Gender Discrimination in Spirituality?

March 2, 1999

Harsha: You make some excellent points about gender and I will forward this

to the list that I moderate. It seems that spiritual personalities, like

everyone else, are a product of their culture and their times. What

implications does this have for understanding spiritual truths? It is my

view that great Jnanis like Ramana, while respecting the tradition and the

culture in which they were born, did not in anyway make a distinction

between gender when imparting instructions on how to Recognize or Realize

the Self.

<mpw01

hello again. i've been on the no-mail option while finding another, more

convenient e-mail address. i should thank ram chandran for encouraging me

to post again. and thanks to the list members for letting me to rejoin the

discussions after an absence of several months. unfortunately, the absence

has done nothing to alter my disqualification from any authority on these

topics.

i want to say a little on the subject of gender. first, with ramakrishna,

it seems to me that his nondiscrimination is much qualified here:

"discriminate against women studying vedanta or taking sannyas." in these

two things alone? his famous "women and gold" is a very androcentric way to

describe temptations since it assumes the male body as standard. this is a

minor point, and please, i hope i'm not coming across as bellicose.

more generally, the question of whether there are

inherent gender identities is, to me, interesting. i

think a good argument can be made that any assignment

of characteristics according to gender is a

linguistic and not a natural (or biological) one.

for example, does a y chromosome offer a material

basis for the comment that men are "more motivated"?

or, is the y chromosome called into being as a result

of prior, gender polarizing conceptions of men and

women? i more readily say "yes" to the second

question because it emphasizes the constructedness of

materiality, which i think fits nicely with advaitin.

in other words, male, female, chromosome, hormone

(or any biological or cultural word or explanation

for gender) . . . they don't exist until called into

existence by some linguistic system that is

inherently artificial. this renders gender

distinctions artificial since they're at the level of language, a level that

must be transcended.

i'm not qualified to speak specifically on scriptual issues, although i too

am vexed by the presence of gender even in the qualification of words like

"monks" or "sanyasis." how does one recognize "a soul encased in a female

personality"? or, should one say "encased in a female body"? and how is

the distinction between bodies (or personalities) made? the decision to

divide bodies dichotomously according to gender looks, to me, purely

arbitrary.

thanks for your patience and for reading my writing, and i hope this message

is not too simple-minded.

maxwell.

March 2, 1999

"Harsha (Dr. Harsh K. Luthar)" <hluthar

writes:

<<It seems that spiritual personalities, like

everyone else, are a product of their culture and

their times. What implications does this have for

understanding spiritual truths? It is my view that

great Jnanis like Ramana, while respecting the

tradition and the culture in which they were born,

did not in anyway make a distinction between gender

when imparting instructions on how to Recognize or

Realize the Self.>>

hello. i am completely unqualified to offer an

opinion on this subject, but i agree that spiritual

personalities are products of their culture. in the

case of ramakrishna, his direct statements about

women, how they are to be avoided, and what they

represent ("women and gold") don't seem to indicate

that ramakrishna "did not in any way make a

distinction" when imparting instructions. it seems to

show the opposite, that the gender distinction was

unavoidable for him. (it's possible that when

imparting instructions specifically on the self, such

a distinction isn't made, but this is qualifying when

a distinction isn't made so much that i'm not sure

how useful it is to do so.) in the case of ramana

maharshi (and ramakrishna too), teachings on the self

may look gender neutral, but how does one account for

the restricted access to discipleship for women?

ramakrishna and vivekenanda, ramana and pillai. this

may not be as conscious a distinction, but does an

unawareness that a distinction is being made mean

that one isn't being made? to me, there's a

distinction being made in not accounting for its

making. this is why i feel so adamantly that the

gender distinction is primarily linguistic and

arbitrary. it can't be an attribute of an organ or

of genetic or chromosonal composition because these

things exist only by virtue of their being assigned

existence in a prescribed system of language. that

this existence is usually concomitant with an

assignment of polarized sexual identities seems, to

me, also arbitrary, rendering the whole notion of

carnal temptation irrelevant to what i think would be

a jnani's perspective. (a long while ago, i was an

unfortunate witness to a discussion about ramakrishna

and homosexuality. the tenor of the discussion

seemed to accept essential notions of sexuality, as

if such things weren't artificial and as if such

things could contribute to a discussion of what it

means to be a jnani, regardless of one's personal

feelings toward ramakrishna or any particular sadhu.)

please, this isn't an area where i have confidence or

authority to speak, and i regret anything that sounds

insensitive or eroneous. thanks for listening.

maxwell.

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March 2, 1999

Dear Maxwell,

I appreciate your viewpoint on this issue. If the distinction is biological

that is a physical distinction - therefore of the grossest level of

existence. If the distinction is sociological, psychological or linguistic

these are all manifestations of the 'mind' - yoga and meditation are to be

used to overcome any limitations of the mind. These

limitations/sheaths/perceptions are what keep us from knowing ourselves to

be souls/one with God.

There have been many studies that do show biological differences between the

'personalities' of men and women. I think that over time we have built up

many sociological and psychological patterns. If we are truly non-dualistic

in our approach than we know that there is no difference in the essence of

self. For myself, I would not be able to work within the boundaries of any

teacher or master who believes that being female excludes one from spiritual

realization. Given the excuse or otherwise of social conditioning I wonder

if such teachers can truly be 'fully enlightened'? However, we must also

keep in mind that it is taught that in the end we must drop the need and

desire for any teacher, guru and even god in order to become liberated.

Namaste,