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Fall 1995

World Order

THE UNITED NATIONS AT FIFTY
EDITORIAL

WOMEN AND MEN: TOWARD ACHIEVING
COMPLEMENTARITY
MARILYN J. RAY, M.D.

OF WEBS AND LADDERS: GENDER
EQUALITY IN BAHÁ’Í LAW
MARTHA LEACH SCHWEITZ

SPIRITUAL VERTIGO AT THE EDGE
OF GENDER EQUALITY
JANE J. RUSSELL

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World Order

VOLUME 27, NUMBER 1

WORLD ORDER IS INTENDED TO STIMULATE, INSPIRE, AND SERVE THINKING PEOPLE IN
THEIR SEARCH TO FIND RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN CONTEMPORARY LIFE AND CONTEMPORARY
RELIGIOUS TEACHINGS AND PHILOSOPHY

Editorial Board:
FIRUZ KAZEMZADEH
BETTY J. FISHER
HOWARD GAREY
ROBERT H. STOCKMAN
JAMES D. STOKES

Consultant in Poetry:
HERBERT WOODWARD MARTIN

Subscriber Service:
LISA CORTES

WORLD ORDER is published quarterly by the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States, 415 Linden Avenue, Wilmette, IL 60091. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to WORLD ORDER Subscriber Service, Bahá’í National Center, Wilmette, IL 60091. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the publisher, the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States, or of the Editorial Board. Manuscripts can be typewritten or computer generated. They should be double spaced throughout, with the footnotes at the end. The contributor should send four copies—an original and three legible copies—and should keep a copy. Return postage should be included. Send manuscripts and other editorial correspondence to WORLD ORDER, 415 Linden Avenue, Wilmette, IL 60091.

Subscription rates: U.S.A., 1 year, $15.00; 2 years, $28.00; single copies, $3.75. Surface mail to all other countries, 1 year, $15.00; 2 years, $28.00; single copies, $3.75. Airmail to all other countries, 1 year, $20.00; 2 years, $38.00.

WORLD ORDER is protected through trademark registration in the U.S. Patent Office.

Copyright © 1995, National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States. All Rights Reserved. Printed in the U.S.A.
ISSN 0043-8804

IN THIS ISSUE

2   The United Nations at Fifty

Editorial

4   Interchange: Letters from and to the Editor

7   Evolutionary Creation

poem by Monica Reller

7   Morning Anthem

poem by Kurt Hein

9   Women and Men: Toward Achieving Complementarity

by Marilyn J. Ray, M.D.

19   Sun Magnificent

poem by Duane L. Herrmann

21   Of Webs and Ladders: Gender Equality in Bahá’í Law

by Martha Leach Schweitz

41   Spiritual Vertigo at the Edge of Gender Equality

by Jane J. Russell

Inside back cover: Authors & Artists in This Issue

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The United Nations at Fifty

FIFTY YEARS ago last summer, as World War II was coming to an end, representatives of the victorious allies who had defeated Germany and were soon to defeat Japan met in San Francisco to sign the Charter of an international organization the purpose of which would be to maintain peace on earth. The United Nations, brainchild of an American president and strongly supported by the United States, aroused the hope of humanity that the era of international violence had come to an end. The choice of New York City as the seat of the UN headquarters further symbolized the strong commitment of the United States to the new organization.

Although the United Nations has not been able to prevent all wars and to resolve all conflicts that have plagued the world since the Charter was signed in San Francisco, its record is impressive. It has been instrumental in the peaceful resolution of many disputes. Its subsidiary institutions such as the United Nations Commission on Human Rights and United Nations Children’s Fund have made enormous contributions to the wellbeing of humanity. Its international conventions and declarations on genocide, political and social rights, the elimination of racial discrimination, the rights of women, and the rights of the child have set standards of behavior for the entire world. Most important of all, the UN has been a school of international cooperation and a step in the direction of a world order based on law.

Yet today the United Nations is under attack in the country that has done most for its establishment. A sizeable portion of the American public has been influenced by neo-isolationism. In its extreme form anti-UN sentiment is based on absurd notions of a conspiracy to destroy the US; but even a saner opposition derives from misunderstanding and misreading of history.

The Bahá’í position has always been clear. Bahá’ís do not deny the UN’s shortcomings. It is an immature institution that has a long way to go before it could live up to its ideal mandate. However, it is an indispensable organization. It must be nurtured, supported, improved, refined, strengthened, and enabled to carry out its task of maintaining peace and promoting cooperation throughout the world.

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Interchange LETTERS FROM AND TO THE EDITOR

THE World Order editors have always hoped that the magazine would stimulate readers, as our masthead says, to find relationships between contemporary life and contemporary religious teachings and philosophy. But they have never before thought of the magazine as a crucible affecting their own thoughts and feelings in a profound way that has provoked discussions and changes not imaginable in the past. Perhaps the effect is cumulative. For the third time in the last two years World Order is devoting a major portion of or an entire issue to the equality of women and men. Our Winter 1993-94 issue reprinted two statements on the equality of women and men and examined the issue from an historical perspective in two articles on women in general and on African-American women in the U.S. Bahá’í community. We were pleased with the results, and you, the readers, responded by buying so many copies that the issue was soon out of print.

The Spring 1995 issue contained two essays based on presentations made at the January 1995 Conference on Women in Bahá’í Perspective held in Wilmette, Illinois, and sponsored by the Institute for Bahá’í Studies. One essay entitled “The Role of Men in Establishing the Equality of Women,” by Dr. Hoda Mahmoudi, provided an overview that clearly makes the challenge not one for women alone. Dr. Michael L. Penn’s “Violence Against Women and Girls” discussed the global epidemic of violence against women and girls and outlined ways in which men can help to eradicate the problem. Again, the editors were pleased with results and gratified when the American Bar Association asked permission to reprint Dr. Penn’s essay for a seminar on “Public Right and Private Injustice: Internationally Sanctioned Violence Against Women” sponsored by its International Rights and Responsibilities Committee and its Women’s Rights Committee at its annual meeting in August.

However, the discussions begun earlier in the year, as the editors read and consulted about the articles presented at the Conference on Women in Bahá’í Perspective for possible publication in World Order, took a different turn as we planned a second issue drawing from the conference talks. Issues of equality between the sexes that were mostly ignored or, if acknowledged, were referred to indirectly or in jest became concrete in a way that challenged the members of the Board to reexamine previously held notions and methods of expression. Passages that seemed at first to be male bashing challenged the men to listen, really listen, to what was being said, the women to articulate forcefully and clearly what seemed to be givens, day in and day out, for them and for many other women, and the authors to use the strong reactions to certain passages for articulating their points in ways that clarify the issues for both women and men. The consultation has also challenged the editors to rethink patterns of communication among themselves and between them and the authors, since so many of the patterns have been framed by men.

We now share with you three more essays that have truly been a crucible for the [Page 5] editors. You may wish to start with the one by Marilyn J. Ray, M.D., which provides one of the first summaries by a Bahá’í of the field of developmental psychology and that field’s fascinating findings about the differences between women and men. In making decisions on moral issues, women, it has been shown in many studies, generally are more concerned about preserving relationships and maintaining connectedness, whereas men tend to focus more on maintaining abstract principles of justice even at the cost of human relationships. The differences appear traceable to the foundational psychological research by Freud and to subsequent researchers such as Jean Piaget and Lawrence Kohlberg. Until Carol Gilligan and other feminist developmental psychologists began, in the early 1980s, to write about the differences between the sexes, such differences were often construed to support female inferiority. Dr. Ray notes the importance in the Bahá’í writings of both the masculine and feminine values identified in developmental psychology and particularly quotes ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s and Shoghi Effendi’s positive comments about the feminine values of connection, interrelationship, caring, and intimacy.

For those interested in the, ways that law helps or hinders the equality of the sexes, the essay by Martha Leach Schweitz, a professor of law, is compelling. She casts her net more widely, noting that “social/ psychoanalytic feminism” (the type discussed by Dr. Ray) is only one of three types of feminism. Professor Schweitz seeks to use all three to explore what may be the basic question for Bahá’í feminism: What does equality really mean? Each of the three feminisms has produced its own answer to the question, “liberal feminism” seeking equal opportunity and treatment under the law, “radical feminism” stressing the pervasive nature of patriarchy and its grip on the structures of society, and “social/psychoanalytic feminism” emphasizing the need to accord equal cultural and social status to woman’s “ethic of care.” Professor Schweitz does not see the three as exclusive but rather as three approaches that can yield complementary insights. After describing ways the three have been applied to reform the United States legal system, she argues that equality means freedom from systematic subordination because of sex and details Bahá’í principles that support such a definition in the areas of education, violence at home and in society, economic/political discrimination, family relations, and motherhood. In the process, Professor Schweitz establishes a context that helps reduce the significance of the lack of gender-neutral language in the Bahá’í scriptures or their English translations and that helps provide a context for more difficult Bahá’í teachings such as exclusion of women from the Universal House of Justice.

For a look at how the one hundred year old U.S. Bahá’í community is doing, Ms. Jane J. Russell’s paper examines the progress it has made toward implementing the principle of the equality of the sexes by considering four areas. It assesses the present level of implementation of this principle and finds the percentages of women occupying [Page 6] offices on Bahá’í governing bodies to reflect existing gender stereotypes in society. It analyzes the costs of non-implementation, especially the psychic costs that sexism inflicts on the Bahá’í community. It considers that difficulties in implementation arise from the fact that the principle of sexual equality is entirely new to society, and thus society lacks models for implementing it. The result is disorientation or spiritual vertigo. Finally, it proposes that the courage to implement can be found in thorough, detached study and application of the pertinent Bahá’í writings.

We hope that you, like us, will read and reread the articles in the Spring and Fall 1995 issues and use them for reexamining your own notions about the equality of women and men, what it means for you, your family, your workplace, and your community and for peace in the world. We cannot promise the study and discussions will be easy, but you will be hard pressed to remain where you are now in your thinking and actions.

* * *

Another fascinating aspect of editing the articles in this issue has been working around and through the double lives that many women lead. Men, of course, frequently have busy lives too and many demands on their time. One reader who helped generously in critiquing one of the articles told us at the end of the process that he had a book under contract with a summer deadline, was a consultant for a large Canadian project, had been funded for a first major project, was writing a paper for a conference, had many family and religious commitments, had relatives coming—and was dealing with family and friends who thought a professor who had the summer off was not really working. Perhaps we did not see how his life as a father and husband fought for time with his professional commitment.

With the women the double lives were always up close. All three authors are professional women who have jobs outside the house (two full time and one part time). Among the three we worked around a women who was relocating herself and her two children from a sabbatical at a major U.S. university back to Japan where her husband had been living alone in the house for nine months. Another author was in the midst of moving from one city to another in the same state, entailing buying a new house, putting the old house on the market (with all the cleaning up and keeping spotless that requires), nursing a sick child who got through one illness only to sustain a severe spider bite that required treatment and then a skin graft, and pulling together medical credentials for a new job. The third woman’s father had a severe stroke, requiring a trip out of state. All three women had supportive husbands, but all three were juggling aspects of dual lives in ways that men frequently are spared. Our hats are off to them, for however busy the husbands and fathers are, and however supportive, we can never remember consulting on the telephone with a male author while a child in the background called for attention, or a meal, or a ride to a lesson or ball game. We all have a long way to go. We hope the articles in the last several issues of World Order help point the way to a more balanced life style for all of us.

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Evolutionary Creation

We are descendants of the stars

Cousins of the quasars

Elements re-arranged

Collective psyche in our DNA

Emanations of Eternal Mind.

We are star-dust

Reflecting the glory

Of the Maker of stars

—Monica Reller

Copyright © 1995 by Monica Reller

Morning Anthem

The One and Searing Sun ascends

a chill, unlighted sky.

Set spinning in the solar wind

ignited atoms fly.

In their heated soaring, melting;

flaming comets merging: melding

one great molecule,

one unity, one life.

A new-born world is gleaming

in the Blessed Beauty’s beaming—

in the dazzling,

blazing

brilliance

of His light.

—Kurt Hein

Copyright © 1995 by Kurt Hein

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Women and Men: Toward
Achieving Complementarity

BY MARILYN J. RAY, M.D.

Copyright © 1995 by the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States. This essay is based on a paper presented at the conference on Women in Bahá’í Perspective, held in Wilmette, Illinois, 27-29 January 1995. I would like to thank Dr. Hoda Mahmoudi, Dr. Robert Bassett, and Dr. Harriet Kimble Wrye For their support, suggestions, and inspiration.

THE definitive element in the word psychology is the Greek root psych-, which means mind, soul, and spirit. Thus psychology, based on the Greek root psych-, is the study of the soul or the self. That drive to know one’s self—one’s nature and the purpose of one’s life—derives from human beings’ unique capacity for self-awareness and seems to be as old as humanity itself. Like the Greeks, all the revealed religions have counseled the faithful to strive to know themselves. In the present age the writings of Bahá’u’lláh, Founder of the Bahá’í Faith, repeatedly exhort all people to strive for such self-knowledge: “Turn thy sight unto thyself, that thou mayest find Me standing within thee, mighty, powerful and self-subsisting.” “True loss is for him whose days have been spent in utter ignorance of his self.” “‘He hath known God who hath known himself.”

But it was not until the late nineteenth century that the field of psychology as it is known today—the systematic study of the mind and human behavior—emerged as a scientific discipline and a profession no longer formally connected with religion or philosophy. Researchers turned from the philosophical study of human nature through speculation, intuition, and generalization and from the spiritually informal counsel of organized religion to carefully controlled observation and experimentation, thereby superficially attaining some independence for psychology from its philosophical and religious antecedents. It is noteworthy that in 1879, during the lifetime of Bahá’u’lláh, the German Wilhelm Wundt established the first psychological laboratory in the world. In 1892, the year of Bahá’u’lláh’s passing, the American Psychological Association was established. Thus the emergence of psychology parallels the emergence of the most comprehensive religious system to appear since Christianity and Islam. Both the Bahá’í Faith and psychology have a great deal to say about knowledge of self and its relation to gender. But while Bahá’u’lláh, from the inception of His Faith, emphatically and unequivocally asserted a common spiritual nature and equal social station for women and men, the field of psychology is evolving toward that view much more slowly.

A full exploration of the evolution of psychological and psychoanalytic theory over the ensuing century is beyond the scope of [Page 10] this essay, as is a comprehensive examination of Bahá’í teachings on the equality of the sexes. Discussion of psychological theories and Bahá’í teachings are limited here to those that are germane to the study of gender. For a more comprehensive overview of theory, interested readers may refer to A History of Modern Psychology by historian of psychology Duane Schultz; for a more comprehensive discussion of Bahá’í teachings on the equality of women and men, readers may refer to “Women,” in The Compilation of Compilations. Suffice it to say that until recently a review of psychological theory reveals a predominant view that judges the male, or the masculine, as the norm, and the female, or the feminine, as an aberration from the norm.

