Women and Satyagraha

The article examines the complex gender issues of modernizing India through the subjective views of M.K. Gandhi (1869–1948). The thinker himself is presented as a descendant of 19th-century Hindu reformers who began fighting for women’s rights after embracing Western ideas and values. Personal experience of family life, combined with legal training and political leadership, shaped his understanding of gender issues. The complex picture of his views reveals contradictions between calls for legal equality of men and women and the recognition of the moral superiority of the latter, between modern liberal ideas and the traditional concept of the roles of women and men in society. At the same time, the ideal picture of the future he proposed is quite clear: Gandhi believed that the inclusion of women in public life would help to outgrow modern patriarchal civilization with its militarism and competition and create a peace-loving society in which men and women would work together for the common good. The foundation of his conviction in the injustice of gender discrimination was his belief in the equality of men and women at the level of the soul.

Civilization · Conviction · Face (sociological concept) · Foundation (evidence) · Ideal (ethics) · Inclusion (mineral) · Injustice · Militarism · Politics · Indian History and Philosophy · Religion, Gender, and Enlightenment · South Asian Studies and Diaspora