Day 345

Woman is more fitted than man to make explorations and take bolder actions in ahimsa.

 -Gandhi, The Mind of Mahatma Gandhi

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Transcript

All right, we might be putting our foot into some controversial territory here, but I think Gandhi was looking at the basic natural facts that, women are suited for both the distress of childbirth itself and the enormous gratification of nurturing and uplifting raising the human being and those to, you know, whether you call them nature or culture, those two deeply embedded capacities are much more suitable for someone who wants to be nonviolent.

It's also, perfectly true that this was a pragmatic statement for him to make because he felt it was critically important for women to be fully involved in the satyagraha struggle. And in India, perhaps to a degree even more than in Western cultures, women were kept in the home and out of public action. So, he was overcoming a lot, and that's why he dug deep into that essential argument.