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Women's Liberation Struggle

by Ac. Krtashivananda Avt.

The freedom of women from unjust social laws of religious institutions, capitalistmanipulation and a patriarchal social order is a fundamental factor in thehumanisation of the society. The domination of women by men started about threeto four thousand years ago during the ascendancy of the priest era. In the capitalistera it reached its culminating point.According to followers of Marx, it happened when the surplus in agriculture permittedthe hiring and exploitation of labour. They believe that this domination of the maleover the female was based on men's economic power and the military machine theybuilt. Marx followers, however, have failed to notice the socio-psychologicalphenomena of this domination. In reality it was the religious institutions that initiatedthe subjugation and subordination of women.Patriarchal character can be exemplified by the declaration in the Jewish, Catholicand Islamic religions the supremacy "of a father God in heaven, king or priest insociety and father in the family." According to their scriptures, women cannot beordained as priests. Furthermore, in Islamic religion, multiple marriage by a male isaccepted as a bon-fide right even today in many countries. In India in the eighthcentury, Shank'aracharya and his Brahmin followers subsequently sealed the fate of women. Only in the 20th century have those oppressive systems and laws been tosome extent abolished. The psychological attitude of that era has yet to completelydisappear.In Western society, feminism was born in the background of the Renaissance. Whenin society oppressed feeling tries to express itself to release its suffering, it finds itvitality with an uncontrolled momentum. A revolution in the inner sphere of societytakes place. Naturally it has its childhood, adolescence and maturity. In the earlyphase it started with the symbolic protest to break the institutions, to denyeverything that was imposed by man, and in their fantasy women created a world of their own - isolated and without direction. They emphasised a 'masculine model of feminine.' In this form, feminism was more criticized than it was welcomed. Today'sfeminists brand that phase as 'early feminism.' In the next phase was an effort todesign a complementary feminine form. The idea was that if women could fulfill thecomplementary role of man, then she would regain her lost dignity. But this conceptwas also ultimately discarded. Then came the third form, termed as 'true feminism.'It means our feminine world is different because our aspirations, emotions andfeelings are different. They realised that feminine virtues can be developed and cometo dominate, or as yet unknown virtues can emerge. But it was realized that thegenuinely feminine is either unknowable or as yet unknown, and to be brought intoexistence.Eco-feminists demarcated the world into two spheres - the rational or masculinesphere and the sphere of nature or femininity. They realised that not only are womensubjugated by men but the masculine sphere has a dominant role over the femininesphere. That is why the struggle for liberation should be directed towards thedomination of the entire feminine sphere - environment, the underprivileged classesand weaker sections of the society. In other words, women must challenge theinstitutions of power that dominate them.

View imageEco-feminists reject the masculine model, especially in relation to nature, and arguemore directly that this masculinising attitude leads women to join men in belongingto a privileged class, in turn defined by excluding the underprivileged class, silentnature. That is, the strategy to include women into a new dominating class, withoutcaring about the structure or the attitude of domination.Earlier feminists used to react to the label of being 'close to nature.' The eco-feminists not only accepted it proudly but went further and declared that not only arewe 'close to nature' - we are nature. They declared that the primary of female (i.e.,feminine character traits, not necessarily biological femaleness) would beacknowledged as primary, the source of all life force. But they could not define theconcept and tried to define it as Genuinely Feminine. Val Plumwood, in her bookWomen, Humanity and Nature, said:"The project of the discovery and emergence of the genuinely feminine isconceptualized not as something whose character has been formed by the exclusionof the masculine sphere, but as an independent force, silenced and unable to reachexpression under patriarchy, but ready to and able to emerge once the barriers of phallocentric society to its expression are removed. Women's bodily experience istaken as the starting point in the attempt to give expression to the silenced andunknown feminine."To define it more they adopted the idea of Reverse Dualism and gradually emergedthe ideas of rationality-emotionality, or associated dualism. In simple words it wasstated that "what is needed is an account of the human ideal for both sexes whichaccepts the undesirability of the domination of nature associated with masculinity."They termed it as 'Androgyny.' This is a being in which both the male and femalecharacteristics exist. But so far no clear concept was provided on how to reach thisstate.It is not enough to challenge nature/culture dualism, and the dominant masculinemodel of human culture. As log as self is separated from the natural world, as inliberalism, and as long as the dialectical contradiction remains, any model, howeverlofty, is difficult to realise. Ultimately, we have to find the answer in spirituality. Wehave to realise that differences remain in the physical and psychic spheres but not inthe sphere of the soul. The deepest of human feelings must find its inspiration fromthe soul and not from biological urges or from the intellectual or emotional domain.Human beings have yet to search for their inner light. As Virginia Woolf once wrote:"Life is not a series of gig lamps symmetrically arranged, but a luminous halo."As mentioned earlier, women's struggle for liberation found momentum during theRenaissance in the West. Three trends influenced it. First was the idea of liberalism,which took the form of individualism. The second trend was the Freudian school of thought which revolted against Victorian morality and embraced the idea of sexualrevolution. Finally in the sixties, the youth revolted against all forms of authority, i.e.,religious injunctions, the state, teachers and guardians. This destabilised theharmonious relationship in many families and ultimately created social antagonism.However, with the emergence of eco-feminism, this transformed into a more positivedirection.

