Lesson learned. Or Lesson taught.

Yesterday was a different day for me. Just moving around the Tim-Berners-Lee invention couple of weeks ago, I came across much forgotten website called karmayog. Over there I saw a session which was to be conducted in Pune on Saturday, 28^th regarding ‘Involving men in Gender Equality’. I was free of work as it was Saturday. I planned to have a visit.

The session was undoubtedly great. I got to know enormous about the framework of ‘Gender Equality’. I realized why it was really necessary to include men when it comes to Gender Equality. I encountered variety of statistic, which was still unknown to me. The dignitaries and the speakers were master of their fields. I loved to hear them speak about their work, experiences, the challenges, and their accomplishments. It sound pretty curvy(J) when you here such thing. At the end, there was a panel discussion and then a QA session.

Now for people whom have been to my blog or at least know about me do know my religious view (for the kids in school for first day, see the blog name on the address bar above…. Yes, I am an atheist.). The moment the session started, I was very curious about one word – religion. I was very keenly listening to every word the speaker, the audiences and the host said. None mentioned religion (although some did mentioned ‘caste’, but it was not close enough). I mean, everybody was looking at all the reason why the cruel relationship of inequality exist between and in the society, but what I felt  is everyone was hitting the symptom’s rather than cause. I noted the speakers saying the family system, the education system, the media, etc. are all influencing the evil of gender inequality. Where is the religion? Doesn’t it play an important role when it comes to gender discrimination? People don’t point fingers on things they love.

For me the main cause of specific gender inequality is the structure of our religious book and the way it is written (purely two-faced). We can undoubtedly say that they we are superior to women when we have little or just little knowledge of mythology and religion. They may very well say that they respect woman, but then they consider them as something lower. This behavior pattern is the very same we keep towards nature. We know she is superior, elegant, smart and worth respecting, but at the end of the day, we selfish human are screwing her up day by day. So what religion says is that women are great, they are vital for existence of life, but they are not up to man. Man is superior. He can hunt, he can kill, he can burn himself in sun, but bring bread to home. He can fight with the army to save his family, he can build the house, break it, and build a new one.

When you see religion, I see women in long big black cloth sweltering in sun walking down the road. I can only see their eyes (although sometimes every that is blurred). I see them walking like a prisoner, who have now taken a choice of living that way. Generation after generation, if you do the same thing again and again, it gets into your DNA, and then it becomes a part of individual. I can see a Hindu women taking cover on her face (less brutal than earlier, yet brutal) when she is out of house or in front of some so-called respectful elder. Women are not allowed to speak about family matter not because they choose not to speak, but it’s in the religion, that women should not do anything. She should cook and clean and serve. Women can deceive men (stated by Ambrose (339-97): "Adam was deceived by Eve, not Eve by Adam... it is right that he whom that woman induced to sin should assume the role of guide lest he fall again through feminine instability." ). Women has to maintain her credibility either physically, mentality or spaciously. She has to be pure (funny word) when it come to her virginity, although the guy can touch and sleep and do whatever he want for his lifetime, but girl should be pure(funnier this time). I can go on with examples. Many examples.

I can’t stop writing when I start writing. God doesn’t want you to treat men and women equally. He has not put this in your plate. If you do it, you disobey his commands.

My only argument is when we talk about bringing gender equality and all other equality in our life, we cannot accomplish this goal when we have a blood running in our body which is undoubtedly  deeply religious.

How could you say that men and women are equal when I still hear about Sita sacrifice, when I still see crawling women in Burkas, when I still say the God is my Father…...