Women Rights: Baha'i Perspective On Gender Divide

By BANI DUGAL

Baha'i Perspective On Gender Divide

Every day, we are faced with choice. Should I eat that tempting piece of sweet or abstain? Should I buy a new sports car or save for my retirement? Should I send my daughter to school or follow the family tradition of confining her to the home?

Governments and societies, however, have to choose between more complicated alternatives. Do we spend more on the army or agriculture (the "guns or butter" dilemma)? In developing societies, where resources are scarce, the choices are even more difficult. But the essential question remains: What kind of investment will create a better future for all?

Philosophers since ages have talked of the importance of taking decisions based on "enlightened self-interest". This principle would also apply to the question of girls' education. The "State of the World's Children 2004" UNICEF report says that educated girls are more likely to send their own children to school. Their families are healthier and less likely to be poor. They are more aware, and hence less likely to be exploited at work or face sexual abuse or violence.

The Baha'i international community has long recognised the importance of educating girls because as future mothers, they would be better equipped to encourage Generation X - of either gender - to go to school. Nearly 90 years ago, Abdu'l-Baha said: "The education of women is of greater importance than the education of men, for they are the mothers of the race, and mothers play an important role in rearing children. So, they must be capably trained in order to educate both sons and daughters".

Nearly 121 million children around the world receive little or no schooling, and the majority of these children are girls. Why is the gender divide so deep? What is holding us back from pursuing a policy of enlightened self-interest? The key issue is the failure of societies to allocate enough resources to education in general. As a result, when choices are made, girls are too often left out.

The underlying discrimination against women and girls in many societies has been well documented. In India, one only needs look at the practice of foetal selection to understand the depth and persistence of discrimination against women. But almost every society faces gender inequality, at some level. The solution, then, is to address those social and cultural issues that have, traditionally and historically, led the majority to value men and their contributions to society over women.

In some societies, families see boys as future farm workers (and/or parental caretakers) - and so they value them more than girls. But in reality, in a globalised, information-based society, it is brain, not brawn, that more reliably ensures a family's long-term prosperity. On a societal level, too, boys are often viewed as future leaders - and therefore more deserving of education. Good leadership is gender-neutral. Studies show that good leaders are to be found both among men and women - even when boys do become leaders, they do better if their mothers were better educated.

The idea of enlightened self-interest stems from what is essentially a spiritual faculty, that power of vision that enables the human mind to see the future and imagine things in a different way - and then to act so as to bring about that transformation. Spiritual guidance can help us delve deep into the roots of the gender divide and clear ourselves of all those misleading ideas about women's inequality. Only then can we collectively learn to see beyond those prejudices and traditions that have led us to short-change girls in education.