Women in Mayapur

from Anandini devi dasi

Hare Krsna!

I am writing in response to the discrimination against women in Mayapur. I am a young devotee, only 25 years old, and come from a generation where women and men are generally looked at as the same. It is really disturbing to my Krsna Consciousness to hear about the way women are treated in ISKCON still.

Don't get me wrong, I do see a lot of improvements in the short seven years I've been coming, but things like this still throw me off. The way I see it is that this is not the year 1400. Things are different in this day and age, and Prabhupada saw this. That's why he gave women initiation and so forth.

Also, more than anything, it bothers me to hear sannyasis or men in general say, "It disturbes the brahmacaris when a woman gives class or leads kirtans." Well what about the women's Krsna Consciousness? Didn't it ever occur to them that maybe the women get agitated hearing men all the time?

It is as if my Krsna Consciousness is not as important because I am a woman. That is what these types of statements imply. And another problem this brings up is that we preach that you are not the body, and when a new female devotee comes along and we shove it in her face that she is a woman.

It is hard enough to be a devotee in Kali Yuga, especially in the West. Why make it harder!

Your servant,

Anandini dd

CHAKRA 21-Jul-98