Liberation of Man and Woman

Excerpts

[…] I make no distinctions between men and women; both have suffered.

In fact suffering always comes like that, it is a double-edged sword. If you make somebody suffer, you have to suffer. If you make somebody a slave, you have to become a slave too; it is mutual.

The day women
are liberated
will be a great
day of liberation
for men too.

The day women are liberated will be a great day of liberation for men too. But don’t make the whole thing ugly. Otherwise there is every possibility – I fear that the possibility is there, and it is a great possibility that in fighting with men, women may lose something which is valuable. Something which has not yet been crushed and destroyed by men may be destroyed by women themselves in fighting with men. If you fight ferociously you will lose the beauty of femininity; you yourself will become as ugly as men.

It has not to be decided by fighting, it has to be decided by understanding. Spread more and more understanding. Drop these ideas of being men and women! We are all human beings. To be a man or a woman is just a very superficial thing. Don’t make much fuss about it, it is not anything very important; don’t make it a big deal.

Osho nude torso

And what I say sometimes may look like generalizations, because each time I cannot put in all the conditions; otherwise my talking to you would become very much burdened with footnotes. And I hate books with footnotes! I simply don’t read them. The moment I see footnotes I throw the book away – it has been written by some pundit, some scholar, some foolish person.

You say: “I simply cannot understand your generalizations about male and female type….”

I am always talking about types; the gender is not included. Whenever I say “man” I mean the man-type, and whenever I say “woman” I mean the woman-type. But I cannot each time say “man-type,” “woman-type.” And you are right that there are women who are not women, who are wolves; and there are men who are not wolves, who are cats. But then whatsoever I say about the man-type will be applicable to women who are wolves, and whatsoever I say about women will be applicable to men who are cats.

Drop these ideas of
being men and women!
We are all
human beings.

I am not talking about the biological distinction between man and woman, I am talking about the psychological one. Yes, there are men who are far more feminine than any woman, and there are women who are far more masculine than any man. But this is not a beautiful state; this is ugly, because this is creating a duality in you. If you have the body of a man and the mind of a woman, there will be a conflict, a social struggle in you, a civil war in you. You will be continuously in a tug of war, fighting, tense.

If you are a woman physiologically, and you have the mind of a man, your life will dissipate much energy in unnecessary conflict. It is far better to be in tune. If a man in the body, then a man in the mind; if a woman in the body, then a woman in the mind.

And the Women’s Lib movement is creating unnecessary trouble. It is turning women into wolves, it is teaching them how to fight. Man is the enemy; how can you love the enemy? How can you be in an intimate relationship with the enemy?

The man is not the enemy. The woman, to be really a woman, has to be more and more feminine, has to touch the heights of softness and vulnerability. And the man, to be really a man, has to move into his masculinity as deeply as possible. When a real man comes in contact with a real woman, they are polar opposites, extremes. But only extremes can fall in love, and only extremes can enjoy intimacy. Only extremes attract each other.

What is happening now is a kind of uni-sex: men becoming more and more feminine, women becoming more and more masculine. Sooner or later, all distinctions will be lost. It will be a very colorless society, it will be boring.

What is
happening now
is a kind of
uni-sex.

I would like the woman to become as feminine as possible, only then can she flower. And the man needs to be as masculine as possible, only then can he flower. When they are polar opposites, a great attraction, a great magnetism, arises between them. And when they come close, when they meet in intimacy, they bring two different worlds, two different dimensions, two different richnesses, and the meeting is a tremendous blessing, a benediction.

Enough for today.

Osho, The Book of Wisdom, Ch 7 (excerpt)

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