Women and the Feminine in Sikh Teaching

Overview

Recall questions on the feminine principle and whether Waheguru is male, N K Singh and Jakobsh on women and scripture, women in Sikh history, the Gurus' reforms, and the gap between principle and practice.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

1. 1

   What do scholars mean when they speak of a feminine principle running through Sikh teaching?

   Model answer

   The claim that the Sikh picture of the divine and of the soul is shaped by feminine imagery: Waheguru addressed in maternal as well as paternal language, creation spoken of as brought to birth, and the human soul figured as a bride longing for her beloved. Since male and female Sikhs alike sing in that voice, the imagery is treated as a way of describing the whole relationship with Waheguru rather than as decoration.

2. 2

   Is Waheguru male in Sikh belief?

   Model answer

   Sikhs hold that Waheguru is beyond gender, being unborn and without form, and both male and female images are used. Habit and the limits of translation have made English renderings sound masculine, which is one reason the question is argued about.

3. 3

   What is N K Singh's central argument about women and Sikh scripture?

   Model answer

   That the resources for an egalitarian, feminine-inflected theology are present in the Sikh sacred poetry itself, and have been obscured by patriarchal culture and by generations of male commentators. Her method is close reading of the verse to recover its imagery, and her conclusion is that Sikhs need not import feminism from outside in order to criticise their own practice.

4. 4

   What does N K Singh mean by calling Sikh scripture a feminist text in a patriarchal setting?

   Model answer

   That the text's vision of the divine and of human worth undercuts hierarchy and gives the feminine a central place, while the society that received it and the institutions built around it did not. The tension is her point, since it means the critique of Sikh patriarchy is available from within Sikh scripture.

5. 5

   Explain D Jakobsh's approach and how it differs from N K Singh's.

   Model answer

   She works historically and sociologically, arguing that women are largely absent from the Sikh record, that this silence is itself evidence, and that Sikh gender norms were actively constructed, notably by nineteenth-century reformers whose ideal of Sikh womanhood owed a good deal to colonial and Victorian expectations. She is sceptical of arguments that settle the question by citing egalitarian verses, since the record of practice points elsewhere.

6. 6

   Explain the disagreement between D Jakobsh and N K Singh.

   Model answer

   They differ over where the evidence lies and what follows from it. Singh reads the scripture and finds an egalitarian and feminine vision the community has failed to live up to; Jakobsh reads the historical record and finds omission, construction and imported norms, and holds that quoting scripture does not answer that. One is a theological retrieval, the other a historical deconstruction, and each can be used against the other.

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