by Professor Burke Rochford
I’ve never so much regretted being born in a woman’s body since I joined the ISKCON movement. I’ve never been so much criticized, abused, slandered, misunderstood or chastised, because I have this woman’s body. It makes it very difficult to do my service and/or assist others with their service, if they are always thinking about these bodily designations, instead of the constructive things I could do or say to help them in their service arid to help this movement go forward. If you are a single woman (brahmacarini) every man thinks he is an authority and will yell at you if he feels like it. But, it’s worse when you’re married, because you have one authority and you have to surrender to his inflexible, lord–it–over nature, whether he is right or wrong, and whether he is nice or cruel about how he relates to you. It’s hellish and I hope I get opportunity to leave this body as soon as possible. (Woman who joined ISKCON in 1975, disciple of Prabhupada, Married, from 1980 North America Devotee Questionnaire )
By accepting women in the temples and giving them the brahmacarini status, Prabhupada was not pretending, he gave them all the same rights and duties of the brahmacaris in the guru’s ashrama. The same thing applied when he gave them brahmana initiation. The women devotees had exactly the same spiritua1 activities, the same tasks, the same possibilities to progress spiritually and they were entitled to the same respect. At that time evening was done according to the abilities and the spiritual advancement of a person and not according to sex. Prabhupada did not make any distinction. (Jyotirmayi Devi Dasi 1997:2).
This paper addresses the emergence of ISKCON women’s collective voice and the recent mobilization of devotee women. I will organize my thoughts concerning ISKCON women’s mobilization by employing a number of theoretical frameworks and perspectives familiar to scholars of social movements and collective behavior. I also consider the topic with respect to recent historical and sociological accounts of women’s struggles for equality in a number of other religious groups and organizations. As all of you are probably aware, women’s traditional roles have been challenged and undergone change within many Christian denominations and within conservative and reform Judaism as well. Perhaps the most publicly visible example of this has been the ongoing struggle over women’s ordination (Chaves 1997, Nesbitt 1997). Yet women have made inroads into positions of responsibility in a variety of capacities in addition to being formally ordained as clergy.
After briefly acknowledging some of the ways that women’s roles have expanded within ISKCON in recent years, I then discuss four factors that I see as either promoting a context in which women’s issues have come to the fore, or which have played a more direct role in the mobilization of women. My effort here is not narrowly focused on explaining why women have stood up against abuse, neglect, and mistreatment, as I also want to account for the timing of women’s protest and how it has gained recognition and political leverage. The four factors considered are: (1) Women’s Grievances; (2) Consciousness raising and emergent frameworks for understanding devotee women’s life circumstances; (3) The declining labor force within the temples and the implications for women’s roles; and (4) The declining authority of ISKCON’s leadership and the resulting expansion of political opportunities for women and other aggrieved groups. I conclude by raising the question of what the expanded role of women within the movement might mean for ISKCON as a religious organization. In particular, is the feminization that a number of Christian denominations are experiencing today also beginning to occur within ISKCON? If so, what might this mean for ISKCON in the foreseeable future? Because I have much more to research and think about on this later issue, my comments will necessarily be preliminary and speculative. Hopefully those of you in the audience will see fit to challenge or otherwise offer your views on this subject.
Back to the Future: Rights Lost and Reclaimed
A quick survey of the social landscape within ISKCON reveals a number of apparent gains by women in recent years. A woman – Malati Devi Dasi – was elected this year in Mayapur to serve as a member of the GBC. There are two women devotees that I am aware of who serve as Temple Presidents in the United States (here in Alachua and at New Vrindaban) as well as a number of other women who serve in this capacity in Europe.
Moreover, women serve in a number of other high level administrative capacities at the national and local temple levels. Within the last few years the GBC has approved the creation of both a Women’s Ministry and a Youth Ministry. In many temples that I am familiar with both men and women serve on the altar, worship side-by-side in the temple, and chant together each morning in the temple. No longer is it an unusual event (though not common perhaps) to see a woman give class in the temple. (Less common, or perhaps not at all, is to see women leading kirtans in the temple or on public harinams.) Of course, conferences like this one also express the fact that both men and women, including the movement’s leadership, recognize the importance of resolving past injustices faced by women within ISKCON. Perhaps some in the audience can add to this list during the discussion period.
