https://www.internationalwomensday.com/

8th March 2019

EQUAL RIGHTS FOR WOMEN EQUATES TO WORLD PEACE SAYS BAHAI LEADER (Don’t miss James Brown & Luciano Pavarotti at article’s close.)

As a writer I approach the question of equal rights for women from the perspective of a linguist. It’s surprising how many commonalities exist therein. My four sisters are much to be thanked!

For a male audience in patriarchal societies of a world long riven by gender-based injustice how does one broach the subject of equal rights for women? Consider the kindly wisdom of Sir Abdul Baha Abbas (KBE), knighted by Field Marshall Allenby for his humanitarian work in Palestine during WW1. His mindset-changing starting points adapted from the world of nature arouse the interest of men without deriding them : (1) only the female date palm bears the fruit (2) in Africa the hunter rightly fears above all, the lioness, not the lion (3) in the Arabian Desert the longest wind for the longest journey is possessed by the mare, not the stallion. Explain too that Bahai families in straitened circumstances prefer to expend on education in favour of the girl child for she is the first teacher of the next generation. Though Bahai men and women share equal rights, the latter, on a level playing field, in several ways in Abdul Baha’s estimation – are superior beings. Albeit his iconoclastic teachings remain largely unrealized in Iran and Yemen, as just two examples where government policies actually impoverish Bahai families, world peace is unattainable until women’s rights are accepted and implemented.

http://bahaiteachings.org/building-feminist-consciousness-welcoming-men http://bahaiteachings.org/equality-superiority-of-women http://bahaiteachings.org/ending-male-dominance http://bahaiteachings.org/ways-women-take-back-sisterhood

Flight into the realm of world peace is retarded until women are equally represented in the parliaments of the world – primarily because women, and especially mothers, will move heaven and earth rather than see their sons or daughters needlessly fall in combat against other nations. By and large, despite a few bellicose examples in recent history, ‘tis women in government assisted by their advisers and supporters who will succeed in outlawing war itself, if not into the bargain, in eradicating all armed conflict once and for all.

http://bahaiteachings.org/woman-sacrifices-life-equality https://bahaiteachings.org/how-can-promote-equality-between-men-and-women

That masculine forms of speech appear in abundance in Bahai scripture is attributable to deficiencies of language, not only in English, as used in the 19th century and earlier. Shoghi Effendi, the sole (sic) Guardian of the Bahai Faith, demonstrated the highest standards of translation and of course utilized norms of his era. When the principle of an auxiliary international language is practised in accordance with Abdul Baha’s instructions as to “gender, extra and silent letters” and so on, a masculine bias obvious in various national languages will appear so striking that such usage will fall away forever. Briefly, this amateur’s objective is to address gender-based prejudice evident in English over centuries, en route to discussing divine bounties associated with the universal auxlang principle in general, not necessarily its official selection or wide scale adoption at this time. Recent technological advances in the ether reveal debasement of the vast and euphonic English language in the wrong hands. For children to avoid obscenities, banalities and crass advertisements on the Information Super Highway, well-nigh insurmountable challenges arise. Whether in polite or coarse English, a surfeit of derogatory words without masculine gender equivalents, which disparagingly depict women of all ages, constitutes a sexist abomination: e.g. crone, hag, harridan, harpy, shrew, termagant, virago, slut, ‘lush’, just to mention a few of the quasi-printable epithets invented by man.

James Brown & Luciano Pavarotti nail it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gb-B3lsgEfA

“National Geographic Travel” is featuring online at present, in honour of March 8th’s significance, some great photos from about a century ago vis-a-vis activists in various parts of the world who campaigned inter alia for women’s rights

A window of opportunity was slammed shut about 150 years ago, vis-a-vis equal rights for women and men, when the Iranian government had the remarkably courageous Tahirih put to to death for unveiling: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T%C3%A1hirih

Exacerbating the same prejudice against women was the UN-decried action of the same theocracy in Iran when it hanged nine young women one after the other as witness to the one hanged a few moments previously – for the ‘crime’ of not recanting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mona_Mahmudnizhad

Five years ago in Tehran I witnessed first hand that though things are improving there for women there’s a long way to go