Gender Equality

Women in italy contest that fact that it is you, a man, who is giving them an equal position in the world, rather than women themselves taking what is their birthright. Can you please comment on this?

Man has enslaved women, and it was man's responsibility to give them freedom, to give them dignity and equality. I have not only tried in every possible way to make them equal, but something more -- because they need some compensation. For centuries, man has been exploiting them; hence in my commune I put all the women at the top in every department. Not only should they be given equality for a few years, they should be given something more than equality just to keep the balance. They have suffered so long, and my understanding is that if women take it from men it will not be a beautiful situation. If they fight for it and take it, then men and women will always remain enemies -- and that's what is happening through the women's liberation movement. That movement is creating a kind of antagonism, it is reactionary. Whatever man…

Beloved Osho, I want to defend my male race. Existence gave man the capacity to fight against existence, to swim against the stream, to be a doer, to say no. Hearing you and your therapists, I tried to drop this and this effort to drop only gave me misery. I don't believe existence made me a man in order to become female without ever blossoming into the full potential of my maleness, of my mind. Please comment.

My emphasis is to give respect to women -- and equality is not against men. It is a world which belongs to you both and you both have to be together to make it as beautiful and as divine as possible. Man alone -- look at your question, Mario -- you have been creating only wars. In three thousand years, five thousand wars ... Is life just to fight? Is life just to kill, massacre, rape? Your whole history is full of murder and you call those murderers your great men. Alexander the Great ... And you don't see that small murderers are being jailed, sentenced to death, and big murderers become your heroes. And it is because the woman has been completely cut off from contributing anything to life; otherwise there would not have been so many wars. No woman is interested in war, it is simply against the…

Beloved Osho, you said recently that women's liberation would be men's liberation also. Would you please comment on men's liberation?

Women are turning into lesbians. They feel so much hatred for men that millions of women don't want to have any love relationship with men, they would prefer an unnatural and perverted relationship with a woman. And it is easier, because a man will never be able to suspect that his wife has a girlfriend. Even if the two women go on making love in the house, the husband will never suspect. But if a man comes on the scene and makes the triangle of all the stories and the films and the novels, it cannot be long before the husband discovers it. It is the slavery of women that is turning the women towards lesbianism, but she thinks this is liberation from men. Dropping love for men is not liberation, you are becoming perverted. Drop the marriage contract, drop the license which has been issued by the court. Make…

Osho, some women have a masculine nature...

In truth, being male or female should not be marginal. But the order we have developed is gradually becoming marginal; many people have come to stand on the margin. Civilization has done this. Civilization has made the roles of women and men almost the same. This has caused harm: it has reduced the woman’s femininity and the man’s manhood. Whereas it is necessary that the two be at extreme poles. A man should be ninety-nine percent male and one percent female—the one percent will remain; it cannot be escaped. A woman should be ninety-nine percent female and one percent male. For this it is necessary that they have different bodily exercises, that there be some difference in their diet, that their education be different, that the whole discipline of their lives be different. Then we will be able to place them as polarities. And the day human understanding grows, that…