We devotees must cultivate the mood of being humble and seeing everyone as worthy of our respect. Man, woman, ant, it doesn't matter.

A Krishna consciousperson sees that everyone is a part and parcel of Krishna, and that Krishna is in everyone's heart. Therefore a devotee never sees or treats anyone in a derrogatory way.

A Krishna conscious person sees the soul within everyone, and therefore sees everyone equally (Equal Vision) regardless of the differences in their bodies.

If you study Vedic women you will find that they were extremely powerful and self-satisfied human beings. A Krishna conscious lady is very very powerful and self-situated. She is exemplary.

Today, women are bewildered and treated in such a way that they are very confused and have become very week and easily exploited by men. This is so insideous and unfortunate

As we gradually advance and make genuine progress in spiritual realization, the body will affect us less and less. And things likegender will become more and more meaningless. But depending on how much we are not free from identifying with the body, we do need to take at least a bit of care in feeding it, maintaining it, living with it healthfully, etc.

The relationship between men and women is the metal with which the bars of illusion are cast. It is not a fact that we like to hear, neither do I like tohear it: but it's true nonetheless. So we do need to pay a little bit of attention to how we interact between the genders, especially when we are stillaffected by bodily demands.

Vedic culture is set up in such a way to ensure mutual respect, and therefore there are guidelines of social behavior for the purpose of the spiritual sanityof society at large. Today, society doesn't care about respecting each other, and therefore they don't want any regulations on how they relate to each other.They want to relate in whichever way is convenient for their sense of enjoymentat the present moment. Vedic people, though, love each other deeply. They are concerned that they maintain respect for each other. And therefore there is some consideration of social behavior in terms of the body.

The more one is Krishna conscious, though, the less important these regulationsare. We perceive Vedic culture as demeaning towards woman because we view it through the spectacles of our own value-system. The modern culture has indocrinated us with a one-way value system. I mean to say that there is one ideal of "success," and everyone is judged by how they measure up to that one ideal.

Black people become like white businessmen to be sucsessful. Women take the roles previously had by men, and count it as success... If you are a doctor or a lawyer, you are "sucsessful." If you have a swimming pool, etc.

There is one ideal of "success" and everyone must mould to it. Vedic culture, as you know better than I, is not like that at all. It truely values people "for who they are." The Vedic culture values the role of the man very highly. And the Vedic culture similarly values the role of the woman very highly.

The Vedic woman plays a traditional role - but this is misinterpreted by the modern audience as inferior, or unsuccessful. This in and of itself is sexism. It is tantamount to saying that if a woman can not live like a man, she is not living up to her potential, she is unsucsessful. The Vedic culture is not sexist and therefore, the women play traditional feminine roles, and arerespected for that. The womans role is respected..