I will have more to say about this later, but for now I would like to emphasize that all of the above “changes” in the role and place of women within ISKCON actually represent reclaiming the past. In an important paper tracing the history of women within ISKCON, Jyotirmayi Devi Dasi shows that during ISKCON’s early years women held roles and responsibilities that differed little from their Godbrothers. But all that apparently began to change in the early 1970s. Women’s identity, for all intents and purposes, was reconstructed by leaders under Prabhupada, becoming “unintelligent,” “spiritually dangerous” to men, and incapable of doing little more than cooking, cleaning, and looking after children. (Also performing sankirtan which I will have more to say about momentarily.) This ideology was used certainly by sannyasis, brahmacaris, and others, to demean women but also to take from them the rights and responsibilities given to women by Srila Prabhupada. What now looks like newly gained rights won through political pressure (or the enlightenment of men perhaps) actually represent successful efforts by women and their male supporters to reclaim women’s former identities.
But while there have been concrete changes that have helped enfranchise devotee women into ISKCON and its communities, there has also been an equally important shift in perspective by leaders and men in general, or so it appears anyway.
(1) ISKCON leaders have publicly stated that women have been mistreated, as suggested in a recent letter from the then chairman of the GBC to ISKCON members worldwide. We have not offered proper protection and respect to the women in our movement. We have not understood woman’s role as mother of society. We have hurt women by insisting that they behave according to vedic standards, yet we have not been able to offer the proper standard of vedic protection . . . (Letter from the Executive Committee of the GBC, signed by Harikesa Swami, June 1998).
(2) The findings presented in Table l suggest that men’s attitudes toward women mya be changing. The findings report on women’s and men’s agreement or disagreement with a number of statements addressing women and women’s roles within ISKCON. To simplify the data presentation, I have reported only the percentage of women and men who either “strongly agree” or “agree” with each statement. While there are significant differences between men and women with respect to strength of agreement – women more often strongly agreeing-it is still the case that both women and men tend to agree that women should receive equal treatment with men. (As we move from general attitudes to specific simations – such as whether women should be allowed to serve on the GBC, be temple president, give class, lead kirtans, etc. – men are somewhat less agreeable.) In what follows I will have occasion to refer back to these findings and deal with them in greater detail. For now, however, my point is simply to acknowledge that men’s attitudes toward women devotees and women’s involvements are generally positive, and presumably have become so in recent years.
Women’s Collective Voices and Mobilization
Women’s Grievances.
That women have suffered mistreatment, abuse, and neglect within ISKCON comes as no surprise to any devotee who has been around ISKCON for any length of time. Even observant visitors to an ISKCON temple can quickly find “evidence” of sexism, at least to the contemporary liberal Western mind. Obviously, many contemporary women and men have been turned off by what they see and reject any idea of becoming involved in any way in ISKCON.
Yet there are other sources of data and information suggesting the presence and impact of grievances in women’s lives. Frankly, the most compelling, if not systematic evi‹1ence comes from the personal testimonies of women who have experienced mistreatment, such as the woman whose words I began this paper.
Women have suffered abuse at the hands of leaders, husbands, and men in general. As Jyotirmayi Devi Dasi says “Many men in the movement have used various scriptural statements on women’s faults to rebuke and humiliate them, to hinder their service and advancement, or even try to drive them out of the movement” (1997). (Women are less intelligent, dangerous to men and their efforts at spiritual advancement)
Another devotee woman states: “ . . . In general we have allowed spousal abuse. Men have always been right, allowed to hit wives, accepted in big, big positions in the movement even if they are known abusers, etc.”
