The Segregation Of Women And The Myth Of Equality

By Arjuna Seneviratne -July 23, 2013 |

Arjuna Seneviratne

I like the idea of the Hindu deity Ardhanarishvara.

Ardhanarishvara represents the synthesis of the masculine and feminine energies of the universe and depicts illustratively, the idea that Shakti, the female principle of God, is inseparable from Shiva, the male principle of God. The union of these principles is exalted as the root of all creation. I particularly like the fact that the vehicle or mover of the feminine part is the lion and that of the masculine part is the bull. While I can have a huge chuckle explaining the rationale behind this juxtaposition, for the purposes of this particular post, it is less relevant and therefore I shall desist. *heh*The keyword here is “inseparable”. As I mentioned in the previous post, attempting to understand systems that exist dependent on the right juxtaposition of a very large number or even an infinite number of parameters by breaking things down has only one practical outcome – it breaks them. Separating complex organisms merely separates them. No more and no less. While this is true with quite a few forms of human segregation, for this particular post, I will only concentrate on the segregation of “nari” (female) from “purusha” (male).

The ideas behind the buzzwords of the gender debate such as identity, traits, roles, relations, etc. have, to a large extent been based on segregating and separating females and males anatomically and these days people are creating new and improved versions of the very stereotypes that such differentiation is supposed to eradicate such as discrimination, rights, equality, mainstreaming etc.                   Read More