Elevate the Dignity of Women

There should be coordinated cooperative leadership between men and women.

The oppression of women in our society happens in very subtle as well as very overt ways.

Women’s attractiveness is used as a commodity to sell everything from cigarettes to car parts.

Women are said to be welcome in the working world, but as they enter they find that they earn 60 percent of the wages that men receive; experience frequent sexual harassment and discrimination; and find few opportunities for creative and meaningful work.

As mothers, women find themselves in a society that gives lip service but little else in support of family life and children. Being a parent closes off many career and economic alternatives, and most often leads women into financial dependence or total poverty.

As our society becomes increasingly more violent, women are rarely the perpetrators and frequently the victims of violent crime. Rape, assault, incest, wife battering and other kinds of mental and physical abuse leave many women injured and force the rest of us to live in fear.

Despite what we consider an “advanced society,” education art and literature, health care, and many other fields neglect half the world’s population. How many women do children learn about in their history books? How much art and literature makes it to popularity that reflects the life experience of women? How often do women get an appropriate chance to learn about their own bodies or to find compassionate and competent health care?

Proper respect and dignity for women is something that women must fight for and men must acknowledge. A society can only limp along at best when the rights and potentials of half its population are ignored and trampled upon. Women will have to develop courage and a spirited intellect, so that we can make our compassionate and creative changes in the future society.

Yet, while it would be an accomplishment to see women leaders occupy half the government positions to reflect their numbers in society, it will be more important to work for the day when women’s interests are promoted whether a man or a woman is holding office.

PROUT has a separate, parallel women’s organization to promote women’s interests and give women and men a chance to work independently while still functioning as a unit4ed group with a common Neo-Humanistic goal. The women’s PROUT organizations have platforms such as:

Economic Independence for Women:

We promote and create cottage industries and other alternative workplaces which break down the rigid walls between the domestic and business worlds, so that women are spared the frequent and agonizingly difficult choice between family and career. We also seek to insure positive economic and career alternatives for women.

Free Mothers Program:

We work to encourage respect and joy for the profession of parenting; we support natural ways of nurturing which fill the many needs of both parents and child; we develop economic opportunities which keep families intact; and we advocate community support for all mothers, no matter what their situation or where they live.

Bringing spirituality into the women’s movement:

We shed a spiritual light onto women’s issues so that women’s struggles don’t become limited to only one portion of the world’s women and so that the women’s movement doesn’t fall into the trap of hating those people whose actions retard women’s progress. Spirituality has been and will always be an essential source of strength and unity for women, and can’t be left behind if women are to move forward.

Physical and mental education for women:

We teach self-defense, exercise and yoga to women and develop courage, strength and good health. We encourage women to develop their educational opportunities through continued study. We agitate for an educational system that demonstrates the importance of women in the past, present, and future society.

There is no chance for the welfare of the world unless the condition of women is approved. It is not possible for a bird to fly on one wing.  – P.R. Sarkar