How often does a little girl announce, "When I grow up I wanna be president!" Or "a rocket scientist!" Or "a lawyer!" Rather, little girls are usually found holding their baby dolls or smaller sibling and enjoy setting up and playing "house".
“Being differently talented and differently driven, the sexes have characteristically different behavioral preferences. The gender-equity specialists believe that gender-distinct play preferences are purely a matter of social conditioning. But researchers have confirmed what parents experience all the time: even without conditioning…boys and girls show different preferences and gravitate towards different toys” (Sommers, Christina Hoff. The War Against Boys ); More tragic evidence may be found clicking here .
But the argument is not that a woman can't do these things. The majority of jobs, after all, are meant for sudras and sudranis. The point is, by nature, a normal woman's desires for husband and family come above all things. Although she may be found nurturing her "sick" doll, that doesn't mean that- because of in-born adaptability and submissive nature as a female- she should be coerced into becoming a full fledged doctor. If so, her best path to self fulfillment will become complicated and perhaps even derailed. One young lady put it this way:
Srila Prabhupada understood our natural womanly propensities. Sure, you can say that once he did not express total disapproval of a woman acting in a position such as a temple president (Chicago, July 5, 1975). But he usually said or wrote things like this:
"Just like our women, Krishna conscious, they are working. They don't want equal rights with men. It is due to Krishna consciousness. They are cleansing the temple, they are cooking very nicely. They are satisfied. They never say that 'I have to go to Japan for preaching like Prabhupäda.' They never say. This is artificial. So Krishna consciousness means work in his constitutional position. The women, men, when they remain in their constitutional position, there will be no artificial ..."-morning walk, 5/27/77, Rome
The reason our founder acarya gave different instructions is because he was addressing different groups of women. One is coming to Krishna consciousness with the gender confused conditioning of Kali yuga society, which may prove very difficult to undo. Another is the rare but very loud independent women, who dislike domestic life and want to prove themselves socially, and Srila Prabhupada recognized this. But at the same time he was preaching to the women born into our society. It is obvious he did not want our daughters to be encouraged to waste their time in college or to become career women. Or to be fighting over men's positions within ISKCON society. There are numerous quotes and purports to support this, far outnumbering the single statement about a woman becoming a temple president. Nor did he want our sons to be involved in Kali yuga's educational slaughterhouses. Yet, at the same time, he would preach differently to the many converts who were men that already had high academic training, encouraging them to use their learning in Krishna's service.
“Being differently talented and differently driven, the sexes have characteristically different behavioral preferences. The gender-equity specialists believe that gender-distinct play preferences are purely a matter of social conditioning. But researchers have confirmed what parents experience all the time: even without conditioning…boys and girls show different preferences and gravitate towards different toys” (Sommers, Christina Hoff. The War Against Boys ); More tragic evidence may be found clicking here .But the argument is not that a woman can't do these things. The majority of jobs, after all, are meant for sudras and sudranis. The point is, by nature, a normal woman's desires for husband and family come above all things. Although she may be found nurturing her "sick" doll, that doesn't mean that- because of in-born adaptability and submissive nature as a female- she should be coerced into becoming a full fledged doctor. If so, her best path to self fulfillment will become complicated and perhaps even derailed. One young lady put it this way:
Srila Prabhupada understood our natural womanly propensities. Sure, you can say that once he did not express total disapproval of a woman acting in a position such as a temple president (Chicago, July 5, 1975). But he usually said or wrote things like this:
"Just like our women, Krishna conscious, they are working. They don't want equal rights with men. It is due to Krishna consciousness. They are cleansing the temple, they are cooking very nicely. They are satisfied. They never say that 'I have to go to Japan for preaching like Prabhupäda.' They never say. This is artificial. So Krishna consciousness means work in his constitutional position. The women, men, when they remain in their constitutional position, there will be no artificial ..."-morning walk, 5/27/77, Rome
The reason our founder acarya gave different instructions is because he was addressing different groups of women. One is coming to Krishna consciousness with the gender confused conditioning of Kali yuga society, which may prove very difficult to undo. Another is the rare but very loud independent women, who dislike domestic life and want to prove themselves socially, and Srila Prabhupada recognized this. But at the same time he was preaching to the women born into our society. It is obvious he did not want our daughters to be encouraged to waste their time in college or to become career women. Or to be fighting over men's positions within ISKCON society. There are numerous quotes and purports to support this, far outnumbering the single statement about a woman becoming a temple president. Nor did he want our sons to be involved in Kali yuga's educational slaughterhouses. Yet, at the same time, he would preach differently to the many converts who were men that already had high academic training, encouraging them to use their learning in Krishna's service.
