to great pains to

highlight feminist reinterpretations of Christian history and

theology so as to show the true egalitarian ideal of Christianity! Of

course, the efforts of Hindu feminists like Madhu Kishwar to

interpret Hindu history and thought in egalitarian ways are not

mentioned in Fisher's textbook. The reader of "Living Religions" is

then left with a very stark contrast between the violent patriarchy

of Hinduism and the feminist egalitarianism of Christianity.

 

Moving to Fisher's chapter on Islam, the reader is given a highly

nuanced look at women's issues. Coming in her section on Muslim

resurgence in the modern world, Fisher speaks somewhat candidly about

the severe restrictions placed upon women in many Islamic societies.

She informs the reader about the very serious mistreatment of women

by the Taliban in Afghanistan and in other strict Islamic societies.

Tellingly, Fisher attempts to show that such treatment of women is

really against the ideals of Islam itself. She says,

 

"Some customs thought to Muslim are actually cultural practices not

specified in the basic sources; they are the result of Islamic

civilization's assimilation of many cultures in many places. Muhammad

worked side-by-side with women, and the Qur'an encourages equal

participation of women in religion and in society." (p. 403)

 

Also, as with Christianity, Fisher plays up the work of contemporary

Muslim feminists who see Islam as inherently egalitarian. She

includes a long quote from Qur'anic scholar Amina Wadud, who says:

 

"The more research I did into the Qur'an . . . the more affirmed I

was that in Islam a female person was intended to be primordially,

cosmologically, spiritually, and morally a full human being, equal to

all." (p. 403)

 

What this reveals is that again Fisher has gone to considerable

effort to separate the actual treatment of women in society, in this

case Islamic society, from the ideals of the religion in question as

interpreted by contemporary feminist scholars. In so doing, a

distinction is drawn between "cultural practices," i.e. the very real

oppression and mistreatment of women in many Islamic societies, and

Islamic ideals of equality and egalitarianism.

 

What this brief comparison reveals is that Hinduism is not afforded

the same balanced and nuanced treatment with regard to women's issues

given to Christianity and Islam in Fisher's textbook. Hinduism and

Indian society are portrayed as schizophrenic in that they venerate

the devi and idealize women on the one hand and on the other treat

wives as "slaves," encourage sati, kill infant girls and condone

dowry murder.

 

In contrast, the oppression and mistreatment of women in Christian

and Islamic societies are either ignored or seen as against the true

ideals of Christianity and Islam. Feminist scholarship and theology

are given wide play in the chapters on Christianity and Islam, but

Fisher is silent about feminism in Hindu thought. All of this leaves

a very negative impression of Hinduism vis a vis the other religions.

It also can, unintentionally perhaps, further stereotypes of what is

seen as a backward and violent Hinduism in contrast to a more

progressive and liberated West.

 

A number of important observations deserved to be made at this point.

First, I am not trying to deny that women have been oppressed at

times in Hindu society. Of course, they have been oppressed and have

been the objects of violence from males, just as women have received

similar treatment in Christian and Islamic societies (and in other

societies as well). But what is the relationship between theology and

religious practice and societal oppression of women?

 

It is clear that religion and theology can be and is often used to

sustain and reinforce patriarchal attitudes in societies, whether

they be Hindu, Christian or Muslim. It is also clear that religion

and theology can and have been used in ways to challenge, break down

and replace patriarchal attitudes in these same societies. Which role

is to be emphasized in a general introduction to a religion? It is

apparent that in the case of Fisher's textbook, the former role is

emphasized with Hinduism while the latter is played up in the cases

of Christianity and Islam. This raises the question of fairness and

balance in portrayals.

 

Secondly, what this short case study shows is that care needs to be

taken when making editorial decisions in a textbook intended for

beginning students. In this case, very little space is allotted to

women's issues within Hinduism. Is it fair to leave American students

with the impression that sati and dowry murder are the most

characteristic and important ways women are treated in Hindu society?

 

How would Christians feel if Indian textbooks spoke only of domestic

violence against women in their treatment of Christianity and women's

issues? Why isn't contemporary feminist thought in Hinduism given

equal time? Why aren't Hindu ideals and the attitudes of the vast

majority of Hindus which abhor sati and dowry murder talked about?

Why does the author not discuss the Hindu women saints in history,

the enlightened and outspoken Hindu women in the Mahabharata, the

impressive statistics of the advancement of women in India in the

past fifty years in a variety of fields that compares favorably to

similar statistics in other former colonies, and, in many respects,

with the West? Why does she not discuss the fact that in the state of

Maharashtra, a large number of women priests have assumed leadership

of Hindu worship?

 

In conclusion, this short study focused only on the way women's

issues are portrayed in Mary Fisher's "Living Religions." My

experience in using and reading other textbooks on world religions

reveals that the unfair and unbalanced way that Fisher portrays

Hinduism in this case is quite typical unfortunately. Also, I would

contend that this unfair and inaccurate treatment of Hinduism extends

to other areas as well including portrayals of the caste system,

descriptions of the meaning of some religious symbols (e.g. the

lingam), and characterizations of modern Hindu movements. I would

hope that textbook authors and publishers would seek to remedy the

imbalance in portrayals through a process of revisions or by

publishing new textbooks.

 

http://www.sulekha.com/column.asp?cid=245733

 

[ii] Madhu Kishwar, "Deadly Laws and Zealous Reformers: The

Conflicting Interpretations and Politics of Sati,"

http://www.infinityfoundation.com/ECITdeadlylawsframeset.htm

 

[iii]Yvette C. Rosser, "The Clandestine Curriculum in the Classroom,"

Education About Asia, Vol. 6:3 (Winter 2001)

 

Source: http://www.sulekha.com/column.asp?cid=291759

Courtesy of Hindu Press International