Now let us look towards the Eastern world. In India women's exploitation waswrapped up in religious injunction. Patriarchal society, taking advantage of theemotional weakness of women , derived many unjust laws and slogans to rob womenof all their freedoms in the economic, social and religious spheres. It was the greatBengali writer Rammohan Roy in the 19th century and after him many other writersand social reformers, including Ravindranath Tagore through the Brahma Samajmovement, who exposed the exploitative nature of Hindu priesthood. After gainingfreedom from the British, widespread education brought serious change int he valuesand psyche all over India. Ultimately women struggled to restore their rights toeducation as well as in the economic and social spheres.For centuries patriarchal society had imprisoned women inside four walls. Today theyare coming out and breaking those walls gradually without much fanfare and withouta movement similar to trade unions. That is why they did not create any antagonisticclass like that of early feminism in the West. The priest class simply lost theirdomination with the awakening of social consciousness in women.The Shariah law did not do justice to Muslim women. Talibanisation was its extremeform. Many moderate Muslims claim that this extreme fundamentalist oppression is adistortion of the real essence of Islamic religion. Whatever is written in the Koran,Shariah and Hadith becomes merely a theoretical proposition if in practice womenare pushed into a corner and forced to obey the dictum of all powerful mullahs.Except for some isolated efforts by Kamal Pasha in Turkey, Nasser in Egypt, Sukarnoin Indonesia and Ayub Khan in Pakistan, no serious effort was made to reformIslamic religion by synthesising it with science, technology, art, literature and socio-economic ideas that have evolved over the last 400 years. Edward Giban's Declineand Fall of the Roman Empire strongly exposed the blind prejudices of Islamicsociety.Toda women in many Islamic countries are revolting against the unjust laws andforcing their governments to make changes to Shariah law. In Islamic society thestruggle for women's liberation has been a long and painful chapter. The Moroccansocial scientists Fatima Marnisi narrated this struggle in her books: The Veil and theMale Elite, A Feminist Interpretation of Women's Rights in Islam, and Islam andDemocracy and Beyond the Veil. After World War II women began sneaking into theuniversities of Middle Eastern countries. According to Marnisi, "Only the universityand education provided a legitimate way out of mediocrity." In Tunisia and Egypt, alarge number of women struggled to enter the university. In Egypt the rise of fundamentalism and the feminist movement happened simultaneously. How didfeminism become so strong in that oppressive environment? Those great womendeclared: "Opposition taught us to practise the politics of the 'tireless pen.' ... that is,the more the police ban, the more must be written." That means, if one of theirwritings was banned, seven more should be written within 24 hours. Even facingmass imprisonment and torture, the women declared, "The mosque and the Koranbelong to women as much as to heavenly bodies. We have a right to all that, to all itsriches for constructing our modern identity."It is true that those struggles are within the framework of religious identity, but itstill is a remarkable step and is paving the way for newer and greater struggles foremancipation. The unjust, tyrannical power structure built up by these orthodox,oppressive and chauvinistic priests has begun to crumble.In the 20th century, humanistic ideals appeared to counter many dogmas. Today it