Women’s contributions within the movement have often been dismissed by men. As Jyotirmayi Devi Dasi documents, women during the 1970s were pushed out of responsible positions not because they were incompetent, but because they were women.
A related example has to do with the differing constructions of men and women who were successful book distributors. Men who were successful were typically viewed and treated as “spiritually advanced” by the devotee community. They were treated with respect and even awe. Yet I remember during the mid and late 1970s, and early 1980s, in North America, that women who proved successful at sankirtan received far less respect and prestige. I can vividly remember conversations with male sankirtan devotees who told me that while it was true that women were often successful at distributing Prabhupada’s books this was only because they used their feminine charm and/or sexuality to their advantage. Women weren’t successful because of their spiritual qualifications, as in the case of men. Men, who by the way, very often used a variety of deceitful and even i11ega1 tactics to distribute Prabhupada’s books (e.g., the change-up).
Of grave importance to many devotee women is the fact that their children, and the movement’s children in general, faced neglect and abuse while students in the gnrukula during the 1970s and early to mid 1980s (see Rochford 1998). For many women who quietly suffered mistreatment at the hands of men, the abuse of children was the last straw, an unforgivable occurrence that forced them to stand up and be counted. As one long-time devotee and mother commented:
[T]he widespread disgust with child abuse, and women finally just not taking the nonsense [any longer] have all contributed to making the women’s voice finally being heard . . . .Admitting to the child abuse – most all of it committed by men, and probably only allowed to go on because of the de-empowerment of women (the mothers) – is admitting to the abuse of women and how the devaluation of them contributed to our problems, socially and with the children. Gradually that point is dawning on people. (September 1998)
While I have only partially and incompletely dealt with the issue here, it is clear enough that many devotee women felt like second class citizens during the 1970s and 1980s. This made for a sexual politic that served to undermine the self-esteem and identity of many women. To again quote Jyotirmayi Devi Dasi.
Instead of being considered full-fledged devotees, women were considered only as “women” in the most pejorative sense. . . . Women did not consider men as sons anymore and men did not behave with women as mothers but as enemies. Instead of kindness, gentleness and courtesy amongst men and women devotees, wickedness, meanness, and impoliteness prevailed . . . .Women were considered stupid and incapable and became subject to gross mockery. (1997).
Findings from the Prabhupada Centennial Survey conducted in 1994-1995 suggests that women want to be considered and treated as equals to men, and that past mistreatment and sexism have adversely affected their lives as devotees and ISKCON members. As indicated in Table 1, women respondents worldwide believe that women should be allowed to chant in the temple with men; men and women should worship on different sides of the temple (rather than men in front and women to the back); women should have the same opportunities as men to realize their potential in devotional service; performance not gender should be the criteria for placement in a given position; and, that women are the spiritual equals of men. There is also strong support for the view that Prabhupada did not want women devotees to be treated as less than equal to their male counterparts. It is worth noting again that men also agreed with each of the above statements, although women held deeper convictions, more often strongly agreeing.
Two items in Table 1 suggest how sexism has affected the lives of women devotees. Nearly three-quarters of the women surveyed (72%) agreed that women devotees suffer from low self-esteem because of mistreatment by devotee men. One third strongly agree with the statement. Somewhat less than half (48%) agreed that as a woman they sometimes encounter a degree of sexism in the movement that stands as a barrier to their spiritual advancement. Nearly a quarter of the women surveyed strongly agreed that sexism has negatively affected their spiritual lives.
Consciousness Raising and New Frameworks of Understanding.
