Women in Jainism
In Jainism equality is highly valued and both men and women are expected to follow ahimsa (no injury to any living being) and that also entails helping each other, working for the common welfare of all humanity, and protecting the environment. But although Jainism prides itself on equality women are considered second class citizens and the Digambara sect even believes that women must be reborn as men inorder to reach liberation.
Women are considered harmful by nature thus breaking ahimsa. Their menstrual blood is considered extremely impure because it is thought that the bleeding kills micro-organisms in the body making women more violent than men by nature. Additionally when Mahavira created Jainism he laid down a set of instructions on how to obtain perfection. One of which was complete nudity. Unfortunately, women are prohibited from being nude in public. If women were aloud to go without clothing in order to attain liberation men would see them and experience sexual desire become impure and naked women would feel shame because of their nakedness and would also be impure. Not only can women not be liberated because they can not be nude, but also women are in charge of taking care of children and the elderly which causes them to form unbreakable earthly attachments keeping them from being able to reach liberation.
In Jainism equality is highly valued and both men and women are expected to follow ahimsa (no injury to any living being) and that also entails helping each other, working for the common welfare of all humanity, and protecting the environment. But although Jainism prides itself on equality women are considered second class citizens and the Digambara sect even believes that women must be reborn as men inorder to reach liberation.
Women are considered harmful by nature thus breaking ahimsa. Their menstrual blood is considered extremely impure because it is thought that the bleeding kills micro-organisms in the body making women more violent than men by nature. Additionally when Mahavira created Jainism he laid down a set of instructions on how to obtain perfection. One of which was complete nudity. Unfortunately, women are prohibited from being nude in public. If women were aloud to go without clothing in order to attain liberation men would see them and experience sexual desire become impure and naked women would feel shame because of their nakedness and would also be impure. Not only can women not be liberated because they can not be nude, but also women are in charge of taking care of children and the elderly which causes them to form unbreakable earthly attachments keeping them from being able to reach liberation.