Sandy Nixon: Here's another one on that line.
Prabhupāda: Mmm?
Sandy Nixon: Here's another one kind of on that line. What, how do you feel about women's lib? (laughs)
Jayatīrtha: She wants to know about the women's liberation. What is our feeling about women's liberation?
Prabhupāda: That I don't want to discuss because... (laughs) (laughter) They... As you have asked, I may explain that how foolish women are being cheated by the intelligent man. You see?
Woman devotee: Śrīla Prabhupāda is liberating everybody who chants Hare Kṛṣṇa.
Prabhupāda: They have given... In your country, they have given you liberty. Liberty means equal rights, is it not? Man and woman has got equal rights.
Sandy Nixon: They're trying in this country.
Prabhupāda: All right, trying. But you women, you cannot see that this so-called equal right means cheating the woman. Now I say more clearly that a woman and man meets. Now they become lover. Then they have sex, and the woman becomes pregnant, and the man goes away. The simple woman, she has to take charge of the child and beg from government alms, "Please give me money." This is your independence. Do you admit this is independence, that the man makes the woman pregnant and he goes away without any responsibility, and the woman cannot give up the child; she maintains, begging from the government or she tries to kill the child? Do you think it is very good independence? What is your answer?
Anne Jackson: To... Whether or not it is good to kill a child? Is that the question?
Prabhupāda: Yes, they are killing now, abortion.
Ravīndra-svarūpa: He wants to know that kind of independence.
Anne Jackson: For the child?
Ravīndra-svarūpa: For the woman.
Prabhupāda: For the woman.
Ravīndra-svarūpa: This is liberation. She has an affair with a man, and she gets pregnant. The man leaves. Then she has to beg alms from the government to support the child...
Prabhupāda: Or kill.
Ravīndra-svarūpa: Or she kills the child. So is that good or bad?
Anne Jackson: Well, she has made the choice to have...
Prabhupāda: That means, that is thirty-four ounce. You have made your choice to kill your own child. Is that very good choice?
Sandy Nixon: It's the worst crime you could commit.
Jayatīrtha: Her brain is getting larger. (laughter)
Prabhupāda: Do you think it is very good business? Huh?
Anne Jackson: I think this is a very complicated question.
Prabhupāda: Therefore I say they are cheating you in the name of independence. That you do not understand. Therefore thirty-four ounce. They are cheating you, and you are thinking you are independent.
Sandy Nixon: They forget the responsibility that comes with freedom.
Prabhupāda: Yes, they do not take the responsibility. They go away. They enjoy and go away. And woman has to take the responsibility, either kill the child or maintain her, begging. Do you think begging is very good? In India, although they are poverty-stricken, still, they do not remain independent. They remain under the husband, and the husband takes all responsibility. So she has neither to kill the child nor go to beg for maintaining the child. So which is independence? To remain under husband is independence or to become free to be enjoyed by everyone?
Sandy Nixon: That's not where freedom is anyway.
Prabhupāda: Eh?
Sandy Nixon: That's not where the freedom is.
Prabhupāda: So there is no freedom; still, they think that they have freedom. That means under some plea, the men are cheating the women, that's all. So in the name of independence, they have agreed to be cheated by another class. This is the situation.
Sandy Nixon: In spite of that, can women know Kṛṣṇa as...
Prabhupāda: We have no such distinction.
Sandy Nixon: No distinction...
Prabhupāda: We give Kṛṣṇa consciousness both to the woman and man equally. We do not make any such distinction. But to protect them from this exploitation by man, we teach something, that "You do like this. You do like that. You be married. Be settled up. Don't wander independently." We teach them like that. But so far Kṛṣṇa consciousness is concerned, we equally distribute. There is no such thing that "Oh, you are woman, less intelligent or more intelligent. Therefore you cannot come." We don't say that. We welcome women, men, poor, rich, everyone, because in that platform equality.
- vidyā-vinaya-sampanne
- brāhmaṇe gavi hastini
- śuni caiva śvapāke ca
- paṇḍitāḥ sama-darśinaḥ
- (BG 5.18)
We do not refuse anyone. That is equality.