Editing Sahaja Yoga (section)

=== Role of women ===

Judith Coney has written that in general, Srivastava's vision for the role of women within Sahaja Yoga was one of "feminine domesticity and compliance".<ref name=coney1999/>{{rp|125}}

Some parents of Sahaja 'yogists', analyzing Nirmala Srivastava's remarks, noted that women play a subordinate role.<ref name="jma" /> The texts of Nirmala Srivastava say that "if you are a woman and you want to dominate, then Sahaja Yoga will have difficulty in curing you" and that women should be "docile" and "domestic".<ref name="jma"/> Judith Coney writes that women "are valued as mothers and wives but are limited to these roles and are not encouraged to be active or powerful, except within the domestic sphere and behind the scenes".<ref name=coney1999/>{{rp|125}}

Coney has observed that "Gender roles for women and men within Sahaja Yoga are clearly specified and highly segregated, and positions of authority in the group are held almost exclusively by the men".<ref name=coney1999/>{{rp|119}} Coney writes that the ideal of womanhood promoted within Sahaja Yoga draws both on the ideal wifely qualities of the goddess [[Lakshmi]] and on wider Hindu traditions. Coney believes these traditions are summed up in [[Manusmriti|"The Code of Manu"]] which holds that woman should be honoured and adorned but kept dependent on men in the family. Women are also described in this book as "dangerous" and needing to be guarded from temptation.<ref name=coney1999/>{{rp|121}}

Coney has written that Srivastava gave mixed messages about the status of women. On the one hand she said women are not inferior but described the sexes as complementary. Describing the man as the head of the family, she likened the woman's status to the heart: "The head always feels he decides, but the brain always knows that is the heart one has to cater, it is the heart which is all-pervading, it is the real source of everything".<ref name=coney1999/>{{rp|122}} She regretted what she saw as the loss of respect for women in society in both the East and West. However, she viewed Western [[feminism]] suspiciously, seeing it as a "route to damnation" because it required women to deviate from what she thought was their true nature.<ref name=coney1999/>{{rp|123}}