Oriental Feminism Differs from Western Feminism in Some Aspects
By S.
Arshad, New Age Islam
20August
2022
Religious
Values Separate The Two
Main
Points:
1. Feminism
originated as a theory in the West in the 18th century.
2. Mary
Wollstonecraft's book set the ball rolling for Feminism.
3. Virginia
Woolf's book A Room of One's Own promoted the movement.
4. Buddhist
nuns had written mystic songs in 5th century B.C.
5. After
Buddhism, Islam promoted Feminism.
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Lots of women are fighting the system from within. Shutterstock
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Feminism
has become a popular theory in the modern times. It has wielded great influence
on the society, politics, literature, language and fine arts. The gender bias,
inequality, exploitation and injustice was perpetrated against women and
one-sided moral values were imposed on them for centuries.
The movement for the rights of women was
launched against this biased treatment of women and gradually this movement
took the shape of a theory and was termed Feminism. Different feminists tried
to form an appropriate definition of feminism. According to the Gender Encyclopaedia
of Sociology, Feminism is "a movement that strives to establish social,
political and economic equality between men and women and remove the flaws in
the relationship between men and women."
In 1792,
Mary Wollstonecraft, a British writer authored a book titled A Vindication of
the Rights of Women in response to the book A Vindication of the Rights of Men.
Wollstonecraft's book kick-started the feminist movement in the West. It
started a powerful dialogue on the rights of women and their place in the
society and proved to be the beginning of the feminist movement. One of the major
fallout of the feminist movement was the launch of the movement for women
suffrage in the United States which culminated in its success with the US
Parliament amending its Constitution to grant voting rights to women on 26
August, 1920. In 1929, Virginia Woolf wrote a book titled A Room of One's Own
which took the movement further forward. This book advocated for personal space
for women to develop their natural and inherent creative abilities. Next the
French writer Simone de Beauvoir wrote The Second Sex on the rights and place
of women in society. Gradually, local and universal issues concerning women
were included in the definition of Feminism and it became a global movement
from the point of view of women.
The
feminist movement which originated in the West influenced the East as well. The
reason for its popularity in the East was that despite the cultural and
intellectual differences between the western and eastern societies, women were
oppressed and victimised in both the societies. The issues of the women in both
the regions were almost the same. They were forced into prostitution both in
the East and the West; they were enslaved for sex slavery in both the regions.
Child marriage was in vogue in both the places. The similarity of fate of women
in the East and the West brought the women together under feminism so that they
could break the stereotypes the men had created for them and develop their
God-gifted abilities and faculties to carve out a niche in the society shoulder
to shoulder with men.
However,
the general attitude towards Feminism in the East was markedly different from
that of the West. The zeal and attachment the West had demonstrated with
Feminism was lacking in the East. Even the movements for some political and
social rights in the East would not go down well with the conservative section
of men. The reason for this was cultural as well as religious. The feudal
society of the East opposed the idea of giving equal rights to women.
Therefore, in the East, Feminism was accepted in the same way as the western
literary theories and movements were adopted as a fashion. But the striking
point is that even some eastern women intellectuals like the famous Urdu
fiction writer Qurratul Ain Haider did not give much importance to Feminism as
a theory. She wrote that she did not believe in a ladies' compartment for women
in literature. Perhaps she believed in the creative and intellectual abilities
of women not being inferior to that of men and therefore did not believe in the
idea of reservations and quota for women. What she wanted for them was the
freedom to join the race.
If a
section of eastern women intellectuals did not give much importance to
Feminism, it had a historical and cultural background. It is true that women
have been rendered into 'the second sex' in the east, it is an established fact
that the eastern women enjoyed freedom and equality in the ancient ages. In the
Indus Valley civilisation, for example, women enjoyed social and political
rights.