In fact, even given the young age of psychology as a whole, the study of the psychology of women is still in its infancy. As early as 1926 Karen Horney, an early disciple of Freud who later developed her own theories, was exploring the complexities of individual and cultural differences as important determinants of concepts of femininity. However, it is only since the early 1970s that the bias of male researchers, setting up research algorithms unwittingly biased against women and using only male subjects, could be demonstrated by women researchers to have slanted the previously accepted ideas of development, morality, and maturity.

Complementary Differences
between Women and Men

CURRENT debates revolve around equality and differences in women and men as a basis for understanding and valuing “self.” One view of women is held primarily by religious fundamentalists who believe that on a moral and rational level women are inherently inferior to men. In this view women must learn to accept the interpretations arising from various religions that an inferior role has been imposed upon women by God. This widely held belief is at odds with current facts of the modern world, where, increasingly and globally, educated women are taking active roles in all aspects of society. However, the belief continues to govern policy and behavior for many people and for some national states and dictates a limited perception of “self” for women.

Another widely held point of view says that women and men are equal and the same except in the obvious physical ways and that women and men should behave identically in all aspects of life. The proponents of this theory feel that the difference one sees between men’s and women’s behavior is due solely to the subjugation of women by men through culturally imposed mores.

Yet a third view holds that women, while of equal worth as human beings, are inherently different psychologically. The proponents of this view feel that women have a particular perspective that can enrich humanity but that until now has been generally overlooked or suppressed. These theorists see [Page 11] women as equal but complementary to men. According to Webster’s dictionary a “complement” is something that “fills up, completes, or makes perfect.” “Complementary” is defined as “mutually supplying each other’s lack.”

All three views reflect concern about an increasingly asked questions: In what ways does culture influence gender differences? In what ways are differences innate? How do cultural and innate forces interact and foster gender differences? The views reflect the search for the appropriate role of women in today’s society.

The Bahá’í writings, replete with references both to the equality and to the complementarity of women and men, can have great impact on the current discussion of women’s psychology. For example, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, the Son of Bahá’u’lláh and the authorized interpreter of His Father’s writings, says that “The happiness of mankind will be realized when women and men coordinate and advance equally, for each is the complement and helpmeet of the other.” He also says that, “Just as physical accomplishment is complete with two hands, so man and woman, the two parts of the social body, must be perfect. It is not natural that either should remain undeveloped; and until both are perfected, the happiness of the human world will not be realized.” One’s right and left hands are of equal importance, but they are complements; they are not identical. In another analogy ‘Abdu’l-Bahá says that “The world of humanity has two wings—one is women and the other men. Not until both wings are equally developed can the bird fly. Should one wing remain weak, flight is impossible.” Thus the Bahá’í concept of equality is complicated by the Bahá’í concept of complementarity. Hence, in the Bahá’í view, defining the differences between women and men and then realizing that these differences need to be valued equally has profound implications for society now and in the future.

Theories of Moral Development. Unfortunately, in both traditional religion and in psychology, the perception of differences between women and men has commonly been used as the basis for concluding that women are morally inferior to men. The story of Adam and Eve, for example, has been used repeatedly to illustrate a perceived lack of moral insight by the female and has generated an enduring antifeminist tradition in European thought and belief. From the time of Freud (1856-1939) psychological moralists have determined that women, because of their differences, are inherently inferior to men in their moral views. It was through the academic discussion of moral development that certain theories of gender identity were developed.

At the crux of all the theories of moral development is a quest that seeks to answer the questions: How should a just society treat and value its people? Should there be separate standards for women and men, based on their natures? The philosophical search for the definition of justice and the good society is probably as old as humanity and, of course, was a philosophical theme of the Greeks. Socrates, extolled as “the most distinguished of all philosophers and . . . highly versed in wisdom,” grappled with the idea. Through Plato comes the Socratic concept of justice in which all parts of society working in harmony [Page 12] allow all individuals to fulfill exactly that for which they were created. To do this they each need to know themselves, and they need to know what “self” means. In the present era Bahá’u’lláh refers to justice as “The best beloved of all things in My sight,” “My gift to thee,” and “the sign of My loving-kindness.” He further says that “The establishment of order in the world and the tranquillity of the nations depend upon it.”

In addition, Bahá’u’lláh states that, “Should the lamp of religion be obscured, chaos and confusion will ensue, and the lights of fairness and justice, of tranquillity and peace cease to shine.” Inherent in these teachings of Bahá’u’lláh is the presumption that women and men have the same capacity to perceive justice and that religion opens the way (by opening the heart) to a just society. But most modern psychological theorists of morality negate or at least ignore the importance of religion to moral life.

For example, Freud, an atheist of sorts, tried to develop a moral code without a belief in the threat of divine retribution and the promise of divine reward. In his schema, human life, here and now, becomes the highest value, leading to confusion about many ethical questions. His view eliminates the fear of God, and thus the two pillars of justice—reward and punishment—disappear. But in spite of their limitations, most of Freud’s psychoanalytic theories are useful constructs that arose out of his work in nineteenth-century Austria. His revolutionary ideas have provided the groundwork for the entire field of psychoanalytic theory. However, they have grave limitations when applied to women’s psychology. In Freud’s view (much simplified here) women are unable to rise to the same moral level as men primarily because of issues around the resolution of the Oedipal conflict. Without a penis, women have no fear of castration, which, in Freud’s thinking, is the key to moral development. Essentially, he concluded that a penis is a requirement for the development of the highest conscience. In a way, that result is similar to traditional fundamentalist religion in that it equates the nonmaleness of females with moral and intellectual inferiority and assigns them a permanently pathological identity. Although most of Freud’s thinking in this area is not accepted today, the concept that women, because of physical differences that lead to psychological differences, are unable to achieve an equal moral standard as measured by men is integral to Freudian psychoanalytic theory.

Jean Piaget, a child psychologist, was the first of his profession to introduce the idea that boys’ orientation toward justice is an important factor to be considered in constructing theories of moral development. Studying boys’ practice and consciousness of rules in playing marbles, he produced a model of moral development from early through middle childhood that focused on the male child’s changing understanding of rules. He noted the importance of peer interplay in developing an understanding of rules and posited that from this concept of rules comes a consciousness of justice. Unfortunately, his book, published originally in 1932 as The Moral Judgment of the Child, was done with a small cohort of boys only. In fact, when Piaget found that girls play different games by different rules, he concluded that “in the main the legal sense is far less developed in [Page 13] little girls than in boys.” Girls did not fit the mold he had produced. Hence he concluded that they were less developed.

In the 1970s Lawrence Kohlberg, a psychologist at Harvard, proposed the most influential theory of moral development of the last twenty to thirty years. Struggling with the philosophical definitions of good and justice, he posited a hierarchy of moral reasoning, which he classified as the six stages of moral development. The lowest two stages, characteristic of children and criminals, showed an orientation to blind obedience (stage 1) or instrumental, concrete rewards (stage 2). The next two stages, characteristic of most of the adult population, involved being nice and gaining approval (stage 3) and doing one’s duty and obeying the law (stage 4). The highest two stages involved moral decisions based on social contracts (stage 5) and universal ethics (stage 6, the best stage). Caring, as a moral principle, was seen as leading to contextual or “situation” ethics and thus was deemed inferior to a rational approach involving justice.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s critics saw a problem in Kohlberg’s theory of universal moral development, when it became clear that most women interviewed by him would be placed in stage 3, and many more men than women achieved the higher stages (stages 4 through 6). As this line of critical thinking developed, the idea of a strict hierarchy in judging moral development came to be seen as biased against women.

One of Kohlberg’s graduate students, now a professor of psychology at Harvard, took umbrage with Kohlberg’s view. Carol Gilligan’s In a Different Voice, published in 1982, broke the paradigm, widely accepted until then, that saw women as morally inferior. In the introduction to her book, Gilligan posits that “the failure of women to fit existing models of human growth may point to a problem in the representation, a limitation in the conception of human condition, an omission of certain truths about life.”

Gilligan’s research involved interviewing women in the midst of a difficult ethical issue: whether or not to have an abortion. Through her research she found that the women’s decisions did not fit into the construct Kohlberg had devised. She discovered a distinctively feminine voice, one based on a commitment to selflessness and responsibility. Her analysis of the data led her to adopt a neopsychoanalytic theory of development based on attachment and separation, both recognized as critical forces in the development of both women and men and in the development of gender identification. In a Different Voice provided a needed paradigm shift in thinking about women’s psychology. Kohlbergs’s theories continued to evolve up to the time of his death in 1987; Gilligan’s theories are continuing to evolve.

Overview of Theories of Development. Numerous other authors are grappling with theories of development of gender identity, but the paradigm of the male as superior to the female has been broken. It is being [Page 14] replaced by another paradigm in which the male is different from the female, and the female is different from the male, but both are important. These theories of development are trying to eliminate the sense of superiority for either sex. An examination of truth leading to a functioning complementarity is the goal. The following discussion, drawing on many psychological theories, synthesizes them but does not presume to address fully the multiple issues involved in gender identity, such as the Oedipal complex, identification with role models, and the overall influence of culture, nor does it directly address adolescent and adult development.

In infancy, according to current development theory, the baby is in blissful “onement” with mother, is totally identified with her, and is unable to distinguish a separate self. As development proceeds, selfhood and individuation begin. At some point in early childhood every child becomes aware of his or her genitals. The girl realizes that she is the same as mother; the boy realizes that he is different.

For the girl, throughout infancy and childhood, there is no need to identify with anyone other than mother in terms of gender. The forces of life operate to maintain connection to mother. As a result, connection, or relatedness, can be seen as central to girls’ lives. Girls, therefore, value relationships highly in games and in conversation. A preoccupation with relationship is typical of girls’ play, as seen in the tendency to form small groups and to choose games such as hopscotch and jump rope that involve themselves in close contact with a single child. To keep relationships going girls stop games rather than argue about rules. Moral dilemmas are seen in terms of conflicting responsibilities.

The central dilemma for female development, in Gilligan’s view, is the conflict of connection yielding to separation. Morality is seen as a set of responsibilities. Taken to extremes, achievement and individuation can be seen as the breaking of relationships, a setting apart. For this reason, achievement can become threatening to girls. In a society that equates success with individual achievement this lack of an impulse toward individuation can lead to a lack of self-esteem. Relatedness and empathy are words that encapsulate important values for girls whose evolving ethic is one of responsibility, with life seen as a web of connections.

For the boy, in contrast, the realization that he is different from mother is wrenching and causes him to separate from mother in search of nonfeminine identity. This drive toward separation defines a constant in the direction of the masculine life toward individuation. Male identity is defined as the opposite of mother. As Nancy Chodorow, a psychoanalyst whose work is based on the assumption that a mother, not a father cares for little boys, states that “Boys come to define themselves as more separate and distinct, with a greater sense of rigid ego boundaries and differentiations.” This defining quality of boys is expressed in many ways. The set-up of games and the styles of play are hierarchical and help to define the self. The proving of separateness can be seen in many activities of play, whether sports, war games, power rangers, and so on. To have a winner boys change the rules of a game rather than stopping. Success is defined as linear individual achievement. Morality is seen as a set of rules to protect the individual—that is, as an ethic of rights. Life is seen as a hierarchy.

Since the boy unconsciously remembers the bliss in the original connection to mother, the identity of separateness necessarily causes anxiety. He fears that his constant longing for [Page 15] reconnection to mother might be discovered. In the extreme, the expression of the force toward separation, compounded by the anxiety of the possibility of discovery of the desire for mother, results perversely in the cultural devaluation of all things feminine that can be seen in society today. In fact, “psychoanalysts since Freud have repeatedly documented the defensiveness and fear of women and things feminine that characterize many of the most normal heterosexual men in our society.”

The devaluation of feminine ideals sets in motion a vicious cycle. Anxiety escalates as the boy grows, as he continues the need to define himself as other-than-feminine and to deny the importance of relationships relative to hierarchical success. This definition of the male role may have been necessary in the past since the role of sole breadwinner required an emotional and physical separation from the family. However, this definition of the male role, taken to extremes (as it often is in our society) can lead to severe psychological isolation and, in the extreme, to violence. In fact, violence is possible only with the suspension of the feminine ideal of empathy.

Classically, it is the father who brings into the family the values of the society. The role of the father in the definition of masculinity, and thus in the respect for things feminine, cannot be overestimated. Without an emotionally present, loving father as a role model to counteract the forces of separation, intimacy becomes threatening.

The task of the mature individual is to integrate the aspects of personality not originally developed in the original gender definition of self. For the man, who had been intent on separateness as a boy, maturity and integration are achieved when empathy and relatedness come to be highly valued. For the woman, intent on relationships as a girl, mature integration accepts the need to achieve and individuate. In other words, the mature moral person, in this view, would be similar, whether woman or man. In a perfectly balanced personality ethics of rights (law) and ethics of responsibilities (caring) would get equal play. The hierarchy in this scenario would learn to build a web; the web would learn to build a ladder. And personality would transcend gender, a view consistent with the Bahá’í view of soul as a having the innate capacity for justice, irrespective of gender.

Finding a Balance

SINCE 1982 a large body of work has been compiled regarding women’s psychology and feminist thinking, but many obstacles still obscure the nature of humankind’s true identity. Hundreds of authors now document the concerns of women. Linguists document how women and men talk differently; psychologists talk about how women and men learn differently; theories abound on the development and permanence of gender identity. Psychoanalytic thought now looks at preoedipal experience—before a child has any gender identity, at the concept of “womb envy,” and even at prenatal behavioral differences. But it is impossible in scientific studies to exclude fully influences of culture that denigrate half of the world’s population with pervasive prejudice as well as with abuse, abandonment, murder, mutilation, and starvation. Much of the study of women’s psychology becomes a study of the results of this [Page 16] oppression. Authors continue to search for the truth of whether there are differences between women and men that are inherent rather than culturally defined and, if so, what they are.

The writings of the Bahá’í Faith offer the hope of a change in personal and social attitudes that will allow the inherent features of both genders to mature and to be mutually valued. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá provides the answer when He says:

Rest ye assured! Ere long the days shall come when the men addressing the women shall say: “Blessed are ye! Blessed are ye! Verily ye are worthy of every gift. Verily ye deserve to adorn your heads with the crown of everlasting glory, because in sciences and art, in virtues and perfections ye shall become equal to man, and as regards tenderness of heart and the abundance of mercy and sympathy ye are superior.”

