Women's Liberation

Question: BELOVED MASTER, ARE YOU AGAINST THE WOMEN'S LIBERATION MOVEMENT? Shakti, I am not against women, I am all for them. But the liberation movement is something ugly -- and I know the responsibility is on the male chauvinists. They have been doing so much harm to women down the ages that now the woman wants to take revenge. But whenever you start taking revenge you become destructive. The movement is still in a destructive phase; it has not become creative. And I am against destructiveness. It is of no use to go on looking at past wounds. It is of no use to take revenge because of the past. One should learn to forgive and forget. Yes, it was wrong -- accept it. Whatsoever has been done to women down the ages was absolutely wrong. Man HAS exploited them. Man has been very brutal, very animalistic.

Beloved master, would you please talk about women's liberation in the context of your vision of a commune?

Man's liberation is possible only if the woman is liberated. The woman should be educated, should have financial independence, should be an earning member of the family, should not be dependent on the husband. The woman should have as free movement in society as man has. The woman should have time to be creative, to play music, to paint, to read, to write. And you will be surprised -- all her nagging will disappear, all her bitchiness will go, because that is the energy that has become creative now. You cannot condemn the woman, because if you want to have an experience, then just take her job for twenty-four hours. First cook the food -- then you will know! At least I know that I cannot even make a cup of tea. It is a miracle for me how a chapati is made. Then taking care of the children, who…

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…

My communes are run by women, and they have proved far superior to men in every possible way. My sannyasins are doing better business than any man can do, finding better bargains than any man can find. I wanted it to be a solid argument before the whole of humanity that women are not inferior, that if you give them a chance, they can even prove superior in many matters. At least they are going to prove equal. And this is a strange way: to keep half of humanity in a downtrodden state. How much is the loss? -- half of humanity means that women, if they were accepted equally, would have produced a Dostoevsky, a Turgenev, a Chekhov, a Gorky, a van Gogh, a Picasso, a Nijinsky. They may have proved a Buddha, a Jesus.... Half of humanity!