Is Religion Patriarchal? Exploring Its Impact on Women's Lives
Vedānta is about the person gaining liberation from both of these—body identification and mental conditioning. So, ideally spirituality should be the woman’s best friend. But practically, evidence has been rather mixed; in fact, evidence has been that religion historically has been on the side of the oppressors when it comes to the women, oppressors of the women. The reason is that religion itself has not been well understood. Religion itself has been a victim of contamination, and when religion is contaminated then religion becomes a tool towards exploitation of women.
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Questioner: Sir, as a woman, how should I perceive religion? Religion and culture are supposed to help, but I have practically seen that religion is associated with patriarchy and misogyny. Please tell me, as women how should I look at religion?
Acharya Prashant: See, the relationship between women and religion has been pretty interesting and mostly tragic. On one hand, religion, rather core spirituality is the woman’s best friend; because it helps her be liberated from all that which oppresses her, and it tells her that no price is too big to be paid for liberation.
The best help that self-knowledge and Vedānta extend to women is that they tell her that being women is not her primary identity, that body identification is the root cause of all kinds of suffering. And that if you can take your physical self and your mental conditioning lightly, then it will be very difficult for Prakṛti and society, even if it’s a very toxic and patriarchal society, to enslave you. The women can be enslaved only as long as she is body identified and socially conditioned.