Mahanidhi Swami wrote a guide book about the most holy place, Radha Kunda, which included helpful advice for understanding why Srila Prabhupada gave different types of instructions that may even appear contradictory. He described how once Prabhupada chastised some devotees for frolicking disrespectfully in Radha kunda, and ever since then devotees have been afraid to take a full bath in Radha kunda, putting only water on their heads. Mahanidhi Swami argues that this was a temporary instruction to a certain few because in his book the Nectar of Instruction, Prabhupada emphasizes that everyone should be taking full bath in Radha kunda for full benefits:
"It appears that Srila Prabhupada gave two different categories of instructions: temporary instructions according to time, place and circumstances, and eternal orders for all to follow at all times. The instructions that Srila Prabhupada gave personally or in a letter to a particular disciple are specific, individual, and in many cases fall in the category of time and place instructions. The teachings and instructions, however, that Srila Prabhupada left in his books are his eternal orders. They should be followed everywhere by all classes of devotees for the next 10,000 years of Lord Gauranga's golden age of enlightenment." -Radha Kunda, Mahima Madhuri
This reasoning can be applied to how respectable women in ISKCON society should ideally come to behave. What Srila Prabhupada has written in his books should be the law and standard for everyone to follow or at least to respect, and how one's guru instructs an individual according to time, place and circumstances and level of Krsna conscious understanding, should be one's own personal concern, not meant to be propagated for everyone else.
Yet, despite this clear understanding, today many devotees send their daughters to college "just in case", thinking that a college degree is a guaranteed safety measure in case of future misfortune. But consider for a moment a woman who is expert in cooking, sewing, personal relationships, managing the household budget, hospitality, home nursing and herbal Ayurvedic remedies, housekeeping and household management, interior decorating, baby and child care, and various kinds of crafting and artistic work. These are some of the many skills acquired by one who takes her home life seriously. She has more than a handful of skills that could certainly become marketable if a needy situation arises.
Prabhupada: If you have no business, you prepare something palatable, and people will purchase, all over India.
Hari-sauri: There's so many people on the railway station selling.
Prabhupäda: There's no question of starvation for want of money. Anywhere sit down and do (cook) something palatable, and people will purchase. So your livelihood will go on. Pakorä, kacuri, jalebi, anything. You make some palatable, people are fond of eating some palatable things. That is their hobby. (8/2/76, New Mayapur farm, France)
So it really is a puzzle why so many girls today are subjected to wasting valuable time in college preparation, time that could be much better spent cultivating these practical, domestic arts, making her invaluable in any situation and a much better wife for her future husband. I myself did not attend college and today, while approaching vanaprastha, I've acquired at least half a dozen skills from homemaking that I can now utilize to support our local temple.
Such things can be learned by association, within the realm of the home and supportive friendships, and all that college money can be saved to create hope chest and dowry instead of burdening her future husband with a huge tuition debt. In a letter to a female disciple (2/16/72, Calcutta), Prabhupada wrote: "Cooking, sewing, things like that do not require schooling, they are learned simply by association. There is no question of academic education for either boys or girls—simply a little mathematics and being able to read and write well, that's all, no universities. Their higher education they will get from our books, and other things they will get from experience...
"You ask about marriage, yes, actually I want that every woman in the Society should be married. But what is this training to become wives and mothers? No school is required for that, simply association.
"A woman's real business is to look after household affairs, keep everything neat and clean, and if there is sufficient milk supply available, she should always be engaged in churning butter, making yogurt, curd, so many nice varieties, simply from milk. The woman should be cleaning, sewing, like that. So if you simply practice these things yourselves and show examples, they will learn automatically, one doesn't have to give formal instruction in these matters." ---letter, 2/16/72, Calcutta
Furthermore, girls are naturally artistic. Prabhupada approved the sixty-four arts that Radharani knows for a well-rounded education: "Female children should be taught how to become faithful to the husband, and to learn the arts of cooking, arts of painting—that should be their subject matter.
Jyotirmäyi: Painting?
Prabhupäda: Yes. Sixty-four arts, Rädhäräni did. Then She could control Krishna.
Jyotirmäyi: So after they have learned all the academics, reading, writing, all these.