In the context of current development theories, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s singling out of tenderness of heart, mercy, and sympathy as the particular strengths of women suggests that the primal attachment to the mother that leads to lifelong intereSt in empathy and intimacy is inherent. But His statement also envisions great achievements by women in sciences and art. No misunderstanding should arise about the capabilities of either women or men to acquire the attributes of God to achieve the greatness for which they were created.

‘Abdu’l-Bahá also said that the differences between men and women are “negligible,” though there is now an imbalance between the values and ideals traditionally associated with males and females. He said that

The world in the past has been ruled by force, and man has dominated over woman by reason of his more forceful and aggressive qualities both of body and mind. But the balance is already shifting; force is losing its dominance, and mental alertness, intuition, and the spiritual qualities of love and service, in which woman is strong, are gaining ascendancy. Hence the new age will be an age less masculine, and more permeated with the feminine ideals—or, to speak more exactly, will be an age in which the masculine and feminine elements of civilization will he more evenly balanced.”

If this is true, the feminist solution of women behaving like men and seeking power like men will only add further to the present imbalance.

One feminist solution to the developmental differences of boys and girls has been to suggest that parenting needs to be shared in early infancy. Psychologists such as Chodorow and Dorothy Dinnerstein see this “as the only way to balance the severely skewed ‘sexual arrangements’ in which we live now. . . .” Another possibility is that as education of women allows fuller participation in all realms of society, the view of women as achievers will evolve, blurring margins of what is considered feminine. It is clear that the definition of what is masculine is from a child’s earliest days seen as the opposite of mother. However, as the definition of what is feminine becomes less rigid, perhaps the definition of what is masculine will become less rigid, thus allowing a merging of roles psychologically [Page 17] and the emergence of a set of values that increasingly transcends gender. At this time it is impossible to know by what means the world as a whole will come to value feminine qualities more than it does now. However humanity evolves, given its physiological mandates and psychological imperatives, men and women will always be complementary to one another. The Bahá’í ideal envisions a relationship based mutually and equally on tenderness and respect.

Significance of Differences

Significance to the Individual. The present social situation does not encourage the realization of relationships based mutually and equally on tenderness and respect. Rather, the emphasis on stereotypically gender-specific identity and denial of the transcendent dimensions of human nature seem to be growing. But denial of reality always leads to unhappiness. First, if reality is denied, it cannot be dealt with. The one who denies becomes the victim of reality rather than the manager of reality. Second, an enormous amount of psychic energy must be employed to keep the denied idea at bay. The one who denies reality needs to construct a false psychic world, a world of cards that can at any time come tumbling down.

The denial of the importance of attachment, empathy, and connection leads to painful isolation for the individual and results in powerful psychological barriers to unity. The overvaluing of individual achievement and isolation results in the devaluing both by women and by men of things seen as feminine. As individuals, many men are presently dissatisfied about their inability to express emotion; many women are miserable because of their low self-respect and their continued victimization by men. Women battle negation of the way they think, the way they talk, and the way they see the world. Men, to fit into the norm society has invented, deny those aspects of their personalities that might be seen as feminine.

‘Abdu’l-Bahá realized that the energy that goes into the denial of the value of connection, which is another way of saying the denial of unity, saps the energy of humankind: “As long as women are prevented from attaining their highest possibilities, so long will men be unable to achieve the greatness which might be theirs.” “The happiness of mankind will be realized when women and men coordinate and advance equally. . . .” “When men own the equality of women there will be no need for them to struggle for their rights.”

Significance to Society. From a Bahá’í perspective, what is the significance of the apparent difference in women’s and men’s tendencies for attachment and separation? Traditionally, power for men has been in separation, expressed positively in law making and destructively in war making. For women it resides in motherhood and results in intimacy; and when that tendency toward attachment is universally applied, the Bahá’í writings say, it will result in universal peace. In fact, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá was talking about the importance of psychological attachment when He said that the equality of men and women is a critical part of the establishment of peace:

when perfect equality shall be established between men and women, peace may be realized for the simple reason that womankind in general will never favor warfare. Women will not be willing to allow those whom they have so tenderly cared for to go into the battlefield.

[Page 18] Shoghi Effendi, the Guardian of the Bahá’í Faith, further explains the importance of psychological attachment when he says that “What ‘Abdu’l-Bahá meant about the women arising for peace is that this is a matter which vitally affects women, and when they form a conscious and overwhelming mass of public opinion against war there can be no war.” In 1985 the Universal House of Justice, the supreme governing and legislative body of the Bahá’í Faith, wrote that, “Only as women are welcomed into full partnership in all fields of human endeavor will the moral and psychological climate be created in which international peace can emerge.”

The Bahá’í view, then, is that women and men are equal and complementary but that women have certain spiritual and social strengths that are of vital importance to a changing world. The inherent differences between the two sexes are negligible but important because the feminine ideals of “tenderness of heart,” “mercy,” and “sympathy” and of “mental alertness, intuition and the spiritual qualities of love and mercy” have been undervalued by society as a whole. These qualities need to be championed by women and men in their daily personal lives to achieve a better balance of the feminine and masculine qualities within society. Both women and men need to care, to be tender, to empathize, and to value these elements in each other in all spheres of human life: home, school, work, and play.

It is clear that both women and men have a great responsibility in developing the potential of the human race at this revolutionary juncture. It will take great courage to scorn the current norms of behavior and to value “feminine qualities” to the extent needed. However, the promised results are not insignificant. The promise is no less than personal happiness and world peace.

[Page 19]

Sun Magnificent

Bahá’u’lláh:

the Sun Magnificent,

has rearranged the soul

and body and heart

of generations.

Dynamic destinies await

those millions who

fling themselves into the sun—

becoming stars.

Hesitation kills

the soul in tiny pieces:

Run! Leap! Jump!

into life with GOD.

Bahá’u’lláh fulfills

the ancient need and

mystic union

with absolute reality

and sacredness.

Exaltation sings

from one so unattached;

transcendent

leaving self

and nothingness.

Bahá’u’lláh, the Sun,

consumes, renews,

transforms

the dust

into Magnificence!

—Duane L. Herrmann

Copyright © 1995 by the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States

[Page 20]

[Page 21]

Of Webs and Ladders:
Gender Equality in Bahá’í Law

BY MARTHA LEACH SCHWEITZ

Copyright © 1995 by Martha Leach Schweitz. This essay is based on a presentation entitled “Feminist Approaches to Law and the Bahá’í Principle of Equality” made at the Conference on Women in Bahá’í Perspective held at the Bahá’í National Center, Evanston, Illinois, 27-29 January 1995.

Numbered footnotes appear at the end of the article.

THE PRINCIPLE of the equality of women and men is one of the most familiar to anyone who has been introduced to the basic social tenets of the Bahá’í Faith. Although this principle has become widely accepted in many societies today and seems far from revolutionary —indeed, many would consider it self-evident and beyond dispute—it is wholly rejected elsewhere. Nor can any society be found in which the problems of implementing the principle have been overcome. The exhaustive, worldwide preparations over the past several years for the 1995 United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, involving countless women’s, human rights, and other groups, is ample testimony that the principle of equality has engaged hearts and minds to an unprecedented degree.

Compare today’s struggle for equality to that of nineteenth-century Persia, the time when Bahá’u’lláh, the Founder of the Bahá’í Faith, wrote that “the Pen of the Most High hath lifted distinctions from between His servants and handmaidens, and, through His consummate favours and all-encompassing mercy, hath conferred upon all a station and rank of the same plane.” That was also the time of Ṭáhirih, a poetess and martyr, loved and honored by Bahá’ís as their first heroine, the woman who dared to speak publicly of the advent of a new era for men and women and by her actions both tested and inspired the faith of her male fellow-believers.

With the passing of a century and a half, a mere flash in the scope of human history, do we yet know what the principle of equality requires? The understanding of each of Bahá’u’lláh’s fundamental principles will evolve over time, as some ideas take root and others wither, as the patterns of human affairs change in ways that can now barely be imagined. The principle of human equality generally has been the subject of a fascinating range of philosophical thought over the centuries, and the subject of gender equality is now coming into its own. Contemporary writers are moving beyond earlier concepts of gender equality to a series of more comprehensive views, still young but highly promising. Hence examining some of the strands in the work of current feminist legal writers is one way of discovering ideas that may offer insights into the meaning of gender equality as a creative principle in the Bahá’í writings.

[Page 22] Gender in Bahá’í Law

THE Bahá’í system of values categorically upholds the principle of the equality of women and men in all areas of human endeavor. The Bahá’í writings expressly maintain the “principle of equal opportunity, rights and privileges for both sexes. . . .” They envision future societies in which women will participate “fully and equally in the affairs of the world” as the “peers of men.” Moreover, when women “enter confidently and capably the great arena of laws and politics, war will cease.” The unequivocal nature of the equality of the sexes and its fundamental link to achieving peace are described as follows by the Universal House of Justice, the supreme governing and legislative body of the Bahá’í Faith:

The emancipation of women, the achievement of full equality between the sexes, is one of the most important, though less acknowledged prerequisites of peace. The denial of such equality perpetrates an injustice against one half of the world’s population and promotes in men harmful attitudes and habits that are carried from the family to the workplace, to political life, and ultimately to international relations. There are no grounds, moral, practical, or biological, upon which such denial can be justified. Only as women are welcomed into full partnership in all fields of human endeavor will the moral and psychological climate be created in which international peace can emerge.

At the same time, Bahá’í law includes a handful of gender-based distinctions. These have become a particular topic of discussion among Bahá’ís as a result of the recent publication of the complete English translation of The Kitáb-i-Aqdas, Bahá’u’lláh’s Most Holy Book. This challenging discussion provides a fascinating study of how those with different cultural traditions and experiences perceive the same text.

‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Bahá’u’lláh’s son and authorized interpreter of His writings, refers to the gender distinctions in Bahá’u’lláh’s writings as “negligible.” Indeed, nearly all of them are permissive or default provisions—that is, they are optional or apply only in the absence of an intention expressed to the contrary. An example of a permissive distinction is women’s exemption from pilgrimage as an obligation otherwise binding on those who are able and can afford it; but women are free to perform the pilgrimage. An example of default provisions are the rules of intestacy—that is, inheritance law that applies when there is no valid or enforceable will. The intestacy rules to some extent give preference to male over female heirs. However, it is difficult at present to know how frequently they will, in fact, be applied or to estimate their social impact, since Bahá’u’lláh also made it incumbent on every Bahá’í to write a will. He has conferred unfettered jurisdiction on the testator to dispose of his or her property “in whatever manner he may desire” after the payment of debts, and there is no indication that it is desirable for wills to be written in accordance with the rules of intestacy.

One significant distinction gives preference to females over males: If it is not possible for a family to educate all the children, preference is to be given to daughters, since knowledge will be passed on to the next generation most effectively by educating mothers. Again, the practical significance of this distinction is severely minimized by the fact that Bahá’u’lláh has made it incumbent on parents to educate all their children (the curriculum for boys and girls being the same); this responsibility is so serious that “a father who fails to exercise it forfeits his rights of fatherhood.”

Perhaps the one distinction favoring males that is not a permissive or default provision is the requirement that the Universal House of Justice be composed of men. This, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá has explained, is “a wisdom of the Lord God’s, which will ere long be made manifest [Page 23] as clearly as the sun at high noon.” The significance of this distinction, too, is difficult to evaluate from a purely political point of view, since it does not apply to elected Bahá’í institutions at the local or national levels, nor to any of the appointed institutions of the Faith, on all of which women have served with great distinction since the earliest days of the institutions. Individual Bahá’ís have a variety of personal ideas about the purpose of this distinction, but since it remains at present considerably more obscure than the noonday sun, it can only be regarded as yet unexplained. This mystery, together with the handful of other distinctions (whatever their practical significance) seemingly inconsistent with contemporary notions of equality, is an invitation to further thought and reflection. It is an invitation too compelling to defer.

With respect to any law of Bahá’u’lláh, a Bahá’í may wholeheartedly accept the law (“‘God doeth whatsoever He pleaseth’”) but may still be perplexed about its reason and purpose. Among women and men the world over who are working for equality now, any gender distinction is deeply suspect, particularly if it touches on property rights or participation in governing institutions. Economic dependence and political disempowerment have been the defining characteristics of women’s subordination to men over the centuries. It is not surprising that present generations of Bahá’ís should be particularly alert to any hint of economic or political discrimination, nor that laws of Bahá’u’lláh that draw gender distinctions should strike them as curious or confounding or, in extreme cases, pose a severe test of faith.

If one probes the reasons for being perplexed by these laws, what can be discovered about prevailing underlying assumptions regarding equality? What does one really think equality means that comes into apparent conflict with laws that draw the gender distinctions described above? Bahá’ís know, of course, that equality does not mean sameness; that equal treatment does not always mean same treatment, depending on all of the circumstances; and that “equality of status does not mean identity of function.” It is relatively easy to make space for the minimal characteristics of biological femaleness: to exempt (though not prohibit) menstruating women from performing certain spiritual duties such as obligatory prayers and fasting and to excuse from the fast nursing mothers and pregnant women. But when it comes to matters of economics or government, one is likely to assume that equality means freedom to be treated without regard to sex. This is the assumption that must be inspected. It is evident that such a definition will serve in the vast majority of situations as a standard for applying the principle of equality. But apparently it does not fully describe what Bahá’u’lláh means by equality; Otherwise, His laws could not reflect any gender distinctions. There must be more to it, and it is the “something more” that makes the effort to understand gender equality in the Bahá’í writings so fascinating. Were it not for these few perplexing laws, Bahá’ís [Page 24] would have less reason to question late twentieth-century assumptions, thereby forgoing the inquiry into equality on Bahá’u’lláh’s terms.

From conversations prompted by the publication of the English translation of The Kitáb-i-Aqdas one also finds that some Bahá’ís are not at all perplexed by the gender distinctions in the Bahá’í writings. Doubtless some such certitude is the result of rare insight. Yet quick comfort with laws that to many appear inconsistent with the equality of the sexes can also indicate a troubling degree of comfort with the oppressive order of the past and present. If such Bahá’ís are a product of cultures in which every gender distinction has been a badge of male domination of women, they may not have a radical enough vision of what a world order founded on equality would look like. No Bahá’í, of course, can fully appreciate how fundamentally all family, social, economic, and political structures will have to be re-formed to realize gender equality. The vision is not one of business as usual with a few adjustments here and there. It is of transformation at the core.

