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By Daschel Fernandes, 23 June 2022
This sub-topic will mainly brief you, the reader, with how men and women face vast differences in India over a very common ground, Religion. It will highlight practices that are defined for both the genders as well as shed some light on what problems the members of the LGBTQ+ face in India while trying to commune with their various Gods or Deities.
How Does religion treat The Genders?
How Does religion treat The Genders?
Gender is central to most religious orders. In turn, religions have a significant impact on gendered relations. The study of gender and religion stems from a broader interest in feminist anthropology, and multiple approaches to the study of gender and religion have been developed. An early approach explores the ways that religious practice influences male and female behaviour. Studies in this vein explore changing gender norms attending conversion to new religions, or the ways that women’s and men’s roles are constrained and shaped by religious practice. More-recent work analyses the ways that gender itself structures religious and spiritual ethics and practice. While patriarchal relations are central to many global religions, this is not a universal principle. Some religious orders emphasize cooperation and respect for women over hierarchy. Others may prioritize male leadership but indirectly provide women with types of ethical identities and spiritual positions that create spaces for women to practice their own agency and forms of power.
Considering that the LGBTQ+ community has become a rebellious product over just the last 200 years, most religious bodies and doctrines of the may view these negatively. This can range from quiet discouragement, explicitly forbidding same-sex sexual practices or sex/gender reassignment among adherents, actively opposing social acceptance of LGBT identities, to execution of people engaging in homosexual acts while tolerating sex/gender reassignment in specific cases.
Religion-based problems that women face in India.
Religion-based problems that women face in India.
In India, a woman has to face societal pressures, gender discrimination and sufferings in the name of culture and customs throughout her life. She is even forbidden to retain her fundamental rights to participate in religious activities and rituals. It is believed that a woman is impure when she is menstruating and that is why women are barred from participating and practicing religious rituals and to enter the temple during their menstrual cycle.
The landmark case of Sabrimala temple with controversial judgements against discriminatory rules of the temple saw women between 10 to 50 years of age debarred to enter the temple as they are in their reproductive phase and between their menstrual cycle. This bar was officially imposed since 1991 and continued till 2018. However, till date, there are temples that bars women during her menstrual cycle and restrict them to stay away from religious rituals and place.
In the name of religion, people fall prey to many superstitions and blindly believe the old customs, which were passed as cultural legacy to them. Legally if we analyse the whole scenario it’s evident that a lot of times both the guilty mind ( Mens Rea ) and guilty act ( Actus Reus ) can be present while committing heinous offences against women to satisfy superstitious beliefs. For instance, terminating female fetuses, sacrificing female infants to worship goddesses for baby boy in the name of rituals. Many of the authoritative bodies and doctrines of the world's largest religions may view these negatively.
Is the LGBTQ+ Community Stress-free when it comes to Religion?
Is the LGBTQ+ Community Stress-free when it comes to Religion?
When it comes to religion in India, especially Hinduism, we can see that a number of Hindu texts have portrayed homosexual experience as natural and joyful, the Kamasutra affirms and recognizes same-sex relations, and there are several Hindu temples which have carvings that depict both men and women engaging in homosexual acts. There are also numerous Hindu deities that are shown to be gender-fluid and falling into the LGBT spectrum. Same-sex relations and gender variance have been represented within Hinduism from Vedic times through to the present day, in rituals, law books, religious or narrative mythologies, commentaries, paintings, and even sculptures.
It is well-known that Section 377 was introduced into the Indian Penal Code in 1860, to criminalise sexual activities deemed to be “against the order of nature”. This includes many sexual acts including heterosexual oral and anal sex, but it has been deployed almost exclusively to render into crimes homosexual acts especially between men, offences punishable by 10 years and even a lifetime in jail. It is true that very few persons have been punished under this section of law, but the fact that homosexual sex is illegal is used as a tool of harassment and extortion against people engaged in homosexual relations. But it is not just the law which criminalises gay sex. The violence and discrimination that they face is fostered by a much more widely sanctioned homophobia, of stigma, revulsion and hatred against Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer persons – and the most powerful source of this loathing is the teachings by leaders of various religious faiths.
Is Religion Safe For all genders in India as of Today?
Is Religion Safe For all genders in India as of Today?
Although this is 2022 and one might think that people have now developed an “open mind”, there are still a lot of religious traditions that do not support the ideals of gender equality such as traditional mosques segregate prayer spaces for men and women, Roman Catholic women cannot become priests and also many Indian places of worship require people of any gender to wear a head covering or remove shoes, ban foreigners or ban those outside the faith. While, more Western-oriented communities (those in Goa, Kolkata, Tamil Nadu, etc) are extremely supportive towards the LGBTQ+ community, the rest of India has still to follow suite, and hopefully it will in the next few years.
Works Cited :-
Works Cited :-
How Indians View Gender Roles in Families and Society, Pew Research
Center's Religion & Public Life Project https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2022/03/02/how-indians-view-gender-roles-in-families-and-society/
June 10, 2022 .Date accessed June 26, 2022.
Gender and Religion , O.B.O. https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199766567/obo-9780199766567-0202.xml
Date accessed June 24, 2022.
Religion, gender and equality, Frontline Magazine,
https://frontline.thehindu.com/cover-story/religion-gender-and-equality/article26001374.ece
January 16, 2019. Date accessed 22 June, 2022.
Religious Liberties And Women Rights, Legal Service India - Law, Lawyers and Legal Resources,
https://www.legalserviceindia.com/legal/article-6082-religious-liberties-and-women-rights.html .
Date accessed June 26, 2022.
Daschel Fernandes
AU190239
SEM 6
REPRESENTATION OF GENDER AND SEXUALITY
das005@chowgules.ac.in
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