3. Striving for Equality of the Sexes

World Scripture

Learning is incumbent upon every believer, man and woman.
Sunnan of Ibn Majah 224 (Islam)

In the Lord woman is not independent of man nor man of woman; for as woman was made from man, so man is now born of woman.³⁵ And all things are from God.
1 Corinthians 11.11-12

Women should have equal pay for equal work and they should be considered equally eligible to the offices of principal and superintendent, professor and president. So you must insist that qualifications, not sex, shall govern appointments and salaries.
Susan B. Anthony

Husband and wife are also equal. Their differences should be respected but not used to justify the domination of one by the other. In collaboration with society, the Church must collectively affirm and defend the rights of women.
Pope John Paul II³⁴ (Christianity)

Women naturally have important roles to play in peacemaking. Nearly all of us receive our first lessons in peaceful living from our mothers because our need for love is the very foundation for human existence. From the earliest stages of our growth, we are completely dependent on our mother’s care and it is very important that she expresses her love… If children do not receive the proper affection, in later life they will find it harder to love others. This is how a mother’s love has a bearing on peace.
Tenzin Gyatso, The Fourteenth Dalai Lama (Buddhism)

The day will come when man will recognize woman as his peer, not only at the fireside but in the councils of the nation. Then, and not until then, will there be the perfect comradeship, the ideal union, between the sexes that shall result in the highest development of the race.
Susan B. Anthony

Teachings of Sun Myung Moon

Man is woman’s teacher and woman is man’s teacher. Men and women learn from each other.
(247:174, May 2, 1993)

When a woman shares in her husband’s work, or a man shares in his wife’s work, they will better know each other. Then they can do anything.³⁶
(116:183, January 1, 1982)

I am going to make you ladies into fishing captains. You will take well-educated men, even Ivy League graduates, out to sea. They will become your crew. Do you women want to do it? Can you answer “yes” with a strong voice? “Yes!” That’s what I want to hear! You must learn to have guts.
To become a great woman captain, you must be trained to take charge in the midst of a storm. When the men of your crew are scared to death, you will command them, even by using your fists. How will you feel when those men obey your orders? You will feel good!
(95:97-98, November 1, 1977)

How can women claim equality with men? A man eats two portions of food to a woman’s one. Men work at heavy labor while women follow timidly behind. Is that equality? What about wrestling? Have you ever seen a woman and a man wrestle each other? How, then, can a woman be equal to a man? Only in love are men and women equal; that is how it is meant to be.
How does God love women, when He appointed men to do the hard work and fighting? Nowadays we can purchase rice and cook it, but in the old days men had to go into the mountains or the fields and hunt for game to put on the table while fighting off lions and tigers. On the other hand, women have one ability that gives them standing before men: the ability to bear a child. I believe that God gave women the privilege of childbearing as a condition to maintain some measure of equality with men. The Creator made women to bear children in order to balance their weaknesses in other respects. But lately women are refusing to have children…
(103:273, March 11, 1979)

There is an old saying, “Women are weak, but mothers are strong.” A woman by herself may be weak, but if as a mother she assumes the position of the subject of love, or as a wife or a daughter she takes up the role as the center of love, then she becomes the strongest of all. How can this be? When a woman—as a mother, wife or daughter—assumes the position of the subject of love and then gives one hundred percent to her object partners, God’s love comes in to fill up the vacuum that is left after she has given everything. That is when the power of God’s love starts working. So even though she is a woman, by resembling God and assuming the position of the subject of love, she generates tremendous force. The power of that love will give life to the family, give life to the nation, and give life to the world. (True Family and World Peace, May 11, 1992)
The age of women has arrived. Now we women throughout the world should create a movement for the practice of true love. It begins by embracing our husbands and properly educating our children… and it expands as we women take up leadership roles in the political arena, in business, in culture and the arts, in society and so on, to work for world peace.
Let us remember our forbearers, Rebecca, Tamar and Mary, who went through difficult trials as they fulfilled the major responsibilities of women in God’s providence of salvation. Let us inherit their strong spirit and willpower by which they overcame life-threatening dangers and obstacles and opened the way for us to make a relationship with Heaven. Let us also cultivate our families and make them into havens where true parents, true couples and true children dwell. In these ways, let us arise and join in the holy cause of changing this evil world into the heavenly world.
(April 10, 1992)