Virginia
Woolf presented the idea of 'a room of one's own' in the 20th century but the
women of India in the 5th century B.C., during the life of Gautam Buddha, were
allowed to join the Sangha (the monastic order) and write devotional and mystic
songs along with men. The women, therefore, enjoyed religious rights as well as
the freedom to express their creative abilities. In other words, they had a
room of their own. Gautam Buddha's foster mother Mahaprajapati Gautami was the
first and one of the hundreds of Buddhist nuns whose devotional songs called
Theri-gaha have been included in Buddhist canon called Tripitak. One of the
nuns was Ambapali who was a courtesan before entering the Sangha. Her songs are
also included in Tripitak. The Bhakti poetess of the 16th century Meera Bai
influenced the thoughts and style of the later age male Bhakti poets of India.
Her devotional songs have become an unforgettable part of India's cultural
heritage.
The eastern
women have also left an indelible mark on the politics of India. Jhansi Ki
Rani, Begum Hazrat Mahal and Razia Sultan have assumed legendary status in
India's folklore. In the East, women have been bestowed a divine status. While
in India and other eastern societies, women are worshipped as deities, in the
Quran, Mother Mary has been presented as a metaphor of the feminine greatness.
After
Buddhism, Islam promoted Feminism in the East, though the term had not been
coined at that time. Islam abolished infanticide and restricted polygamy which
was a tool of women's oppression and exploitation. It encouraged marriage of
slave women or bond women and started the process of their rehabilitation in
the society. All these initiatives of reform which come under feminism were
taken in India and Arab during the 5th century B.C. and 7th century A.D.
The
feminist movement of the West also endeavoured to bring reform in the language
to remove male dominated sexist diction from it and make it gender-neutral. But
the Quran had showed sensitivity towards the feminist consciousness of Madina
14 centuries ago by revealing the following verse to assure the women of Arab
that it does not speak of only men:
"Surely,
'for' Muslims men and women, and believing men and women, and devout men and
women and faithful men and women and humble men and women and charitable men
and women and fasting men and women and men and women who guard their chastity
and men and women who remember Allah often ---- for all of them Allah has
prepared forgiveness and a great reward."(Al Ahzab:35)
The Quran
also has a verse that is gender-neutral:
"It
is the believers who repent, who are devoted to worship, who praise the Lord,
who fast, who bow down, who prostrate themselves, who encourage good and forbid
evil, and who observe the limits set by Allah. And give good news to the
believers."(At
Taubah: 112)
Therefore,
the Quran employs both gender-neutral style and a style in which both men and
women are equally mentioned. Today when the feminist movement talks of
linguistic reforms, it should be kept in mind that the Quran had drawn the
attention of the linguists towards this issue 14 hundred years ago.
Despite the
antiquity of the feminist tradition in the East, why are women oppressed and
exploited in the east today? Isn't the Feminist movement all the more necessary
and relevant in the East today given the present scenario?
The answer
is in the affirmative but there are ideological differences in the attitude
towards feminism in the East and the West. While in the West, Feminism is the
movement to claim women's rights, in the East, it is to reclaim those rights.
In the
East, the women had been dispossessed of their rights on the basis of male
dominated interpretations of religious texts. Moreover, religious values of the
East separate Eastern Feminism from Western Feminism. Therefore, the Eastern
Feminism will not approve or endorse Lesbianism which comes under personal
rights in the view of secular values of the West. The West promoted the
artificial club culture under Feminism while in the East, the active
participation of women together with men in cultural and religious rites,
festivals and ceremonies is a quintessential part of those gatherings.
Such social
participation perhaps resulted in the origin of various dance forms that are an
important part of eastern fine arts. The East did not supress the natural
aesthetic instincts and physical beauty of women, rather gave it a free space
to develop.
In the 20th
century, female nudity was also included in the personal liberty of women in
the West. In fact, it was done with the purpose of promoting the consumerist
culture of the West. It was used as a tool to exploit the physical beauty and
sex appeal of the female body for economic benefits. The Oriental Feminism does
not endorse or approve of the economic exploitation of women's natural beauty.
In the oriental society, the natural physical beauty has been accorded a divine
status. Therefore, the provocative female nudity and vulgar exhibitionism of
the West cannot be the subject and objective of Oriental Feminism.
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S.
Arshad is a columnist with NewAgeIslam.com.
URL: https://newageislam.com/spiritual-meditations/oriental-feminism-western/d/127756
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