Equality need not be understood as freedom to be treated without regard to sex. A major theme in recent feminist legal critique is rather that equality is freedom from systematic subordination because of sex. In this view, sexism is not a legal aberration that can be “fixed” simply by granting civil and political rights to women; sexism is a pervasive, structural problem. Inequality is about domination and subordination and is perpetuated by a host of unspoken assumptions that permeate laws, courts, legislatures, legal procedures, and even inherited forms of legal reasoning, not to mention the attitudes of virtually all men and women.

Feminist Critiques of Law

FEMINIST theory in its many diverse and sometimes conflicting forms is about valuing women’s experiences and studying them from a woman’s perspective. It is commonly referred to as a method of analysis, a way of asking questions and approaching life and politics, rather than as a set of substantive conclusions. Feminist legal theory applies such methods to the analysis of legal issues from the perspective of women’s experience. The three general types of feminism that are most often found in law, simplistically described, are liberal feminism, radical feminism, and social/psychoanalytic feminism. Each has a distinct value.

Liberal feminism has grown out of the political philosophy of liberalism, which is based on the value of the individual, the possibility of objectivity, and the preeminence of rationality. To maximize individual self-realization it favors minimum state interference. Liberal feminists seek gender equality through freeing women from oppressive constraints. They work to eliminate discrimination and formal barriers that prevent women from getting better jobs, higher education, and other benefits. Gender justice, for them, means equality of opportunity. Given equal opportunity, each individual woman can achieve her fullest potential. Liberal feminism is the mother of the Western feminist legal movement, which began as a “demand for the right of women to be treated as men.”

Radical feminism takes issue with the liberal’s fixation on the individual. It emphasizes that women are oppressed not only as individuals but as a class. To radical feminists sexism is not merely a lack of opportunity; it is a systematic division of social power, a hierarchy in which men are at the top. Therefore, eliminating formal barriers and passing antidiscrimination laws, even an equal rights amendment, are inadequate remedies because they do not solve the underlying problem of class oppression. In this view formal equality merely preserves the existing patriarchal power structure.

Social/psychoanalytic feminism contends that women have social and psychological qualities (for example, nurturing) that are different [Page 25] from those of men (for example, aggressiveness). Carol Gilligan’s work, In A Different Voice, is frequently cited. Her research suggests that women invoke an “ethic of care” and are concerned with preserving relationships and with the context of problems. Men, in contrast, invoke an “ethic of rights” that focuses on abstract notions of right and wrong and on objective rationality. Social/psychoanalytic feminism stresses that female qualities should be accorded the same respect and acceptance in society as the dominant male qualities.

Each of the three theories (and their many variants) has been criticized by other feminists, but it serves little purpose to try to reconcile them or to prove that one is superior to another. The “feminist project” in law, overall, is not so much a series of interpretations but, as one writer has called it, “a sort of archaeological dig.” At various levels of excavation, different techniques prove their value. With this perspective in mind, one can appreciate a range of insights emerging from this diverse field of research.

One avenue of feminist critique is to focus on a particular field of law and to expose the gender bias in seemingly neutral systems of rules. Various fields have been shown to be fundamentally patriarchal and oblivious to (if not scornful of) the basic interests, priorities, and perspectives of women as a gender. For example, writers have examined U.S. constitutional law and explored the implications of Gilligan’s evidence that women as a group tend to perceive social relations and approach moral issues differently than men do. This is a particularly useful example of feminist critique, both because constitutional issues are more familiar to the nonspecialist and because they determine the character of the rest of the U.S. legal system.

A summary of one feminist critique of constitutional law, a description of the “public/private” distinction that has been the focus of much feminist writing, and a brief discussion of feminist approaches to international relations provide a context for examining what feminist legal critiques can contribute to understanding the Bahá’í teachings. It should be noted that the purpose of this discussion is not to convince the reader of the validity of any particular feminist approach or even of feminist legal critique generally. That extensive and challenging body of scholarship, closely linked to feminist study in other fields, such as politics, psychology, history, and literature, stands on its own merits and may be judged accordingly. Space does not permit a defense, merely a description. The modest purpose here is to bring a few broadly accepted ideas from feminist legal literature to the attention of those as yet unfamiliar with it.

Critique of Constitutional Law. Historically, the United States Supreme Court has been something less than a champion of gender equality. In 1873, by interpreting “all persons” in the Fourteenth Amendment to mean “all men,” the Court held that a woman could constitutionally be barred from practicing law:

Man is, or should be, woman’s protector and defender. The natural and proper timidity and delicacy which belongs to the female sex evidently unfits it for many of the occupations of civil life. The constitution of the family organization, which is founded in the divine ordinance, as well as in the nature of things, indicates the domestic sphere as that which properly belongs to the domain and functions of womanhood. The harmony, not to say identity, of interests and views which belong, or should belong, to the family institution is repugnant to the idea of a woman adopting a distinct and independent career from that of her husband. . . .

. . . The paramount destiny and mission of woman are to fulfil the noble and benign offices of wife and mother. This is the law of the Creator.

[Page 26] The effect of such deference to woman’s “natural . . . delicacy,” an attitude otherwise known as romantic paternalism, was not to place her on a pedestal but rather in a cage, perpetually in the legal and social position of a child.

The nineteenth-century view of women as fragile, domestic, and dependent is referred to by one feminist writer, Kenneth L. Karst, as the “traditional construct of women” in U.S. law. The following is a summary of Karst’s critique of constitutional law, arguing for replacing the traditional construct with one that reflects the current state of knowledge about the moral nature of women and men.

According to the results of Gilligan’s study of the differences between male and female perspectives (relied on by Karst), men see relationships in a ladder of hierarchy, in which abstract rules, also ordered in a hierarchy, govern competition among highly individuated persons. Women, in contrast, are far more concerned with the “web of connection,” seeing individuals in connection with one another. Morality, for women, is about responsibilities of particular people in particular contexts. Both women and men have some of each type of morality, as do laws and institutions. But, states Karst, “American law is primarily a system of the ladder, by the ladder, and for the ladder.” The constitutional developments of the past twenty years have granted women “equal protection” in most (though not all) cases. Women have staked their claim to equal citizenship, to be treated by organized society as respected, responsible members and participants—in short, as people who count. The effect has been to give women access to the ladder, the hierarchy built by and for men. Women in large numbers and often at great personal cost are moving onto this ladder.

In Karst’s view, there needs to be a second reconstruction of the U.S. Constitution, in order to add protection for the “web of connection.” As he shows through examples, many of the values and beliefs embedded in the Constitution are fundamentally alien to an approach that values connection. The notion of freedom itself is of a “male” sort, meaning freedom from interference of others. The rights of liberty, property, due process, and equality all express a desire for separation from government and from others, characteristic of liberalism and distinct from collective rights. Perhaps, as Karst and others speculate, society has reached the limits of a morality centered on noninterference. There is, in fact, a “female” alternative. If men find identity in separation and equate adulthood with autonomy and individual achievement, women define themselves as continuous with others. Women may equate maturity with responsibility and care and be skeptical about the “male” approach as a potential justification for indifference and unconcern. Women seek solutions for moral problems not in impersonal, abstract rules but in the “capacity to understand what someone else is experiencing.”

According to authorities on constitutional history, the framers of the Constitution saw “man” (in practice meaning white males) as an “atom of self-interest,” viewed the struggle for power as a zero-sum game, and were suspicious of man’s insatiable appetite for power. Safety from aggression was to be found in rules reinforcing separation and noninterference: separating legislative from executive from judicial, federal from state, government from commerce, government from the people, people from people. On the contrary, as Karst points out, to define oneself as part of a network of relationships is to find security in connection. From this “feminist” point of view, the danger of aggression lies rather in the competitive pursuit of individual recognition and power. The idea of power as domination recedes, and power is understood instead as the capacity to provide care for others. There will always be conflict, but as one moves away from the zero-sum approach, [Page 27] solutions can be found by widening the range of inquiry, finding ways for parties to define new goals that they can share, and aiming to cause the least injury to the people least able to bear it.

A few concrete examples will demonstrate the possibility of how the Constitution could be reimagined with a view to protecting the web of connection. One area that has received considerable attention is dispute resolution. Most litigation—that is, lawsuits for money damages—is by nature a “winner-takes-all” process. In equitable suits, however, where the result is not money damages but an injunction (a court order to a party to do or refrain from doing something), a judge sometimes assumes the role of trying to bring the parties together, particularly in cases involving institutions such as school boards, hospitals, and prisons where it is in the long-term interests of the parties to preserve the relationship. For a number of years there has been heightened interest in alternative dispute resolution methods, including mediation, in which the parties come up with their own solution face to face. In many cases the adversarial method not only impedes the search for truth but also, through certain evidentiary rules and ethical obligations binding on lawyers, impedes the expression of concern for the person on the other side, directly violating Gilligan’s “ethic of care.” Equitable suits and alternative dispute resolution methods, though well-established in the legal system, account for only a small fraction of cases. They would appear far more consistent with the female approach to making decisions (as discovered by Gilligan) than is the predominant method of adversarial litigation.

Another area highlighted by Karst is racial stereotyping and stigma. When the U.S. Supreme Court finally started enforcing equal promotion of the races, it expressed disapproval of racial stigma but considered it harmful primarily because it impeded access to some good such as education or employment. For example, in Brown v Board of Education, the stigma of inferiority resulting from segregated schools was deemed harmful because it interfered with the child’s ability to learn. The Supreme Court rarely describes stigma as the direct hurt that it is. What could more clearly sever its victims from the web of connection? Karst and others have suggested that this in itself could constitute a legally recognized harm. The U.S. doctrine of free speech is closely related. It amounts to the right to be left alone as long as one’s speech does not incite a riot then and there. Yet “racial hate speech” inflames its listeners and incites hatred founded on claims of the superiority of one race over another. One cannot imagine a more severe attack on the web of connection, one that thereby harms the society as a whole as well as its immediate victims. The International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination prohibits such speech; the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution permits it unless the risk of violence it creates is immediate. Yet the risk of violence in the longer term is undeniable. There is a growing debate in the United States as to whether racial hate speech, defined narrowly as it is in the International Convention, should join obscenity as “unprotected speech”—that is, speech not covered by the First Amendment. Also related is “private” discrimination. Legislation in the United States has now reached a wide range of private discriminatory action, such as in the sale of homes. A state that is serious about ending discrimination could also assume an affirmative obligation to protect individuals from private acts that are just as insidious as state action.

Consider further the U.S. notion of liberty. Constitutional law guarantees that in cases in which defendants risk losing their liberty (generally understood to mean incarceration) certain legal protections come into play, such as the right to counsel. In 1981 the [Page 28] U.S. Supreme Court heard a case concerning a suit brought against an imprisoned mother to terminate her parental rights. The issue was whether losing one’s parental rights amounted to losing one’s “liberty” and, therefore, entitled the defendant to court-appointed counsel. The Court answered “no” to both questions. To believe that permanent disconnection from one’s child is not a question of liberty represents a highly disconnected, individualistic conception of the right.

Pregnancy is an issue in sex discrimination that has been extremely problematic. General Electric v Gilbert is the notorious Supreme Court case in which the Court interpreted the meaning of “discrimination based on sex” in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 not to include discrimination based on pregnancy. Discrimination because of pregnancy was not discrimination against women but only against any person who happened to be pregnant. Congress retaliated by passing legislation that effectively amended the definition of “discrimination based on sex,” but pregnancy is still a problem in many areas. Because the women’s rights movement has had to struggle within the established individual-rights structure for certain promotions for pregnancy and maternity, it has had to argue, for example, for the “right” of a pregnant woman to be treated as having an individual disability to be eligible for certain insurance benefits. Often, the only way to get legal respect for motherhood, this most noble deed, is to classify it as a disability! Why cannot the law, instead, require that society acknowledge and act on its collective responsibility for child bearing and its costs? Were society to recognize the collective nature of child rearing, ways could be found to allow women (and, more broadly, parents) to integrate effectively their family and work lives.

According to Gilligan, maturity in moral development occurs when the two ethics of rights and of care are combined. Similarly, most feminists are not advocating throwing out the constitutional rights-based structure but rather adding to it the morality of mutual responsibility and care. The aim is not simply to give women equal positions on the ladder, leaving everyone equally isolated, nor to do away with the ladder, but rather to add the dimensions of care, context, and connectedness represented by the image of the web.

Feminists have by now examined almost all areas of the law with a wide range of critiques and often with insightful recommendations about how to change both the substantive rules of law and the procedures for decision making and dispute resolution in tort law, family law, property law, corporate law, and so on. Substantial work has also been done on the effects of gender in the courts. Dozens of state courts and, more recently, federal courts have all come to similar conclusions—that gender affects every person in the court system, inside and outside of the courtroom. It has even been shown that women attorneys have credibility problems not encountered by males. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has concluded that federal law is threaded with rules that may work to the disadvantage of women and is proposing changes. Although the Ninth Circuit’s study does call for the creation of certain legal rights, its fundamental prescription for creating an environment free of bias is to educate everyone involved in the court system through training, seminars, and guidelines.

Public/Private Distinction. In the discussion of the worldwide problem of violence against women, much emphasis has been placed on understanding legal regulation and legal silence as a result of the divide between public and private life. This division is one explanation of feminist scholars for the dominance of men and the male voice in all areas of power and authority. In the Western liberal tradition, a dichotomy exists between the public realm of the workplace, law, economy, [Page 29] politics, and intellectual and cultural life, where power and authority are exercised, and the private world of home, hearth, and children, the sphere that (according to the 1873 Supreme Court opinion quoted above) “properly belongs to the domain and functions of womanhood.” The problem is not only that the distinction is treated as one of gender (if not one of biology) but also, and most egregiously, that all significance is attached to the former, the public realm. Law has always operated primarily in the public domain; it is considered appropriate to regulate the workplace, the economy, and political power, whereas state intervention in the family and home have been seen as inappropriate or as an invasion of privacy. This view of the role of law in society has served as justification for the law virtually to ignore domestic violence. When a man in a private club or bar throws another across the room, the law calls it assault and battery and holds the aggressor responsible both under criminal statutes and for civil damages. But if a man does the same to his wife in their home, the law has traditionally deemed it a private matter and attached no responsibility whatsoever to the aggressor. Only recently beginning to crumble, this legal absurdity has proved to be one of the most tenacious.

Neither have women received any protection from domestic violence through international law. Under the international torture convention (finally ratified by the United States) as well as earlier human rights treaties, the prohibition on torture and other forms of cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment has been accepted as a fundamental human right based on the inherent dignity of the human person. If one were to read the definition of torture in that convention without knowing what it was defining, one could easily think it was describing the violent abuse of women. The single difference is that torture must be done by or with the consent of a public official. The convention on torture does not cover ordinary criminal violence between individuals, on the assumption that such acts are already governed by national law. But, as explained, “private” violence is not covered by national laws, thus leaving women still unprotected.

