Women in society and religion
In the context of the raging controversy
over the ordination of women to the
priest‐hood in the Catholic Church, it
may be germane to understand their
position in society as a whole. It is a
travesty of natural justice to ignore their
role in the scheme of things. . How long
the Church will ignore and deny the
inborn rights of one half of the human
race and push this most vital segment of
humanity as providers of sexual
gratification for the males of the species
with an assigned role of producing
innumerable children to people the
Church and confining them to grinding
and cooking and moping and a cursed
destiny to live on the margins.
The human female of today has reached
her biological status after undergoing
dramatic changes during the course of her
evolution – far more than the human
male. In the shape of modern women, she
has become a unique being of an
extraordinary kind. Every woman has a
beautiful body – beautiful because it is
the brilliant end‐point of millions of years
of evolution. The female body is loaded
with amazing adjustments and subtle
refinements that make it the most
remarkable organism on the planet.
The trend towards male domination is
simply not in keeping with the way in
which Homo Sapiens has developed over
a period of millions of years. Our success
as a species was due to a division of
labor between males and females, in
which the males became specialized as
hunters, that in modern times means
hunting for jobs and engaging in other
economic pursuits for making a living. In
old tribal societies, the males away
hunting, the females were left at the very
centre of social life, gathering the food
and preparing it, rearing the young and
generally organising the tribal settlement.
As men became better at focussing on the
task devolved on them, women became
better at dealing with several problems at
once. There was never any question of
one sex being dominant over the other.
They relied totally on one another for
survival. There was a primeval balance
between the human sexes – they were
different but equal.
The ideal social balance was lost when
human population grew, towns and cities
were built, and tribes became citizens of
settled societies.The role of the male in
the reproductive process was not known
In ancient times. The males realized that
they too have to contribute in producing
babies in that during their long absence
for engaging in fighting in distant lands,
no birth did take place in their tribe.. This
realisation along with better physical
strength enabled the male to assert
himself over the female and gain
dominance over her.
Religion, at the centre of most
human societies has had a major part
to play in this skewed social order.
In ancient times the great deities were
always the Earth and She ( not He) .
Only the earth and the woman generate
crops and children; they were worshiped
as Creators. As urbanisation spread and
social turmoil and incessant internal and
external fights for dominance in the
polity became order of the day, the
benign Mother Goddess gave way to the
authoritarian God the Father. With a
vengeful male god at the helm. The
ruthless holy men through ages have
ensured their own affluent security and
their higher social status In the society in
general at the expense of women who
sank to a low social status far from their
evolutionary birthright.
A normal healthy male cannot resist the
attractiveness of the female body. That
may be the reason why the so called
celibates try to keep the females away
from the alter . The Adam will become
supine and weak at the sight of the Eve,
Serpent or no Serpent present.
How long half of the humanity be denied
of their legitimate and inalienable birth
right? How long women be demeaned
and suppressed with layers and layers of
thick cloth to hide their alluring
curvaceous body, with their beautiful hair
shaven off replaced with wigs instead (In
orthodox Jewish society) ? How long they
can be made to wear the purdah hiding
their natural charm? How long the
charade of male celibacy will prevail?
Women have equal, if not more, right in
every sphere of life as men. It is time to
remove the blinkers.