While it is logical to assume that people collectivize on the basis of shared grievances research on social movements and revolutionary situations suggest that grievances are not sufficient. Among other factors that lead people with hard grievances to mobilize collectively is the realization that the adversity they endure lies outside of themselves, that there are groups or structures within society that are responsible. Many, perhaps most women in ISKCON during the 1970s viewed the mistreatment they and their Godsisters received as a matter of misfortune. As the woman quoted at the beginning of this paper implied, her mistreatment at the hands of men was difficult for sure but it hardly constituted a basis for protest and change. Rather, and sadly, she thought giving up her female body was the answer, not social change. Yet over the course of time devotee women have come to see their condition in terms of injustice. They realized that the “ideological work” (Berger 1981; Rochford 1985) of male leaders and others (including many women of course) was more often self-serving propaganda than truth. While references from Prabhupada and the scripture existed about women being less intelligent, etc., that these derogatory characterizations were often one-sided, being taken out of context and misconstrued by men. Whether consciously used for the purpose of controlling women’s lives or not the net result was that women were subject to decisions and authority of men – be they leaders, temple management, or husbands. I believe that recent and ongoing challenges to these traditionally accepted ideas about women have gone far toward mobilizing women and elevating the significance of women’s voices within ISKCON.
At least since the writings of Karl Marx, scholars have understood the role that intellectuals play in social protest. Their purpose lies in articulating grievances but of greater significance is that intellectuals place grievances into a new framework of understanding; a framework that allows people to see their adversity in terms of the willful self-interest of elites and other powerful groups. Intellectuals thus construct protest frames that serve to incite and mobilize people to act in their collective interests. To put this into an ISKCON context, one might reasonably ask: Where would the reform movement of the mid-1980s have gone without the intellectual contributions, especially the many position papers produced by devotees like Ravindra Svarupa and others?
I want to suggest that these Women’s Conferences and related educational efforts have contributed mightily to formulating a new framework capable of politicizing devotee women. Participants at last years conference in Los Angeles learned what for many was a new comprehensive history of women within ISKCON. This history shattered the prevailing traditionalist gender paradigm giving legitimation to the (mis)treatment of women. Women heard from the mouths, and subsequently the written texts reproduced on the internet, of Jyotirmayi Devi Dasi, Pranada Devi Dasi, Radha Devi Dasi, and others, how women weren’t always subject to the treatment they have come to expect in ISKCON. Of great significance was the high regard and respect that Prabhupada extended to his female disciples during ISKCON’s early days. During this period in ISKCON’s history women – with Prabhupada’s approval – held responsible positions, gave –classes, led public kirtans, performed public aratis, worshipped Tulsi together with men rather than separately, offered flowers to Prabhupada during guru–puja and offered their obeisance’s in front of his vyasasana at the same time as men. More generally women came to understand that Prabhupada’s views about women were distorted or simply overlooked by the leaders under him. In the words of the modern Women’s movement in this country, ISKCON women had their consciousness raised. Presumably for some women this began a process that led them to reclaim their identity as responsible and productive people and devotees.
Rejected were derogatory notions of women in favor of ideas that gave them value and worth as intended by Prabhupada. As one woman who has been instrumental in the effort to educate men and women about women’s issues stated:
I think the mobilization of women and their issues has increased because of the educating we have been doing. It was a widespread belief that the status quo of women in ISKCON was Prabhupada’s doing. It has become increasingly evident that this is not the case. Therefore, changing it and questioning it has become acceptable. Indeed, ten years ago no one would hear the discussion because it was heretical against Prabhupada. Now I would venture to say that there are a rising number of people convinced that what happened to women in ISKCON was NOT what Prabhupada intended. That was a big shift. So education, communication, discussion has done a lot to change the atmosphere. (September 1998)
Declining Labor Supply and Increasing Responsibilities/Roles for Women.
There is a growing body of evidence that suggests that women are playing an increasing role in many Christian denominations as well as in Reform and Conservative Judaism.
When I say increasing role I mean specifically that women are gaining a greater presence in the professional side of the church; as ordained clergy or, as in the case of the Roman Catholic Church, as lay ministers who pastor most of the 300 priestless parishes in the United States (Wallace 1992). It is important to make this distinction here between professional clerical roles and other roles, since, iri fact, it is fair to say that women have been active members in the day-to-day life of most Churches in America.
The pragmatic requirements of churches as communities of believers requires, as we all know, a great deal of human time and energy, more often than not this has been the domain of women. (Can you imagine a festival taking place in this community if no women showed up to do the work required?)