Of course, it is not, in fact, true that states have refrained from interfering in the private sphere. Some states make no pretense of preserving privacy in any form. Examples of extreme state intrusion include coercive population control techniques, forced sterilization or abortion, or the opposite in the former Rumanian regime that required medical examinations to verify that women had not had abortions so that each woman might bear four children. States that expressly attempt to protect privacy nevertheless regulate extensively social security, health and welfare of children and adults, and education, all profoundly affecting private or family matters in a highly selective manner. The realm of privacy, that which government must not invade, needs to be redefined to avoid consistently, through legal silence, operating to the detriment of women as a class.

A widely accepted conclusion of feminist study is that violence against women, contrary to its historic legal characterization, is anything but private or personal. It is profoundly political. It results from the structural relationship of power, domination, and privilege between men and women. Violence against women has been central to maintaining male political superiority at home and in the public sphere.

International Relations. In the area of international relations and international law, feminist analysis has been a fast-growing topic of scholarship and research. Writers are looking at the state system itself as patriarchal, hierarchical, and militarized and are examining how feminist standpoint theory can contribute to a new perspective and envision new alternatives for international structures. The analysis goes so far as to address fundamental [Page 30] notions of power: instead of the traditional realist concept of power as men’s control over the minds and actions of others, power is understood as the ability to act in concert. The redefinition of power also leads to a redefinition of sovereignty and, in fact, describes much of what is now happening in the international arena, as many problems by their nature are inherently beyond the control of any one nation, however mighty. One perspective that departs from the hierarchical power model is a network view of international relations, describing how institutions promote lateral cooperation among organized entities, including but not limited to states. It is based on “diffuse reciprocity,” a widespread pattern of obligation, and represents a radical break from the “contractual morality” or tit-for-tat view of international affairs.

In the area of international human rights, feminists face a double set of obstacles, stuck as they are between the two dominant approaches. One is the prevailing human rights theory of activists firmly rooted in the liberal tradition, which distinguishes public from private actors and in which nonstate actors fall outside the purview of international law. The other is cultural relativism, according to which feminism and, in fact, most of traditionally defined civil and political human rights are seen as Western liberal concepts; any effort to include women’s rights as human rights is seen as an attempt to expand further Western cultural hegemony. Yet, feminists remind the cultural relativists, it is self-evident that gender oppression is systematic and cross-cultural. It is logically difficult to excuse abusive practices as cultural norms when the victims of such practices are members of a group in society that has been consistently excluded from full cultural participation by ingrained patterns of dominance. Without belittling the sometimes absolutely critical value of international support and connections in struggles for equality, Western feminists are learning to let feminists who belong to the local culture lead the way in reforming abusive “cultural” practices. A strenuous effort is being undertaken to rescue “women’s rights” from the margins of the international human rights movement.

Bahá’í Principle of Equality

EVEN from a selective and brief introduction to feminist critiques of law, it is readily apparent that equality cannot be exhaustively defined as freedom to be treated without regard to sex. Such a definition is an effective implementing principle in a majority of cases, but as a concept it is far too shallow to solve the problem. Inequality is not merely about deliberate distinctions between men and women. More profoundly, it is about the wholesale denial of who women are and what they are about both in the public and private worlds. Even in “advanced” legal systems, where considerable progress has been made in the struggle for legal equality in civil and political rights, a structure of subordination remains. How much more severe it is in nations where women are expressly denied the civil rights accorded men or where rights formally given to women in the law are, as a practical matter, unenforceable (such as the law of equal employment opportunity for women in Japan).

Shortcomings in the law are not the cause of female oppression, any more than legal reform is the complete answer, as critical as it may be. Research has shown that women as a class not only are the victims of direct violence (which, theoretically, could be substantially reduced through effective law enforcement) but also suffer from pervasive “structural violence.” This means, for example, that women and girls suffer from lack of food more frequently than their husbands and brothers, for in times of scarcity men are more likely to be fed than women. Boys are more likely to be taken to a hospital for treatment. Women, worldwide, have substantially longer working hours than men and less leisure [Page 31] time, resulting in serious damage to their health. In the distribution of money and decision making within families, women are discriminated against in a pattern that varies little from one country to another or one class to another. Women and children constitute the vast majority of refugees worldwide. Trafficking in women and girls for sexual exploitation is a fast-growing international industry, preying on the most vulnerable of the vulnerable. Genocidal rape is used as a deliberate, controlled tactic in ethnic warfare to force exile and shatter a people. The list goes on. Such structural violence is largely beyond the reach of international law or the legal system of any country as they are presently constituted.

Thus, rather than viewing equality simply as the freedom to be treated without regard to sex, equality may be more fully understood as freedom from systematic subordination because of sex. The implications of the latter definition are vast, as it challenges the underpinnings of long-standing traditions and institutions. This understanding touches the essential character of inequality as it has existed in practice—the relationship of subordination —rather than the symptoms and thus can be usefully applied in all societies, regardless of the extent to which formal equality has been achieved. Moreover, it is submitted that this definition is consistent with the Bahá’í vision of equality. Nothing less will enable a practical reconciliation between the public and private lives of women or do justice to the full range of relevant Bahá’í teachings.

The systematic subordination of women is starkly evident in the following areas: education, violence (at home and in society), economic/political discrimination (inequality in income-producing opportunities and exclusion from economic and political power structures), family relations (decision making and male control over and unaccountable use of family income), and motherhood (sole, socially unsupported female responsibility for child rearing). The problems in each of these five areas are the result of an almost inextricable combination of laws, attitudes, institutional arrangements, economic patterns, and legal silences. They are too complex to be corrected simply by laws requiring equal treatment of women and men. Each of these embedded structures of subordination, however, is undermined by explicit Bahá’í laws and social principles.

The Bahá’í teachings require drastic changes in current social structures, envisioning an equality for which there is no historical precedent. The future legal system for such societies will be developed from the nucleus of the laws and principles expressed in the Bahá’í writings, the warp and woof of Bahá’u’lláh’s world order. These laws and principles do not conform to all current notions of any particular feminist or social movement but do address the most profound causes of pervasive inequality, including that which is surviving formidable legal reforms. A brief survey of relevant Bahá’í teachings will draw attention to certain principles that undermine [Page 32] systematic oppression in each of the five areas.

Education. The Bahá’í principles regarding education need little further elaboration. Their central importance is indicated by the statement that the “sex distinction which exists in the human world is due to the lack of education for woman, who has been denied equal opportunity for development and advancement.” The curriculum for boys and girls must be the same, and no child should remain illiterate. Education for both men and women is given supreme importance in the Bahá’í writings for the purposes of moral development, of providing for oneself and one’s family, and of contributing to the advancement of society. Bahá’í communities have, in fact, championed the education of girls and women in societies where such opportunities remain severely restricted.

Violence. The Bahá’í writings are equally unambiguous on the subject of violence against and abuse of women at home and in society:

The friends of God must be adorned with the ornament of justice, equity, kindness and love. As they do not allow themselves to be the object of cruelty and transgression, in like manner they should not allow such tyranny to visit the handmaidens of God. He, verily, speaketh the truth and commandeth that which benefitteth His servants and handmaidens. He is the Protector of all in this world and the next.

This instruction of Bahá’u’lláh suggests that ending violence and abuse (including domestic violence, trafficking in women and girls for sexual exploitation, genocidal rape, and so on) should not be left to women’s groups alone but that men have the responsibility to stop men from being cruel to women.

Economic/Political Discrimination. Sex discrimination in income-producing opportunities and the exclusion of women from economic and political power structures cannot survive the application of Bahá’í principles. As stated earlier, women are to participate “fully and equally in the affairs of the world” as the “peers of men.” Similarly, “women must advance and fulfill their mission in all departments of life, becoming equal to men. They must be on the same level as men and enjoy equal rights.” These statements are unambiguous. Nevertheless, when read together with the Bahá’í teachings on motherhood, one is faced with serious practical difficulties under the conditions of present-day societies, as discussed further below.

Family Relations. The Bahá’í teachings also provide a standard that prevents the subordination of women or men in family relations and decision making. In many societies it is common for the husband to hold exclusive decision-making authority over issues vitally affecting the life of his wife and their children, often including how many children she will bear. In the Bahá’í teachings family life is based not on authoritarian rule but on a model of consultation founded on principles of frankness and mutual respect, a process also used in elected Bahá’í institutions. Neither husband nor wife may unjustly dominate the other. The principles of consultation would appear to reflect the “contextual” decision making compatible with the female approach to moral issues as described by Gilligan: taking all pertinent facts into account and valuing most highly a solution that can be unanimously supported and that preserves relationships, rather than producing a winner. Yet the process of consultation is also based on fixed, immutable principles— “abstract notions of right and wrong”—typical of the male approach. One way to understand consultation may be to see it as a process of decision making that balances the prototypical male and female styles.

Nevertheless, Bahá’ís have frequently asked the Universal House of Justice for specific rules and directions to govern relationships of husbands and wives, even to the point of inquiring, for example, about how many hours a week a mother should work outside the [Page 33] home. The House of Justice has consistently refused to lay down a rule and has, instead, referred to the relevant principle: It is to be decided by each family, contextually, through consultation. The Bahá’í Faith will be perpetually unsatisfying for those who insist upon surrendering human judgment to an exhaustive set of rules. It requires, instead, that one strive for a more mature process, meditating on the principles, praying for guidance, consulting with other family members, and then acting, confident that through such action one will learn better in the future. Otherwise, the yearning for the security of black and white can lead to creating rules informally that do not exist in the Bahá’í writings.

Rereading ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s description of the family after considering Gilligan’s ethics of rights and care is particularly striking. The Bahá’í family is not a liberal rights-based structure, nor is it the kingdom of the eldest male. The rights of each member are affirmed and must not be transgressed; at the same time such rights are not arbitrary. Rights correlate with obligations (a point repeatedly asserted in the critique of Western liberal human rights) of each family member to the other. The overall emphasis is on what Karst calls the “web of connection” and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, the “integrity of the family bond” and “the unity of the family,” for “The injury of one shall be considered the injury of all; the comfort of each, the comfort of all; the honor of one, the honor of all.” The Bahá’í family as described in the Bahá’í writings would seem to represent the marriage of the ethic of rights and the ethic of care. When they are finally combined, Gilligan asserts, one has achieved moral maturity.

Another source of structural violence against women involves the abdication of the duties of husband and father, when combined with male authority. In many societies men have exclusive control of family income and yet are compelled by no one to use it for the family’s benefit. Those working in grassroots development efforts have found this to be a serious obstacle to social progress. In the Bahá’í writings, in addition to the general guidance relating to the mutual rights and responsibilities of family members, a mother who assumes the responsibility of bringing up a child has the right to be supported by her husband. This duty on the part of the husband is stated explicitly as a corollary of the wife’s chief responsibility in child raising. Roles and the allocation of family responsibilities are, however, not inflexibly fixed in the Bahá’í writings. They can be “changed and adjusted to suit particular family situations,” and all decisions in a Bahá’í family are to be made through consultation. As must be obvious by now, the general allocation of primary responsibilities to mothers and fathers does not mean, as it has in so many societies, that women are confined to the home nor that men are excluded from child care.

The fundamental point not to be overlooked in the preoccupation with avoiding sex stereotypes is that the responsibilities of child care and financial support, however shared, combined, or allocated, must be carried out within the family by someone. A father’s duty to support, as a corollary to the mother’s responsibility, addresses what is in practice a widespread cause of malnutrition and great suffering among women and children —that is, irresponsibility of fathers and their lack of accountability. It is the custom in many societies for the men to eat first, often leaving insufficient food for the rest of the family, in particular the women and girls. It is also typical for the women to work many more hours each day than the men, shouldering not only full responsibility for numerous children and the household but also for domestic agriculture, carrying water, and so on with ill consequences for their health. Even the World Bank is coming to recognize what it has been told for years—that the key to social and economic development in many [Page 34] countries is the women. As the saying goes, “If you educate a woman, you educate a whole village.” If a woman is given an opportunity to earn a livelihood, research has shown that the benefits nearly always redound to her family and village. If the same opportunity is given to a man, in a high percentage of cases the benefits go to him alone or into channels far less conducive to community development. It is no coincidence that the most highly successful rural credit programs have focused almost exclusively on lending to women.

Parental responsibilities, joint and separate, are taken very seriously in the Bahá’í writings. If a father and mother neglect the education of their children, “they shall be held responsible and worthy of reproach in the presence of the stern Lord.” It is conceivable that in the light of such writings, Bahá’í society might develop laws and practices holding parents accountable for the care of their children to a considerably higher standard than is common today. As mentioned, in the case of failing to educate a child, Bahá’u’lláh has written that a father “forfeits his rights of fatherhood.” Of course, sanctions for neglect are always only a last resort. The Bahá’í writings’ plentiful guidance for parents and exhortations to train children in all human virtues would suggest the creation of societies in which parenting is not only feasible but supported and valued in ways that are all too rare today.

Motherhood. Finally, one comes to the issue of motherhood, lying behind and radiating through most other issues bearing on equality. In the Bahá’í writings, great honor and nobility are conferred on motherhood. Mothers have the unique privilege of being the “first educators, the first mentors” of their children. “O ye loving mothers,” ‘Abdu’l-Bahá has written, “know ye that in God’s sight, the best of all ways to worship Him is to educate the children and train them in all the perfections of humankind; and no nobler deed than this can be imagined.” The exaltation of motherhood gives rise to two problems in relation to equality, one highly subjective and the other a matter of implementation.

The subjective problem is that reverence and protection for motherhood have often been used to justify keeping women socially and economically disadvantaged. One need only recall the Supreme Court’s reference to woman’s “natural and proper timidity and delicacy” and to her “paramount destiny and mission . . . to fulfil the noble and benign offices of wife and mother.” Yet there are societies in which women have faced the opposite problem. In Czechoslovakia two generations of women were required by the state to work long hours each day and to put their children in state-run group homes, a practice that many now conclude has had serious detrimental psychological effects on the children. As a result, women in former Czechoslovakia now prize most dearly the right not to work outside the home and the opportunity to raise their own children. Finding the path to equality would seem to require that one learn from the vast experience of women worldwide and refuse to be constrained or prejudiced by one perspective alone. Honoring motherhood is not equivalent to marginalizing women, depending on how the [Page 35] rest of the social system is organized and the values that inform it.

