At one meeting, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá asked Emmeline Pankhurst, the suffragist: Give me
bahaistories.com archive · Read original
When in Bahá'í history
At one meeting, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá asked Emmeline Pankhurst, the suffragist: Give me your reasons for believing that women today should have the vote?
Answer: I believe that humanity is a divine humanity and that it must rise higher and higher; but he cannot soar with only one wing.
‘Abdu’l-Bahá expressed his pleasure at the answer, and, smiling, replied: But what will you do when one wing is stronger than the other?
Answer: then we must strengthen the weaker wing.
‘Abdu’l-Bahá smiled and asked: What would you say if I prove to you that women is the stronger wing?
The answer came in the same bright vein: You will earn my eternal gratitude!
Source: Earl Redman, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in Their Midst, p. 30-31
Collected from bahaistories.com (Subject: equality).
Cite this story
Various. *bahaistories.com archive*. https://bahaistories.com/subject/equality
Record yourself reading this story
Recording stays on this device only. Nothing is uploaded.
Related stories
‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s sense of justice and equality also embraced the
‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s sense of justice and equality also embraced the quality of relationship between men and women. He once smilingly turned to the ladies in a group of listeners in America and said that, ‘in Europe and America, many men worked…
Two Wings of One Bird
In a living room full of women working to win the vote, 'Abdu'l-Bahá explained why the world needs women and men to be equal — like a bird that needs both of its wings to fly.
Denver: The Master and the Women's Auxiliary
Mahmúd's Diary records a women's gathering arranged in Denver in late September 1912 — a meeting at the home of one of the city's prominent suffragists, where 'Abdu'l-Bahá spoke of the spiritual basis for the equality of women and men.
Abdu'l-Bahá's Tablet on the Equality of Women
From Selections from the Writings of 'Abdu'l-Bahá, a Tablet addressed to the women of the East and the West setting out the principle of the equality of women and men as a foundational teaching of the Bahá'í Dispensation.