Since 1970 women in the United States have become ordained clergy in ever larger numbers. In 1970 three percent of the clergy were women. By 1990 approximately 10 percent of the clergy were women in this country. Presently over 30 percent of the students enrolled in schools of theology are women, in some denominations that percentage rises to 50% and higher (Chaves 1997:1). The increasing number of women in clerical roles has led some scholars to suggest that there is an ongoing feminization of the clergy taking place in the United States (Nesbitt 1997). Although a number of explanations have been offered for the rising number of women clergy, research has suggested that one major reason has been the shortage of male clergy, or the declining number of men seeking a clerical vocation (but see Chaves 1997:131-33 for a different view). A number of scholars (see e.g., Carroll et a1., 1983) have suggested that men are eschewing clerical careers because of the declining prestige (and compensation) associated with clerical roles and duties. To quote Paula Nesbitt from her recent book Feminization of the Clergy in America.
Although feminization itself may be regarded simply as an objective process of increasing the ratio of women relative to men to the extent that the church – and its clergy – become predominantly female, such change typically has been associated with devalued prestige (1997:26)
I want to suggest what is probably self-evident to most everyone in this room. The expanding opportunities for women within ISKCON to work as Temple Presidents, managers, administrators, and the like, are at least in part (perhaps in large part) a function of the fact that ISKCON temples in North America and elsewhere lack a sufficient supply of male labor to fill such critical roles. Stripped of prestige, money, and authority, men with administrative ability have abandoned the very idea of becoming temple presidents. The glamour and status is gone; only headaches remain. Temples thus are too often left to be run poorly by men, not up to the task, or, in a few and growing number of instances, by women. While this process of shifting the balance between men and women involved in temple management and related responsibilities is only beginning, and could be reversed, it seems plausible to argue that ISKCON is beginning to undergo a process of feminization that in ways parallels what has happened in conventional denominations. Let me provide some evidence for the argument I am making here before I make yet another analytic turn.
In a letter to me outlining their thoughts on the issues raised in this paper, two long-time devotee women and Prabhupada disciples offer the following description and analysis concerning the relationship between (literally) manpower shortages and the increasing responsibilities accorded women in ISKCON.
In most temples there is a severe shortage of manpower and of male devotees willing to take up responsibilities. There are less men overall, and among those present, less are willing now to take up responsible positions . . . So women are invited to take up responsibilities more and more, because there is nobody else to do the job. If there would be available men, we have no doubt or illusion that they would get a chance first. We are not so naive to think that the men leaders appreciate us so much more than in the past; in a way they became forced by circumstances to engage us and give us more responsibilities. (September 1998)
They do go on to say that there are some sincere male leaders; but also that “Maybe Krishna is tricking them a little bit.” Circumstances (created by Krishna) are forcing men to put aside what have been traditionalist notions of gender for the sake of running temples; the very foundation of ISKCON as a religious organization.
One of them comments further about the dilemma she recently faced with respect to opportunities for new service:
Before leaving (location), I was asked to take up two important posts of responsibilities, to my great astonishment, in the very temple where I had suffered so much, attending tulasi pujo in the cold outside the temple in the winter time, and never being invited to give a class, which I love to do. When they asked me to take up these posts, 1 thought they were really desperate, and had quite some guts to ask, knowing my feeling on the matter. (September 1998)
As implied in these two statements men (and certainly many women as well) are now occupied with outside employment and family responsibilities which make working within ISKCON prohibitive. This is all the more the case given the rather limited compensation that is attached to ISKCON positions, and “the headaches” involved. In a sense there is no manpower because there are few qualified (and even not so qualified men) able and willing to take on positions of responsibility. By default, women are asked to assume greater responsibility in management and the governance smictures of local temples.I now want to offer one more analytic piece to this puzzle. I want to return to something I said earlier about the findings in Table 1. As you will remember, men and women both tended to reject traditionalist ideas of gender roles for women in ISKCON.