The second problem presented by the exaltation of motherhood in the context of equality is implementation. Although there is no inherent logical inconsistency in women both being mothers and participating “fully and equally in the affairs of the world,” and an average life span should allow ample time for both, it is more often than not a practical impossibility. Motherhood tends to exclude women permanently from significant participation in public affairs. And yet the Bahá’í writings unwaveringly insist on both. How is this to be? How can the two lives of women be reconciled? With only a little detached reflection it becomes apparent that the incompatibility of motherhood (or parenthood generally, for that matter) and participating fully in the affairs of the world does not arise from anything inherent in the human condition. It flows rather from the nature of present economic and social systems, laws and business practices, radically different as they are in various societies, but nearly all seemingly tailor-made to enforce a permanent division of labor between those who care for children and tend to homes and those who produce income in the formal economy and have a voice in public affairs. Much of the recent advancement of women in the work world has been achieved in spite of such obstacles but often at great personal cost to the women themselves. It is the domain of rather abstract sociology to explain whether such a division of labor has been the cause of gender inequality or vice versa, but in either case it is now a long-established fact the world over.

It can be anticipated that achieving equality and ending the systematic subordination of women will only take place in conjunction with (as both cause and effect of) the transformation of economic and social systems. This, indeed, is a “‘path that needeth a hundred years to tread.’” Economic and social systems are always changing; what is at stake is how they change. Life is long enough to accommodate child rearing and significant investment and involvement in other work, be it paid or unpaid, sequentially or simultaneously. What must change are the rigid economic structures and workplace practices, and perhaps the pattern of mutually isolated nuclear families as well, that force a choice to be made or, at best, make the fit extremely difficult.

The laws and practices developed for Bahá’í society, founded on Bahá’í principles, will have to be radically different from those now considered the norm. It is an area calling for imaginative thinking and for learning from the best models and experiments that can be found in any society. Some recent efforts and proposals have addressed extended parental leave times, flexibility of work schedules, “interrupting” careers for raising children, and employment benefits for a parent who is engaged full time in raising young children, including social security, health insurance, and disability coverage. As amazing as it may seem, through such measures and others society could act as if it seriously cared about child bearing and child rearing and could accept collective responsibility for these endeavors, despite what are now considered by government, business, and communities to be unbearable inconveniences and unnecessary expenses. Societal values lie at the core of the solution.

Conclusion

JOINING the ethic of care and the ethic of rights may be one way to understand the Bahá’í concept of equality. The more one probes this concept of equality, the more it seems to converge into the overarching principle of the Bahá’í Faith—unity. One philosopher captures the essence of unity in this metaphor: “[W]e extend our concept . . . as in spinning a thread we twist fibre on fibre. And the strength of the thread does not reside [Page 36] in the fact that some one fibre runs through its whole length, but in the overlapping of many fibres.” Strength comes not from competition and individuation but from interdependence and connectedness. These latter qualities are what feminist writers are trying to weave into social and political institutions and into the legal system that underlies them.

Bahá’u’lláh’s principles, laws, and institutional organization address the centuries-old causes of women’s subordination, the very structure of oppression. They free women from systematic subordination; they free men from systematic reinforcement of the spiritually harmful sense of superiority and from excessive paternalism.

To understand the Bahá’í teachings on equality in this way casts a different light on some ideas that are popular in current social movements. For example, it is difficult to be concerned about the fact that Bahá’u’lláh does not use gender-neutral language in His writings. Bahá’u’lláh has taught His followers how to bring about equality, has stated that it is now a reality and will become manifest in the world of being, and has instructed them to study and apply science. If research shows that the consistent use of masculine pronouns reinforces stereotypes—as it does— “he” and “she” can be used interchangeably, or other ways can be found to avoid the masculine-pronoun habit in textbooks, laws, every-day speech, and so on. Science can and should be used to help in overcoming harmful attitudes.

Bahá’u’lláh has ordained that equality be achieved and, for whatever reason, that it be done without women serving on the Universal House of Justice. It is interesting to note the double effect of the presence of women as members of governing bodies generally. On the one hand, it is considered a strong advantage to have women present to press for change in the interests of equality. On the other, their presence and voice tend to excuse men from assuming responsibility themselves for initiating work on such matters, in accordance with the assumption that equality is a “woman’s issue.” In the case of the Universal House of Justice, this latter dynamic is not possible. The Universal House of Justice works closely with other Bahá’í institutions, elected and appointed, on which women are well represented, and within its own body of nine men, gender equality, as an essential principle in the Bahá’í writings, can never be relegated to a “woman’s issue.”

Bahá’í laws and principles go beyond the ideas of equal opportunity and equal treatment to inform the creation of societies that systematically and institutionally value both motherhood and the participation of women in public affairs, societies that embody and express both the feminine “ethic of care” and the masculine “ethic of rights,” that strive for both unity and justice. Bahá’ís may or may not yet feel they understand fully the reasons for the gender distinctions in the laws of Bahá’u’lláh, designed as they are for such radically transformed and equal societies. But if there were no such distinctions, would we pause to reflect? Would we not simply assume that equality means equal treatment and thereby abort the search to understand? “[H]ow easily we leap for shallow solutions; . . . such solutions are shifting shadows, constantly testing our capacity to keep in focus, keeping us in fear of being blinded by a brighter light.”

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[Page 41]

Spiritual Vertigo at the Edge
of Gender Equality

BY JANE J. RUSSELL

Copyright © 1995 by Jane J. Russell. This essay is based on a paper presented at the conference on Women in Bahá’í Perspective, held in Wilmette, Illinois, 27-29 January 1995.

The numbered footnotes are at the end of the article.

THE REALITY of the equality of women and men is definitively established as a spiritual principle in the revelation of Bahá’u’lláh, the Founder of the Bahá’í Faith. “In this Day,” He writes, “the Hand of divine grace hath removed all distinction. The servants of God and His handmaidens are regarded on the same plane.” This principle, with its mandate to emancipate women from traditional limitations and to welcome them into full participation in all of society’s endeavors, is no mere logical derivation from other Bahá’í teachings, nor, having been articulated a century ago, is it a contemporary afterthought in response to the present feminist movement. Rather, it is a discrete component of the Bahá’í teachings and may be one of the most radical (in the most ancient meaning of the word) elements in Bahá’u’lláh’s vast and comprehensive revelation because this teaching, together with Bahá’u’lláh’s principle of the oneness of humanity, goes to the very foundations of human identity and human society and can be expected to change profoundly both individuals and long-standing social customs. Shoghi Effendi, the great-grandson of Bahá’u’lláh and the Guardian of the Bahá’í Faith, declares that “The principle of the Oneness of Mankind” implies “an organic change in the structure of present-day society, a change such as the world has not yet experienced.” Nowhere is this promise of change more true than in the implementation of the corollary principle of the equality of women and men.

In 1911 ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Bahá’u’lláh’s Son and the authorized interpreter of His Father’s writings, observed that,

In this Revelation of Bahá’u’lláh, the women go neck and neck with the men. In no movement will they be left behind. Their rights with men are equal in degree. They will enter all the administrative branches of politics. They will attain in all such a degree as will be considered the very highest station of the world of humanity and will take part in all affairs. . . . in the not far distant future the world of women will become all-refulgent and all-glorious, For His Holiness Bahá’u’lláh Hath Willed It so!

‘Abdu’l-Bahá did not quantify the “not far distant future.” Yet eighty-four years have elapsed since He made the statement, long enough for a person to be born, to live a long life, and to grow old, not a trivial span of time, particularly in an age of change such [Page 42] as ours. Thus, although the Bahá’í Faith is only in its second century, this may be a good time to assess and discuss the progress that Bahá’ís in the United States have made toward implementing gender equality.

Gender Equality in the U.S.
Bahá’í Community

THE assessment of gender equality in the U.S. Bahá’í community focuses on two areas: electoral patterns and interactions between women and men in the Bahá’í community.

Electoral Patterns. In view of the clarity of the pertinent Bahá’í writings and the long-standing abundance in the U.S. Bahá’í community of educated, spiritually deepened women with a wealth of experience on local and national Bahá’í governing bodies (local spiritual assemblies and the National Spiritual Assembly), one might expect to find no gender bias in Bahá’í voting patterns in the United States. Such, however, is not the case. The election of men as chairmen and women as secretaries of spiritual assemblies, although not universal, is so common in the history of the U.S. Bahá’í community that it has come to constitute a stereotype. This historical pattern results in work within the Bahá’í community persistently being assigned to elected leaders according to traditional gender roles, apparently irrespective of interest or talent, a result inconsistent with the thrust of the Bahá’í teachings. Analysis of election figures of local spiritual assembly members and officers of local spiritual assemblies (see table 1) shows that this pattern continues at present, even though women comprise 54 percent of the total U.S. Bahá’í community and men only 46 percent.

To avoid sampling bias in favor of traditional gender role stereotypes in the analysis of the data in table 1, all persons whose names do not clearly indicate their gender were added to the numbers for the gender from which traditional gender role stereotypes would exclude them. Thus all “unknown gender” spiritual assembly members, chairpersons, vice-chairpersons, and treasurers were presumed to be female, since all these positions are traditionally given to males. Correspondingly, all “unknown gender” secretaries were presumed to be male, since this position is more often traditionally given to females.

A Chi-Square analysis to determine the statistical significance of the figures in table 1 produced the following results: This analysis, revealing frequencies that do not depart from chance expectations, supports the impression that women are elected to spiritual assembly membership in proportion to their numbers in the community and without bias toward or against them.

However, stereotyping is demonstrated in the gender distribution of spiritual assembly officers. Men are elected chairperson, vice-chairperson, and treasurer, and women are elected secretary in numbers disproportionate to their representation as spiritual assembly members. The Chi-Square analysis shows that the probability of these results arising from chance is less than .001—that is, the chance of these electoral results occurring without some biasing factor is less than one [Page 43] in a thousand, an exceptionally strong result when compared with the .05 level considered adequate for publication in the behavioral and social sciences. Although clearly these data alone cannot identify the assumptions and motivations of the individual voter, they do reveal the existence of one or more strong biases in favor of limiting women to the one spiritual assembly officership that mirrors work presently performed by them in traditional society and a corresponding allocation of male-traditional work to men. Further, the reality that women themselves constitute a majority of spiritual assembly members (and thus cast the majority of votes to elect officers) signals that this is a pattern reflecting considerable psychological and social complexity in voting patterns.

Table 1 Gender Frequencies in Spiritual Assemblies and Officers,
U.S. Bahá’í Community, 1994^*

	Female		Male		Sex Unclear from Name†
	Number	% of Total	Number	% of Total	Number	% of Total	Total
Assembly Members	6,448	54%	4,955	41%	575	5%	11,978
Chairpersons‡	364	35%	640	61%	45	4%	1,049
Vice-Chairpersons	359	38%	547	58%	45	4%	951
Secretaries	1,046	75%	293	21%	47	4%	1,386
Treasurers	407	39%	592	56%	51	5%	1,050

*Data courtesy Research Office, Bahá’í National Center, Wilmette, Illinois
†Gender is not reported on official reports: Sex is not clear from the name, due to unisex names or non-English names unfamiliar to staff.
‡The term “chairperson” is used in the national database.

Bahá’u’lláh wrote that “Soon will the present-day order be rolled up, and a new one spread out in its stead.” A review of the duties of local spiritual assembly officers indicates that the chairman’s job is managerial, while the secretary’s job, although of critical importance, is fundamentally clerical and, consequently, subordinate. In the present-day order, managers are still largely male, while secretaries are virtually all female. Therefore, the demonstrated sex-linking of assembly offices has the effect of preserving the habits of the present-day order within the very institutions that constitute the fundamental building blocks of a new world order.

The pattern is not confined to the local level. In the history of the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States, a history spanning most of the twentieth century, only two women have served as chairperson, and no woman has ever been elected secretary. When one considers that the larger the community served, which must by definition include the national community, the more the secretary’s job becomes managerial rather than clerical, it is clear that the same pattern of reserving managerial jobs for men occurs at the national level.

Furthermore, a parallel pattern has long [Page 44] existed in the election of delegates to the National Convention. Delegate lists from 1985 through 1995 show men outnumbering women by slightly more than two to one, results that are significant at the .05 level and that reveal bias analogous to that in the election of local spiritual assembly officers. Between 1985 and 1990 women did achieve a gradual 10 percent rise, from 29 percent to 39 percent, but by 1995 they had fallen to 27 percent. Longer term data from one state reveal truly extreme results: In 1971 this state had one district with eight delegates—four men and four women. By 1995 the state had three districts, one delegate per district, a total of three. All three delegates were men. Thus men in this state have moved from 50 percent of the delegates to 100 percent, accruing a 100 percent gain, while women have gone from 50 percent to zero, sustaining a 100 percent loss.

Appointive positions stand out in contrast, revealing a record that is more equitable at all levels. For example, women constitute virtually half of the Auxiliary Board members serving in the United States. This pattern carries through to the Assistants to the Auxiliary Board, irrespective of whether the Board member appointing them is male or female. Likewise, women have long served on national committees. Thus the ratios in appointed positions reflect sustained efforts by institutions of the Bahá’í Faith to observe balance in making appointments.

However, the positive example is not reflected in the voting habits of individual Bahá’ís. When procedure calls for a secret ballot, the inherent accountability that impinges upon institutions in making appointments and the sense of responsibility to promote gender equity seem to disappear, replaced by results that replicate traditional gender biases.

Clearly the pattern is not the work of men alone, or even primarily of men. Although some Bahá’í men doubtless contribute their votes to these results, men number only 46 percent of the U.S. Bahá’í community and constitute a minority of local spiritual assembly members. American Bahá’í men are a diverse group who cannot be presumed to think or vote with uniformity. Moreover, it is not mathematically possible that they alone are responsible for the pattern.

To change electoral patterns that stand in such contrast to Bahá’í principle will be difficult and may require a new level of active leadership by Bahá’í institutions. Such efforts may well meet with substantial resistance. The Bahá’í electoral process, a process so unifying in its avoidance of nominations and of campaigning for office, appears from observation to be understood in the United States at present to forbid any discussion of electoral behavior at all, even of patterns that perpetuate long-standing, objectively demonstrable discriminatory practices. But nothing in the Bahá’í writings forbids free and open discussion of all aspects of Bahá’í life—including cultural biases in relation to Bahá’í institutions.

Bahá’ís in the United States have successfully met similar challenges in the past, such as the struggle to allow women to serve on local spiritual assemblies and the Bahá’í Faith’s confrontation of unacknowledged racism within its ranks in the 1960s. There is, therefore, every reason to be confident of success in solving the long-standing problem of electoral patterns that favor men.