Prabhupäda: Academic is ordinary, ABCD, that's all. Not very much. But these arts. They should learn how to cook nicely." --room conversation, 7/31/76, New Mayapur, France
"Women are by nature endowed with many artistic tendencies, and from the Vedic age we find that high grade women and girls were highly qualified in sixty-four arts. Srimati Radharani was fully qualified in those arts, and therefore, by Her super-excellent transcendental qualities, she could charm Krsna who is the charmer of the three worlds." --letter, 2/23/70, LA
A LIST OF THE SIXTY FOUR ARTS
(a few may be unfamiliar, but basically these involve entertainment, personal adornment, decorating, medicine, cooking, needlework, and so on)
(1) singing;
(2) playing on musical instruments;
(3) dancing;
(4) drama;
(5) painting;
(6) face and body painting with colored unguents and cosmetics;
(7) preparing auspicious designs on the floor with colored rice flour and flowers;
(8) making a bed of flowers;
(9) coloring one's teeth, clothes and limbs;
(10) inlaying a floor with jewels (mosaics)
(11) covering and preparing a bed;
(12) ringing water pots musically;
(13) splashing with water in a pool;
(14) color mixing;
(15) preparing wreaths;
(16) setting a helmet on the head;
(17) putting on apparel in a dressing room;
(18) decorating the earlobe;
(19) applying aromatics;
(20) decorating with jewelry;
(21) juggling;
(22) the art of disguise;
(23) sleight of hand, magic tricks
(24) preparing varieties of salad, bread, cake and other delicious food;
(25) preparing palatable drinks and tinging draughts with red color (food coloring);
(26) needlework and weaving
(27) making puppets dance by manipulating thin threads and the art of playing with a thread (cat's cradle, etc)
(28) playing on a lute and a small X-shaped drum;
(29) making and solving riddles;
(29a) capping verses, or reciting poems verse for verse as a trial of memory or skill;
(30) uttering statements difficult for others to answer;
(31) reciting books; and
(32) enacting short plays and writing anecdotes.
(33) solving enigmatic verses;
(34) making a bow from a strip of cloth and a stick;
(35) spinning with a spindle;
(36) carpentry;
(37) architecture;
(38) testing silver and jewels;
(39) metallurgy;
(40) tinging jewels with various colors;
(41) mineralogy;
(42) herbal medicine;
(43) the art of training and engaging rams, cocks and quails in fighting;
(44) knowledge of how to train male and female parrots to speak and to answer the questions of human beings;
(45) healing a person with ointments;
(46) hairdressing;
(47) telling what is written in a book without seeing it, telling what is hidden in an other's fist (ESP)
(48) fabricating barbarous or foreign sophistry;
(49) knowledge of provincial dialects;
(50) knowledge of how to build toy carts with flowers;
(51) composing magic squares, arrangements of numbers adding up to the same total in all directions (math tricks and mental math)
(52) the use of amulets;
(53) conversation;
(54) composing verses mentally;
(55) designing a literary work or a medical remedy;
(56) building shrines;
(57) lexicography (compiling and editing dictionaries), and the knowledge of poetic meters;
(58) disguising one kind of cloth to look like another;
(59) knowledge of various forms of gambling; (or games)
(60) playing dice;
(61) playing with children's toys;
(62) enforcing discipline by mystic power; (or psychology)
(63) gaining victory
(64) awakening one's master with music at dawn.
Not too long ago, young women would study the home plans in the back of "Victoria magazine", and then draw their own houses on graph paper, arranging the floor plan according to their inspiration. Another example is found in the book "Jane Eyre" in which they engaged in dramatics and the art of disguise.
A lady at home can have many interests, and she has much more freedom and energy (compared to the average career woman) to dabble in them all!
In closing, it is said that when persons attend to their business- they usually find they have plenty of business to do.
LATER NOTE: As far as preaching work is concerned, for spreading Lord Chaitanya's sankirtana movement, Srila Prabhupada encouraged both men and women to go beyond the call of their regular duties, but again he gave different instructions to different groups of women. Women under the protection of husband or father figure had the most freedom to act. From a brief overview of the letters Prabhupada wrote to His married women disciples, for example, we see they had a wide variety of activities including making records, leading kirtanas, giving class, running temples, and so on. As mentioned before, Prabhupada expertly engaged these westernized women, but he saw to it that they acted under the protection of a husband (actually both husbands and wives at that time in ISKCON history acted more like vanaprasthas than householders. And they rarely had children), or as a cooperative unit with them. If the women were unmarried or divorced their husbands however, they apparently were advised very differently:
"It is better that you don't make a large program. Remain a humble program. In bhakti there is no grotesque program. A humble program is better. We are doing all these grotesque programs to allure the masses. My Guru Maharaja used to say that no one hears from a person coming from a humble, simple life. You remain always very humble....Women when not with husband must live very very humbly and simple life." --letter 1/13/76, Calcutta
"The thing is cow protection is not possible for women. You can keep two or three cows, but on larger scale it is not possible. You should not try to take care of more. It is not women's business. Women's business is getting milk and making milk preparations. On the whole larger scale is not to be attempted by women. Manage a small asram, but don't try bigger scale, then you require the help of men...
"Don't try manual exertion, then again there is mixture and that is not desired. Simply keep yourself aloof from men—chanting, many more times as possible, read books, worship the deity. I am very much pleased with this girl Svati—she has adopted this white dress. She must not be attractive at all. A widow is forbidden to use ornaments, nice sari, decoration, combing the hair nicely. These are forbidden for the woman who is not with husband." -- letter, 2/21/76, Mayapur