Yes it is true that women reject these ideas with a stronger sense of conviction but even so both men and women tend to reject many traditional ideas about gender. I believe men’s changing views of women’s roles are at least in part a function of the fact that ISKCON, or certainly ISKCON communities, now need women to perform critical organizational roles. In a very pragmatic sense previous ideas about women must be rejected, or at least pushed to the margins, if women are to hold responsible and demanding roles within ISKCON’s management structure. How can women be both “ignorant,” “incapable,” “a threat to men, and so forth, and involved in complex, important, and demanding managerial and administrative work. What I am saying here is that women are necessarily being reconstructed as a matter of social identity because of the needs of ISKCON for female labor. The culture of ISKCON can no longer afford to portray women in derogatory terms given the vital role they are increasingly playing in the movement’s functioning. In a very real sense the ideals that define the women’s movement within ISKCON (i.e., equal standing with men spiritually and materially; performance being the relevant criteria rather than gender, and so on) are increasingly compatible with ISKCON’s need for women to occupy significant organizational positions in the absence of men. In sum, the content of women’s resurgent voices is becoming co-opted into ISKCON’s organizational culture and, perhaps, into its’ religious culture as well.
I realize that the above analysis is incomplete and perhaps overly one-sided and I look forward to hearing what others have to say.
Dec1ining Authority of the Leaders and the Growth of Political Opportunities.
Now a few brief words about the role of political opportunities in the rise of protest concerning women’s issues. Scholars of social movements and political protest have been perplexed about the timing of insurgency. Often groups of people suffer from extreme and unjust hardships but fail to mobilize collectively. In other cases people mobilize into effective movements when grievances seem less severe. The question is why? One response to this question has been to suggest that protest activity is more likely to occur when political elites are under siege; internally fragmented and incapable of acting in unison to crush or otherwise undermine dissent. In other words, when elites are in disarray there are greater opportunities for staging protest activity and for it to prove successful.
As political scientist Sidney Tarrow describes, political opportunity structures are “ . . . dimensions of the political environment that provide incentives for people to undertake collective action by affecting their expectations for success or failure” ( 1994:85). Tarrow goes on to say that political opportunities sometimes widen for an entire citizenry as they did for example in Eastern Europe during the 1980s.
Without belaboring this point here, I think that the scandal and controversy surrounding the guru institution and the GBC, and the accompanying loss of authority attributed to these institutions by many ISKCON members, has provided a source of leverage for a number of aggrieved groups within ISKCON; the second generation, women, as well as householders more generally. Clearly the situation with ISKCON’s leadership has also encouraged devotees who find reason to challenge the very foundation of ISKCON’s political and religious culture, as evidenced by the increasingly influential ritvik movement. All of these challenging groups I want to suggest have gained momentum in part because of the political opportunities afforded by a weakened leadership, a leadership I might add in this regard, that has championed traditionalist notions of women. As ISKCON’s guru and sannyasi leadership has become, as one sannyasi and GBC member told me “dinosaurs” in today’s ISKCON, devotees have been able to more freely challenge the injustices they experience and to expect that these challenges will prove successful. This is all the more likely when members of the GBC and individual gurus lend support for various causes such as the plight ISKCON’s women.
Feminization and the Future of ISKCON.
I realize I have gone on for some time so allow me to sum up quickly by returning to the question of feminization and what this might mean for ISKCON in the future.
First let me say that I may be wrong. Wrong because what I am trying to isolate here has for the most part only emerged within ISKCON’s communities, and even then is occurring in select parts of the ISKCON world. I may also be premature in my analysis because the process of feminization I am suggesting may meet with a backlash by ISKCON’s male leadership, and by men in general. Other religious groups have experienced such a backlash after granting women the right of ordination. Whether or not such a backlash will occur in ISKCON, however, depends on the leadership regaining its authority and overcoming its critically weakened political position. Men in general will also need to find reason to reassert themselves in the operation of local temples, thereby again pushing out women who have or may in the future fill positions of responsibility. For now I see neither of these things happening in the immediate future.