Social Patterns. Even though voting patterns reflect deep-seated traditional biases, social behavior among Bahá’ís tends to be [Page 45] cordial, respectful, and loving. Bahá’í’s often make visibly conscious efforts to understand and apply the teachings of Bahá’u’lláh to their interactions. However, a sufficient number of individuals, both male and female, appear to retain male-supremacist, even patriarchal, attitudes and behaviors left over from the present-day order, creating noticeable barriers to implementing gender equality that must be addressed frankly. Numerous women from various geographical areas anecdotally report the following experiences in their Bahá’í communities:

Too often, women say, some men respond to a woman’s contributions during consultation with references to her gender, leaving the impression that the content of her contribution is secondary, that it can be, perhaps even should be, ignored or discounted. When accompanied by a patronizing or condescending tone, this response directly contradicts ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s injunction that “it is in no wise permissible for one to belittle the thought of another.” Also during consultation some men habitually rephrase women’s contributions (a practice appearing to imply that women lack the power of articulate speech) or frequently interrupt women before they have made their point, while giving respectful attention to men’s contributions.

Women also report that some men respond with nervous laughter when a woman contributes a logical argument with which they disagree but are unable to refute, as if consultation were a competitive sport in which she has scored points on them. This complex interaction gives women the impression that women’s use of their intellect represents a hostile act and is, therefore, wrong. The obsolescence of this attitude stands out in sharp relief when compared with Bahá’í writings, such as ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s assertion that, “in a short time, women will become the same as men; they will take a leading position amongst the learned, will each have a fluent tongue and eloquent speech. . . .”

Women also describe a phenomenon in the U.S. Bahá’í community at its present stage of development in which some Bahá’í men adopt a certain nonassertive blandness of public manners, a softness associated with women. This mode of behavior is viewed as very “spiritual,” and those men are rewarded for it. In contrast, women who emphasize traditional feminine qualities tend to be ignored, while women who display qualities traditionally associated with men (behavior that is equally in accordance with the Bahá’í writings) are rarely perceived as “spiritual” and may, indeed, receive disapproval. Women who find these contradictions difficult derive comfort from ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s statement that “This is a bounteous characteristic of this wondrous Age which hath granted strength to the weaker sex and hath bestowed masculine might upon womanhood. . . .”

In view of the wealth of guidance for healthy human relations contained within the Bahá’í writings, so laden with power to stir the hearts and souls of humankind to action, one would expect anachronistic behaviors to be firmly discouraged, both by individuals and by U.S. Bahá’í institutions. Until recently, however, the problem represented by the foregoing behavior patterns has, at the institutional as well as the personal level, generally been denied, deferred, and allowed to drift. Yet the very fact that these practices are so inconsistent with the Bahá’í teachings doubtless makes them painful both to those who experience them and to those who learn of them. “The friends of God,” Bahá’u’lláh said, “must be adorned with the ornament of justice, equity, kindness and love. As they do not allow themselves to be the object of cruelty and transgression, in like manner they should not allow such tyranny to visit the handmaidens of God.”

In contrast to Bahá’u’lláh’s divine requirement, the assessment both of electoral behavior and social interactions in the United States reveals considerable oppression of women, [Page 46] however unintended, by institutions and individuals—male and female alike. Although largely mental and emotional in nature and sometimes self-imposed, such oppression is no small matter. It appears to arise from neglect of the principle of gender equality, and, in some cases, from opposition to its implementation. The cost to the U.S. Bahá’í community and to the world of such neglect, compounding over time, is rather high.

The Costs of Failure
to Implement Gender Equality

OF primary and incalculable importance, failure to implement gender equality truncates efforts to create unity within the Bahá’í Faith. Bahá’u’lláh has clearly stated that “the fundamental purpose animating the Faith of God and His Religion is to . . . promote the unity of the human race,” which surely implies unity between the women and men. He further states that “The well-being of mankind, its peace and security are unattainable unless and until its unity is firmly established.” Hence failure to promote just treatment for both sexes exacts an enormous price from women and men simply to avoid change.

Moreover, the failure to implement gender equality also truncates efforts to achieve justice in the Bahá’í community. When one applies the following statement of Bahá’u’lláh to the present inequities between the sexes, that cost is clearly revealed: “The light of men is Justice. Quench it not with the contrary winds of oppression and tyranny. The purpose of justice is the appearance of unity among men.” Bahá’u’lláh’s teachings, applied to the present U.S. Bahá’í community, produce a logical argument that is interesting but disturbing: Justice creates unity, while oppression and tyranny quench justice. It has been demonstrated that women in the Bahá’í community receive a measure of spiritual oppression and social tyranny often comparable to that found in society at large. To the degree that the present situation, therefore, quenches justice within the U.S. Bahá’í community, efforts by that community to create unity are hampered.

Bahá’í teaching efforts may also be adversely affected by the failure to implement gender equality. Present patterns of Bahá’í community life in the United States cannot yet fully show to the world the “viable model and . . . alternative means of social organization.” Nor is it logically possible for the public to see clearly in the present Bahá’í community “a true pattern, in action, of something better than it already has” in terms of gender equality. Without dynamic progress toward developing these patterns—the prerequisites of success—progress in teaching may be made disproportionately difficult relative to the results.

Failure to implement gender equality may also be a factor in the success or lack of success in Bahá’í marriages. At present the rate of divorce in the U.S. Bahá’í community, while no worse than that found in society at large, is certainly no better. The reasons for divorce are many and complex, but without equality, the process of consultation (the foundation upon which Bahá’í marriage is built) is impeded, and domination by one partner is more likely to develop. Yet the Bahá’í marriage vow, elegant in its simplicity, requires only one promise: “We will all, verily, abide by the Will of God.” Greater attention to consultation as the primary mode of married life between two equal partners— seen as the means to discovering the will of God—might reduce the rate of divorce and begin to reveal the ideal pattern that Bahá’ís seek to promulgate, as already being visible and present in that most basic of social structures, the family.

In addition, continuing neglect of the principle of the equality of the sexes opens the possibility that the U.S. Bahá’í community will abandon its noble role, so designated by Shoghi Effendi, as the “champion builders” of the “New World Order” and [Page 47] allow it to pass into history, in favor of more vigorous and courageous Bahá’í (or even non-Bahá’í) communities. An example is found in the frank, specific, practical call to action in pursuit of equal rights for women from the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of Australia to the Australian believers, dated August 1988—seven years ago—and reprinted in a recent issue of World Order.

Moreover, the Bahá’í writings abound with warnings that deferring implementation of gender equality can delay the advent of world peace. Among them are ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s statement that

When all mankind shall receive the same opportunity of education and the equality of men and women be realized, the foundations of war will be utterly destroyed. Without equality this will be impossible because all differences and distinction are conducive to discord and strife. Equality between men and women is conducive to the abolition of warfare for the reason that women will never be willing to sanction it.

Finally, the human potential of individual Bahá’ís of both sexes will continue to be limited by the restrictions of narrow, traditional gender roles. Everyone is at risk.

In view of the high cost, apparently cascading into so many areas of Bahá’í endeavor, it is imperative to determine the source of resistance to implementation, to analyze what is happening that retards progress.

The Source of the Resistance:
Spiritual Vertigo

IN seeking reasons for the current difficulties in implementing fully the equality of women in the U.S. Bahá’í community, it is useful first to eliminate the easy answers. The problem is not a matter of disobedience. Moreover, Bahá’ís do not resist implementation of gender equality because they are bad people. In addition, they are not consciously picking and choosing what they like in the Bahá’í teachings and rejecting the rest. To an observer impatient for implementation of the principle of gender equality, these impressions can appear to be true, but even if they were, confining one’s thinking to this level leads only to alienation. Nor is resistance an intellectual problem. If implementation of gender equality could be achieved through the application of intellect, the U.S. Bahá’í community would have long ago become a model for the world.

Rather, the problem itself is emotional. Quite simply, gender equality, which sounds so right and fair that it seems unbelievable that Bahá’u’lláh’s revelation is the first to proclaim it, frightens people. Acknowledging one’s emotional resistance is distressing for everyone. It appears to be more difficult for men, who are more rigorously trained from childhood to suppress, ultimately to repress, their emotions, although they are allowed anger. But women, too, whether in response to male anger or from self-doubt, often hesitate to accept and move toward true equality and emancipation.

Few things arouse negative emotions more easily than drastic change, and the magnitude of the change that gender equality and the emancipation of women requires is drastic, indeed. It requires nothing less than the abolition of the fundamental, embedded paradigm of the world we live in: the assumption that, for humanity to survive, men must dominate women and women must submit to that domination.

How the supposition of the necessity of male domination arose is beyond the scope of this paper, but it is refreshing to find that “post-Tarzanist” anthropologists no longer consider this notion to have existed universally in prehistory. Many prehistoric societies lived quite differently, and the archeological evidence indicates that when women held hegemony in both the religious and social lives of the community, they neither dominated nor oppressed men. Synthesizing this [Page 48] new view of prehistory, Riane Eisler, in The Chalice and the Blade, establishes that “war and the ‘war of the sexes’ are neither divinely nor biologically ordained.” Yet humanity appears to have spent its few thousand years of recorded history believing that they were.

“The world in the past,” ‘Abdu’l-Bahá says in describing recorded history, “has been ruled by force, and man has dominated over woman by reason of his more forceful and aggressive qualities both of body and mind.” Note that He says males are more forceful and aggressive, not that they are exclusively so. Furthermore, living in a time when militaristic values have falsely defined force and aggression as virtues—consider the popularity of sanguinary action films, on the one hand, and the use of the term “aggressive growth fund,” on the other—one needs to remember that ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, when describing “aggressive qualities,” is not speaking in praise of males. “Force” refers to coercion, and “aggression” is synonymous with hostility. When force is civilized into determination, and aggression is transformed into assertiveness, both are useful. In their raw form, however, neither is an attractive quality.

The idea that men must dominate women and that women must submit to it, is now, and has ever been, an error. The equality of women and men is an eternal spiritual truth, an elemental fact of creation. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá makes this incontrovertibly clear, saying “men and women alike are the revealers of His [God’s] names and attributes, and from the spiritual viewpoint there is no difference between them.” A unique characteristic of the Bahá’í Faith is that this spiritual truth is required to be expressed in the structure, institutions, and daily life of human society. Hence ‘Abdu’l-Bahá writes: “Divine Justice demands that the rights of both sexes should be equally respected since neither is superior to the Other in the eyes of Heaven. . . . Human virtues belong equally to all!”

Since male domination is based on error, and men are not in reality superior, enforcement becomes a consuming problem. It requires that everyone participate. Men cannot enforce the falsehood without the cooperation of women. Fundamental to enforcement has been the evolution of sharply differentiated gender roles. Thus the human male developed his tragically contingent identity, contingent not upon God’s bountiful gifts to him, but upon the responses of women, his fellow creatures. For if he is to be a man, she must be his polar opposite.

A quick review of the substance of traditional gender roles, stripped of stylistic and cultural nuances, reveals the polar opposites upon which gender stereotyping, at its most extreme, depends.

For him to be Strong, she must be weak. For him to be courageous, she must be fearful. For him to be powerful, she must be powerless. For him to be wise, she must be foolish. For him to be eloquent, she must be silent. For his work to matter, hers must be trivial, even to the rearing of the next generation. And if in his life he controls nothing else, he must control her. Above all, she must believe it. She must like it. She must never, never become angry about it. Any seclusion, exclusion, deprivation, any punishment must be acceptable to enforce it. She must even be left out of history, lest the achievements of outstanding women gradually accumulate and challenge it.

One would think that rational people could not bear to live in a world in which men require the psychic self-immolation of women, and women correspondingly require superhuman accomplishments of men. Yet elements of polarized gender identities and the system of gender-specific prescribed behaviors that has grown in support of them linger in the U.S. Bahá’í community to a surprising degree in view of Bahá’í teachings that clearly abolish both. It is reasonable to ask how this is possible.

Through wars, pogroms, floods, earthquakes, [Page 49] famines, plagues, technological dislocation, and the threat of nuclear annihilation, humanity may never have faced a psychological challenge of the magnitude of gender equality. Never before has a divine revelation called the entire human race to account in so uncompromising a manner. In 1985, ten years ago, the Universal House of Justice affirmed that the social dimensions of the principle of the equality of women and men extend to every individual and to all levels of social organization:

The emancipation of women, the achievement of full equality between the sexes, is one of the most important . . . prerequisites of peace. The denial of such equality perpetrates an injustice against one-half of the world’s population and promotes in men harmful attitudes and habits that are carried from the family to the workplace, to political life, and ultimately to international relations. There are no grounds, moral, practical, or biological upon which such denial can be justified. Only as women are welcomed into full partnership in all fields of human endeavor will the moral and psychological climate be created in which international peace can emerge.

Bahá’u’lláh explains the psychological dimensions of the problem: “The world’s equilibrium hath been upset,” He writes, “through the vibrating influence of this most great, this new World Order. Mankind’s ordered life hath been revolutionized through the agency of this unique, this wondrous System —the like of which mortal eyes have never witnessed.” This frequently quoted statement, this sequence of stirring metaphors declaring the power of the Bahá’í teachings to transform the world into a completely new society, contains four critical elements that, when combined and applied to the implementation of gender equality, appear sufficient to provoke a global anxiety attack: the upsetting of equilibrium, the presence of vibrating influence, the revolutionizing of life, and the appearance of a system new to mortal eyes.

It is difficult to imagine anything that could more profoundly upset the world’s equilibrium, throw people off balance, and give people spiritual vertigo than the destruction of the ancient, deep, automatic, stimulus-response network that constitutes the polarized gender roles of the old world order, especially if they are to be replaced by something entirely new to human experience. Yet that is what the Bahá’í teachings do. They abrogate male dominance and female submission, and they condemn the error-based sex roles that those practices generate.

Most Bahá’ís, before surrendering their old identities, would like to have in hand clearly defined, specific, concrete definitions of masculinity and femininity with which to replace them. However, the Bahá’í writings do not provide such details, and one cannot assume that their absence arises from an oversight on Bahá’u’lláh’s part. Likewise, the Universal House of Justice, when asked for “specific rules of conduct to govern the relationships of husbands and wives,” declined to create any such rules, stating that “there is already adequate guidance included in the compilation on this subject.”

Compared with the detailed codes of conduct prescribed by traditional gender roles, the Bahá’í writings on the subject appear vague. The emotional effect of this vagueness (together with the other factors mentioned above) is that Bahá’ís seem to be stuck and dizzy on the edge of the New World Order; although the Bahá’í writings speak of the ocean of reality, what Bahá’ís now see looks more like the Grand Canyon of uncertainty, and it seems to be a long way down. They cannot even see the other side because “mortal eyes have never witnessed” it. And they are expected to move forward. Such primitive, existential fear that implementation and the social changes resulting from it will eliminate [Page 50] one’s contingent, gender-supported identity while providing nothing in its place is sufficient to account for massive resistance.

