|
Women
and Hinduism in U.S. Textbooks
by
Dave Freedholm
Published on Wednesday, February 5, 2003 in
SULEKHA EXPRESSIONS
In a recent article on Sulekha, Sankrant Sanu examined 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 [i] 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.
[i]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)
|