As all of you are aware ISKCON in North America, and from my studies worldwide, is becoming a congregationally-based movement (Rochford 1995, 1997). What might this mean for women and women’s roles within ISKCON? My suspicion is that ideas about women and gender inclusivity prevalent in mainstream liberal societies will become more of an influence on devotee women. Some, not all, traditionalist ideas about gender will likely be challenged and ultimately jettisoned by many women and men alike.
REFERENCES
Berger, Bermett. The Survival of a Counterculture. Los Angeles: University of California Press.
Carrod. J. , B. Hargrove, and A. Lummis. 1983. Women of the Cloth: A New Opportunity for the Churches. San Francisco: Harper and Row.
Chaves, Mark. 1997. Ordaining Women. Cambridge, Ma: Harvard University Press.
Devi Dasi, Jyotirmayi. 1997. “Women in ISKCON in Prabhupada’s Times.” Chakra Web site.
Nesbitt, Paula. 1997. Feminization of the Clergy in America. New York: Oxford University Press.
Rochford, E. Burke, Jr,. Hare Krishna in America. New Brunswick, NJ; Rutgers University Press.
Rochford, E. Burke, Jr,. 1995. “Family Structure, Commitment, and Involvement in the Hare Krishna Nlovement.” Socioloev of Religion 56 (2): 133-175.
Rochford, E. Burke, Jr,. 1997. “Family Formation, Culture, and Change in the Hare Krishna Movement.” ISKCON Communication Journal
Rochford, E. Burke, Jr,. 1998. “Child Abuse in the Hare Krishna Movement.” ISKCON Communication Journal
Tarrow, Sidney. 1994. Power in Movement. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wallace, Ruth. 1992. They Call Her Pastor: A New Role for Catholic Women. Albany: State. University of New York Press.
Table 1. Select Agree-Disagree Items Dealing with Women from the Prabhupada Centennial Survey by Gender.
| Statement Female | Male |
| Strongly Agree Agree | Strongly Agree Agree |
| Women and men should be able to chant | |
| japa together in the Temple. 29%(190) 30%(198) | 14 0%(157) 31%(352) |
| Men and women should worship on | |
| differem sides of the temple so that both 46%(296) 33%(214) | 31%(349) 42%(472) |
| have equal access to the Deities. | |
| OUT movement is excessively dominated by | |
| unmarried celibate males. 22%( 136) 70%(166) | 12%(135) 23%(249) |
| Women should have the same opportunities | |
| as men to realize their full potential in 58%(384) 37%(242) | 45%(520) 46%(530) |
| devotional service. | |
| Performance not gender should determine | |
| who is placed in a given ISKCON position. 54%(330) 36 %(220) | 37%(400) 44%(474) |
| Fathers should work and support their | |
| families; Mothers should care for children 27%( 167) 44%(272) | 24%(268) 56%(616) |
| and home. | |
| Over the past several years I have seen the | |
| attimde of devotee men toward women 11%(59) 70%(396) | 11%(104) 74%(711) |
| devotees become more accepting. | |
| As a general rule, women’s and men’s | |
| intelligence are suited for different 29%( 184) 49%(313) | 33 %(368) 55 %(621) |
| activities. | |
| Many women devotees suffer from low self- | |
| esteem largely because they feel mistreated | |
| by devotee men. (If you don’t know leave 33%(140) 9%(166) | 18%(102) 50%(276) |
| blank.) | |
| Women are the spiritual equals of men. 59%(382) 34%(223) | 48%(541) 44%(504) |
| Prabhupada never intended for women to be | |
| treated as if they were less than equal to 54%(341) 38%(243) | 38%(414) 47%(504) |
|
As a woman, I sometimes encounter a |
|
| degree of sexism in our | |
| movement that is a barrier to my spiritual 23%(140) 25%(148) | – – |
| advancement. (If you are a man, leave | |
| blank.) |