“The Revelation of Bahá’u’lláh . . . should,” Shoghi Effendi says, “be regarded as signalizing through its advent the coming of age of the entire human race.” In this light, the lack of detail is revealed as manifest wisdom. Children, lacking the experience with which to derive correct actions from principle, need exact rules and regulations. Adults do not, and the inappropriate application of detailed rules to them inhibits their growth. One can be relieved that Bahá’u’lláh did not act like an over-controlling parent, first telling humanity to grow up, then making such maturity impossible.

Yet in the absence of detailed prescriptions, the mind demands closure. Bahá’ís— men and women alike—appear to fill the perceived gaps with the things they like from traditional sex roles. The resulting amalgam is then recycled back, often with considerable force, as if this personal infusion of old ideas into this new divine teaching represents the truth. But since gender equality and traditional sex roles are mutually exclusive, trying to incorporate past views into this new teaching creates, however unintentionally, confusion and effectively prevents implementation.

An example is seen in the long-standing insistence by some Bahá’í women on limiting exploration of gender equality to the Bahá’í writings that discuss homemaking. Often such women restrict homemaking to the most traditional of white middle-class images, a limitation inconsistent with the Bahá’í writings and conceptually indistinguishable from the nineteenth-century doctrine of separate spheres, with its implicit claim of moral superiority of women over men and its confinement of women to the home. Banned from discussion, or so interpreted as to deprive them of meaning, are the extensive Bahá’í writings that promise women full participation in all areas of life. In their nuances these views border on female chauvinism and closely mirror the anti-equality extremes of “difference feminist” theory, an ironic result in view of the harsh criticism of feminism that often accompanies them.

Yet the Universal House of Justice is quite thorough, but nonlimiting, on the subject of the family, parenthood, and children. In brief, the mother has the responsibility to see that children are reared properly, while the father is responsible for providing financial support for her while she does it. However, in a number of communications the Universal House of Justice makes it clear that a mother is perfectly free to work outside the home during the child-rearing years if she and her husband determine, through consultation, that this approach would be best.

A detailed survey of the compilation on women prepared by the Universal House of Justice reveals a fascinating fact: The right of a woman to be financially supported by her husband appears only in connection with children. Even when the Universal House of Justice affirms that “Homemaking is a highly honourable and responsible work,” the Statement is addressed to a “wife and mother.” Nothing is found implying a specific obligation for him to support her simply because she is married to him.

It is, therefore, possible to argue that simply being a wife may no more constitute an occupation than does being a husband. The [Page 51] inclusion in the compilation on women of Bahá’u’lláh’s law of work, with its implication to earn one’s own livelihood, may be quite significant, as well as the inclusion of the principle of mutatis mutandis—what applies to him applies to her unless it is physically impossible. Likewise, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá is quite firm in stating that women must develop “equal capacity and importance” with men in the “social and economic equation.” Women are unlikely to achieve that status in the house. Furthermore, in a recently published statement on global economic development, the Bahá’í International Community’s Office of Public Information firmly states that “A commitment to the establishment of full equality between men and women, in all departments of life and at every level of society, will be central to the success of efforts to conceive and implement a strategy of global development.”

Also symptomatic of fear of implementation is the intensity with which some Bahá’í women criticize the feminist movement and the condescension that they express toward it. Their charges are often based on inaccurate information about the movement, indicating that these women may not have educated themselves about its history. Similar to Bahá’u’lláh’s experience with newspapers, feminists have found much reporting on the women’s movement to be erroneous. Lack of first-hand knowledge renders one dependent for information on superficial, often inaccurate reportage by the popular media and on statements by opponents of gender equality who have been ever-present throughout the movement’s two-hundred-year history. But independently investigating the nature and history of the women’s movement—a method of inquiry consistent with Bahá’í principles— might cause some women who presently oppose it to modify their views.

‘Abdu’l-Bahá describes the appearance of the Manifestation of God as a time of divine springtime: “Humanity hath taken on a new life. . . . the reviving spring is here. All things are now made new. Arts and industries have been reborn, there are new discoveries in science, and there are new inventions. . . .” In response to this idea, Bahá’ís often give credit to the energizing power of the new revelation in discussing the dramatic rise in scientific discoveries and inventions since the Bahá’í Faith began. Often cited is the first telegraph message, “What hath God wrought!” sent on 23 May 1844, the very day on which the Bahá’í era began.

The birth of the modern women’s movement is also a central element in that great and universal awakening. One of the most stirring moments in Bahá’í history occurred in July 1848, at the Conference at Badasht, in Persia, when Ṭáhirih, a distinguished poet and one of the first people to accept the teachings of the Báb, in as startling a demonstration of female equality imaginable in that place and time, appeared unveiled without warning before her nineteenth-century male co-believers, shocking them deeply. Also in July 1848 the first United States Women’s Rights Conference took place in Seneca Falls, New York. Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Ṭáhirih were no more operating in a spiritual vacuum than were the inventors whose discoveries are attributed to the divine springtime. The feminist movement, like other social movements whose general aims parallel those of the Bahá’í Faith, is not required to coincide in every detail with the Bahá’í writings to deserve respect.

Implementing equality between the sexes presents enormous and complex challenges; but a way must be found out of this fear, this spiritual vertigo that affects both women and men. And it will be, “For His Holiness Bahá’u’lláh Hath Willed It so.”

What Is the Way Out?

THE WAY out—the implementation of the equality of the sexes—begins with a question simple in concept, yet complex and difficult [Page 52] in execution. What does God want humanity to be? Bahá’u’lláh says that God wants women and men to be like Him:

Upon the inmost reality of each and every created thing He hath shed the light of one of His names, and made it a recipient of the glory of one of His attributes. Upon the reality of man, however, He hath focused the radiance of all of His names and attributes, and made it a mirror of His own Self. Alone of all created things man hath been singled out for so great a favor, so enduring a bounty.

‘Abdu’l-Bahá affirms that, in terms of their spiritual reality, “in the sight of Bahá [Bahá’u’lláh], women are accounted the same as men, and God hath created all humankind in His own image, and after His own likeness. That is, men and women alike are the revealers of His names and attributes, and from the spiritual viewpoint there is no difference between them.”

Sexual dimorphism and gender identity, then, are accidents of the reproductive biology of this life. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá strongly indicates that they end with this life. Though clearly significant, they appear, in their essence, to be job descriptions for the portion of this life involved in producing the next generation. There is little doubt that biological imperatives alone are sufficient to guarantee the continuation of that process. Oppression of women is not required.

The capacity to mirror all the names and attributes of God is what makes human beings humans. It is every woman’s and every man’s true identity, a gift from God, not a mere psychological construct; and it is contingent on nothing except God. These spiritual attributes are what give human beings eternal life. The purpose of this life, in the Bahá’í view, is to develop these attributes so that the next life, which is purely spiritual, will be worth living.

The names and attributes of God (such as knowledge, wisdom, power, mercy, and compassion) when seen in human beings are generally recognized as human qualities, capabilities, and virtues. Traditional gender roles, by limiting the socially acceptable expression of so many human qualities to one sex or the other, impose severe limitations not only on the advancement of society but on the spiritual development of individuals, an injustice of infinite implications.

It thus needs to be understood that there are no masculine or feminine qualities, only human qualities that have come to be labeled that way as the result of socialization. Since it is clear from the Bahá’í writings that everyone partakes of these gifts from God, a large step toward implementation will be taken when both women and men stop thinking of courageous women as dangerous, of strong women as domineering, of assertive women as aggressive, of independent women as selfish, of intelligent women as threatening, of articulate women as strident. Such women are not unfeminine, nor are they acting like men. They are acting like human beings. In accordance with the Bahá’í writings, they are departing from traditional gender roles. Negative reactions to that departure, common in society, rife in politics, represent an attempt to shame women back into their “place” as weak, fearful, powerless, foolish, and silent beings. Correspondingly, caring, tender-hearted men who treat women as equals, who are emotionally expressive, who do not cloak themselves in traditional macho behavior are often viewed as weak, ineffectual, and not real men. Bahá’ís—and the world at large—can do better than this.

But how can Bahá’ís in particular change their classically conditioned reactions in which no thought intervenes between the stimulus and the response? The reactions cannot be changed by intellectualizing them. They are not thoughts but feelings so ingrained by society that they seem morally right. Nor can they be changed by rationalizing them, nor by denying them, nor by any Other Freudian [Page 53] defense mechanism. Deep changes require spiritual transformation. Fortunately, Bahá’u’lláh has provided a spiritual, emotional, and intellectual road map for such transformation:

Table 2 Application of Principles of Spiritual Transformation
to the Equality of Women and Men and the Emancipation of Women

Quotation Segment	Application
Knowledge of the Ancient of Days	In this case, knowledge is of the principle of gender equality.
Purify one’s heart, which is the seat of the revelation of the inner mysteries of God	The truth is already in one’s heart. What is needed is to uncover it.
From the obscuring dust of all acquired knowledge	In this instance, traditional gender roles are the dust of acquired knowledge.
No remnant of love or hate	Love: portions of traditional gender roles one likes. Hate: portions in Bahá’í teachings one fears.
Put one’s trust in God	And pray for a greater level of trust in God. God will protect one from feeling annihilation of self as old defining attitudes are abandoned.
Detach one’s self from world of dust	Relinquish traditional gender roles. They are human creations, part of the world of dust.
Never seek to exalt one’s self above anyone	Men abandon attitudes of superiority, power, privilege. Women abandon attitudes of inferiority and attitudes of moral superiority over men.
Cling to patience and resignation	Know that this is a process, not a single event and not always smooth. Keep going.
Refrain from idle talk	End generalizations about either sex. Focus on human reality. Listen to what women and men say, not monitor how they say it.
Not wish for others that which one does not wish for one’s self	Example: End gender-specific job discrimination. Exclude gender from qualifications. Look at capabilities.
Nor promise that which one does not fulfill	Accept that there is a problem in implementation, and work to be part of the solution.

But, O my brother, when a true seeker determineth to take the step of search in the path leading to the knowledge of the Ancient of Days, he must, before all else, cleanse and purify his heart, which is the seat of the revelation of the inner mysteries of God, from the obscuring dust of all acquired knowledge. . . . He must so cleanse his heart that no remnant of either love or hate may linger therein, lest that love blindly incline him to error, or that hate repel him away from the truth. . . . That seeker must at all times put his trust in God, must renounce the peoples of the earth, detach [Page 54] himself from the world of dust, and cleave unto Him Who is the Lord of Lords. He must never seek to exalt himself above anyone, must wash away from the tablet of his heart every trace of pride and vainglory, must cling unto patience and resignation, observe silence, and refrain from idle talk. . . .

. . . He should not wish for others that which he doth not wish for himself, nor promise that which he doth not fulfil.

When applied to the implementation of gender equality, Bahá’u’lláh’s road map provides at least eleven guideposts, most efficiently shown in tabular form (see table 2 on previous page).

The principle of gender equality, simple in its essence and complex in its implications, cannot be absorbed by reading a few passages from the Bahá’í writings. Thorough study of all the Bahá’í writings on the subject will be needed, by both women and men, with minds and hearts cleared from preconceptions and an attitude of acceptance. The Bahá’í writings feed one spiritually and give one courage.

Then, of course, Bahá’ís need to move forward to implement Bahá’u’lláh’s teachings on the equality of women and men, to attempt to do what they ask every Bahá’í to do. Opportunities for implementation abound. This principle influences every transaction of daily life, because men and women are everywhere. Women and men need to bring themselves to account each day in order to make adjustments in the new skills they are learning. New challenges will take them back to the Bahá’í writings. When they encounter something excruciating, they can read the Bahá’í writings on gender equality yet again. Then when their books are dog-eared and underlined on every page and bristling with bookmarks, they can be sure they are making progress.

If enough Bahá’ís undertake such a study of the Bahá’í writings on gender equality and make a commitment to realizing the principle in their lives for long enough and do it together and support each other in their efforts, they will create a society the customs of which are consistent with the requirements of the age. Then they can live in a world where men and women relate to each other as genuine human beings and can love each other as they were meant to do.

Albie Sachs, a South African legal theorist, recently observed that, “All revolutions are impossible until they happen. Then they become inevitable.” The revolution to create equality between men and women will be no exception. In its wake the emancipation of women can be expected to follow as a natural and obvious imperative. The society the human race will create in response to the revitalizing Revelation of Bahá’u’lláh is nothing less than the “new heaven and new earth” foreseen in the Revelation of St. John the Divine, wherein “God himself shall be with them” and “shall wipe away all tears from their eyes . . . for the former things are passed away.”

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Authors & Artists

KURT HEIN, who teaches at the Maxwell International Bahá’í School in British Columbia, makes his debut in World Order as a poet. Dr. Hein has worked at two Bahá’í radio stations—Radio Bahá’í in Ecuador and WLGI in South Carolina—and has published a book (Radio Bahá’í, Ecuador) and numerous articles on Bahá’í radio and on Bahá’í social and economic development. He is a consultant to the Bahá’í Office of Social and Economic Development, helping to develop guidelines for the administration of Bahá’í schools.

DUANE HERRMANN, whose first love is Bahá’í history and the role of the arts in spiritual development, works for the Kansas Public Employees Retirement System. He has published a number of poems and essays, including “Houses as Perfect as Is Possible” in the Fall 1994 issue of World Order.

MARILYN J. RAY, M.D., is a physician specializing in radiology, about which she has published a number of papers. Her interests include her family, painting, music, and psychology, which has been a passion since adolescence.

MONICA RELLER, a teacher and reflexologist by profession and a collage artist, is a private tutor in piano and voice. Her poems have appeared in a number of publications.

JANE J. RUSSELL, who holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in molecular biology from the University of California, is a certified financial planner for American Express Financial Planning. She is chairperson of the Coalition for the Emancipation of Women for Southeastern Michigan.

MARTHA LEACH SCHWEITZ has been a professor of international law at Seinan Gakuin University in Fukuoka, Japan, since 1989. She graduated from Stanford University in 1976 and received her J.D. from New York University School of Law in 1981. She practiced international business law for five years with Baker & McKenzie in Chicago and taught corporate and international law at the University of Oregon Law School for three years before moving to Japan. She has just completed a one-year sabbatical as a Visiting Fellow at Princeton University, pursuing research in international economic organizations and the relationship between civil society and international law.

ART CREDITS: Cover design, John Solarz; cover photograph, Annette Prosterman; p. 1, photograph, Ken Francisco; pp. 3, 8, 20, photographs, Steve Garrigues; p. 39, photograph, Darius Himes; p. 40, photograph, Steve Garrigues.

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