International Women’s Day :: Baha'i Perspectives

International Women’s Day

iman March 8th, 2008

Today, March 8, marks International Women’s Day.

Such a commemoration has, as one of it’s aims, the promotion a more balanced civilization, following a past in which man has dominated over woman by reason of his more forceful and aggressive qualities both of body and mind”; this being a product of physical difference. Although physically distinct, our spiritual identities are equal; a soul has no gender:

In the Divine Creation there is no such distinction. Neither sex is superior to the other in the sight of God. Why then should one sex assert the inferiority of the other, withholding just rights and privileges as though God had given His authority for such a course of action?

(Abdu’l-Bahá, Paris Talks, p. 160)

I found this very nice short video, which illustrates how one African village is putting these ideas into practice. The interview is with Chief Ntambo: