Why Srila Prabhupada said that women are less intelligent?

-This is a point that may sound very painfully to many. Did Prabhupada hate women? Nowadays there is many intelligent women, working as lawyers, doctors, etc. Should we accept that all of them are unqualified just because they have female bodies? What about lady devotees, are they inferior? How can we understand such statements?

Since this is such a complex subject, this essay became long, therefore I’m posting in daily installments. This is the first part.

– Polemical statements

A lot of times, Srila Prabhupada’s teachings are so far from our western culture and values that many simply can’t understand, what to say about accepting them. That’s why it’s so important to follow spiritual life strictly and to regularly study his books. By doing so, we get progressively purified and our view of the world starts to change. We start to see things as they really are and start to understand Srila Prabhupada’s teachings in a much deeper and practical level.

There are many polemical statements from Srila Prabhupada that many times even devotees fail to properly understand, and this serves as sustenance for the liberalism and aversion to authority that is gradually expanding within our movement. My experience is that only devotees who have a strong connection with Srila Prabhupada are able to continue in the long-term. Such a connection is the foundation that keeps one strong. One who has this mentality, can see Srila Prabhupada, the initiating guru and the other members of the parampara in the proper context, seeing the parampara as an unbroken chain. The guru is someone who connects and reinforces his connection with Srila Prabhupada, a transparent medium, and not someone who replaces him. If this connection is shaken-up at some point, one’s determination is hampered, which will jeopardize his spiritual life.

One example of an apparently unreasonable statement from Srila Prabhupada is his affirmations that women are less intelligent than men. Nowadays, most devotees come from liberal backgrounds, therefore it can be a difficult pill to swallow.

This is one example of a component in Srila Prabhupada’s teachings that demand a deeper understanding to be properly appreciated. Without this deepness, some will take it superficially, in a fanatical way, mix with their own prejudices and just start to oppress women, while others may become cynical, starting to interpret and selectively reject parts of Prabhupada’s teachings that go against their preferences or beliefs, leading to misunderstanding, speculation, loss of faith and other problems. Since this is one of the most misunderstood points from Srila Prabhupada, I will try to explain it as an example, even under the risk of being over my head.

The first point we face when discussing this topic is that when it’s stated that women are less intelligent, some men use this to humiliate them and put them down, in an effort to assess their own superiority. This is actually a tendency that comes from the lower modes, and is naturally not an acceptable behavior for Vaishnavas. As Srila Prabhupada explains in his purport to SB 8.3.7:

“This verse describes the qualifications for devotees or persons highly elevated in spiritual consciousness. Devotees are always equal to everyone, seeing no distinction between lower and higher classes. Panditah sama-darsinah. They look upon everyone as a spirit soul who is part and parcel of the Supreme Lord. Thus they are competent to search for the Supreme Personality of Godhead.”

As devotees, we are supposed to respect everyone and humbly try to help each and every soul to advance and get closer to the Lord. We can see examples of how Srila Prabhupada was applying this principle in connection with his lady disciples in the book “Five years, eleven months” by HG Visakha devi dasi.

As Krsna explains in the Bhagavad-Gita (18.21), “knowledge by which one sees that in every different body there is a different type of living entity you should understand to be in the mode of passion”. The soul living inside the male body is not different from the soul living in the female body, therefore both men and women are qualified for advancement in spiritual life.

The only question is that the female body presents a particular set of challenges for the spiritual advancement of the soul that needs to be properly understood and addressed. Just like men usually have difficulty controlling their eyes in the presence of the opposite sex, have problems with their false ego and are prone to fall down into gross sex, ladies face their own set of challenges. That’s why the traditional Vedic system prescribes different roles for men and women: the constitution of body and mind is different. While the soul is the same, the machine is different, therefore the type of activities and roles should also be distinct.

Just like if someone is driving a sports car and another one is driving a truck. The sports car is faster, but it can’t carry the same load as the truck. If the driver of the car becomes envious of the truck and wants to carry the same load, he will just break his car. Similarly, if the truck driver wants to go as fast as the car, he will just get into an accident.

When Srila Prabhupada speaks about differences between men and women, he is not speaking about the soul, but just about such differences in the body and in the proper roles according to the vehicle that one is driving. As devotees, our goal is to serve Krsna, and the body is a vehicle that allows us to do that. By understanding the qualities and limitations of our vehicle, we can serve better. Another important point is the potential for disrupture in the social structure when the roles for males and females are not properly followed, as we can see nowadays all over the world, especially in western societies.

Now that is stated about what we are talking about, we can continue discussing the initial topic. Stay tuned for the second part.