What is your opinion about female education? In Britain women are joining even police and military forces. Should our women also follow suit?

Question : What is your opinion about female education?

Shri Shri Thakur : Women should be trained in the same way as men. However, there should be difference in temperament. The more both are imparted education the better it is. Whatever is the outcome of this education, it is going to be beneficial to women. We should do all those things which are needed to develop women, keeping their characteristics intact.¹

Question : In Britain women are joining even police and military forces. Should our women also follow suit?

Shri Shri Thakur : Yes, they can do everything, if necessary. Many women in our country used to know how to fight a war. However, their natural characteristics are not fighting battles or working as a detective. I feel, they should be doing all those things which elevate and equip their being.

Question : If this is the guideline on what women should be doing, it is equally applicable for men as well. Then where lies the difference?

Shri Shri Thakur : The difference is that a woman finds happiness in augmenting, whereas a man finds happiness getting augmented. The dharma of a man is to fulfil through acquisition, and the dharma of a woman is to ensure that the man gets nourished, gets augmented and thereby get fulfilled seeing the augmentation of the man.²

Foot notes:

¹ – "I believe, then, with this exception, that a girl's education should be nearly, in its course and material of study, the same as a boy's; but quite differently directed. A woman, in any rank of life, ought to know whatever her husband is likely to know, but to know it in a different way. His command of it should be foundational and progressive; hers, general and accomplished for daily and helpful use. Not but that it would often be wiser in men to learn things in a womanly sort of way, for present use, and to seek for the discipline and training of their mental powers in such branches of study as will be afterwards fittest for social service; but, speaking broadly, a man ought to know any language or science he learns, thoroughly--while a woman ought to know the same language,

or science, only so far as may enable her to sympathise in her husband's pleasures, and in those of his best friends." – 'Sesame and Lilies' by John Ruskin

² – "What", I asked, "is a woman's creative function?" "To inspire, to enchant, to charm," the Court replied. – `Glimpses of the centre' - George Sylvester Viereck's conversation with Court Keyserling

[Ref: Nana Prasange Vol.1, Ninth Edition, Dec-2001, Page 71-72]