Gender Ratio of Amritdharis?

[Guest Jacfsing2]

Vaheguru Ji Ka Khalsa Vaheguru Ji Ki Fateh! Why is there such a bad gender ratio of fewer female Amritdharis than that of male Amritdharis? Do the parents teach the daughter about the need for Amrit or what? (Also I seem to notice that some of them seem to be told off that if they want to take Amrit to wait till marriage; which only hurts this ratio more.) Is there a way to get both males and females interested, in the olden days people begged to take Amrit, now pracharks are begging for others to take Amrit. (Also if someone falls in Prem with Guru Sahib; what stalls them from taking Amrit.) Just wanted to know these questions with the answers. Vaheguru Ji Ka Khalsa Vaheguru Ji Ki Fateh!

[sikhni777]

Parents do not promote amrit to their children.  Someone who wears a dastar once told me ... he does not want his son to have a handicap of dastar which will limit his swimming abilities.

Mothers are more concerned about whether their future in laws will allow their daughters to remain vegetarian and to perform path too. 

Altogether parents are more concerned about financial security of their children and consider religion to be a limitation. 

Children pick up the bits of religion out of self interest. Some or most parents step in as a discouraging factor.  Those who are forced to keep kesh, cannot wait for their parents to pass away so they can get their freedom. 

We have to educate ourselves and step above maya to realise the true purpose of our human birth and alsothe rreality and the truth which has been revealed in the SGGS.

Children currently would give English 6 days a week and 2 hours a week for punjabi, gurmukhi or santheya. Our religion should be seen as part of our day to day living...... not a necessity which elders force us into.

 

[MisterrSingh]

It's for the best. At least if there's less of them they're safe from guys like OP.  I'm just kidding with you, Singh.

[Guest Jacfsing2]

5 hours ago, sikhni777 said:

Parents do not promote amrit to their children.  Someone who wears a dastar once told me ... he does not want his son to have a handicap of dastar which will limit his swimming abilities.

Mothers are more concerned about whether their future in laws will allow their daughters to remain vegetarian and to perform path too. 

Altogether parents are more concerned about financial security of their children and consider religion to be a limitation. 

Children pick up the bits of religion out of self interest. Some or most parents step in as a discouraging factor.  Those who are forced to keep kesh, cannot wait for their parents to pass away so they can get their freedom. 

We have to educate ourselves and step above maya to realise the true purpose of our human birth and alsothe rreality and the truth which has been revealed in the SGGS.

Children currently would give English 6 days a week and 2 hours a week for punjabi, gurmukhi or santheya. Our religion should be seen as part of our day to day living...... not a necessity which elders force us into.

These all seem reasonable to an extent, (trying to understand both sides), but these could be easily resolved if we encouraged more general Amrit Sanchars among our youth. We need Maya, (not going to disagree), but what parent knowing wouldn't want the best spiritual way for their kids, (and they call themselves Sikhs), to be pushing Amrit away. I'm not a parent, (or even married for that matter), but after you reach a state of financial responsibility then the wealthy need goes down, (but you can't replace financial responsibility), after that you can see the actual values. 

The bigger question is: Do Parents Care About Sikhi?

[californiasardar1]

I think women view keeping body hair as a great limitation that will isolate them socially.  I think that at least partially explains the amritdhari gender gap.  But that is only one factor.

 

In general, I think young Sikh women are less inclined to feel a connection with their Sikh heritage than young Sikh men are (even in cases where that connection does not necessarily involve being amritdhari).

For this, I blame their conflation of Sikhi with conservative Punjabi culture.  While the former is very progressive in terms of promoting gender equality, the latter is the opposite.  Let's face it: a lot of our parents (especially those from rural, uneducated backgrounds) treat their sons and daughters differently.  In some cases, the different treatment is administered with the best intentions in mind (but a lack of awareness of what is perceived to be sexist in the modern world).  In other cases, there is outright favoritism of boys. 

 

This is a dire problem, and we need to do something to increase the number of amritdhari women, and more generally, engage more young Sikh women and let them know that Sikhi is for them.

[Koi]

I agree with pretty much everything said here.

Whether it's the parents, the media, western culture or personal weakness, it's hurting the ratio badly.

[Ranjeet01]

Maybe it's because men and women become amritdhari for different reasons.

 

[Khalistanisinghni]

1. Because Amritdhari Singhs are going for non-amritdhari Women, ignoring and rejecting those with facial hair/unibrows. - so the whole idea of body hair kicks in.

2. Somehow we do not have enough of Women parchariks to get to the girls.

3. Parents lack education and fail to let their children walk on the path of sikh at an early age, choosing to equip them with worldly criteria of beauty and success.

4. Women who do tie dastars have put up an image that they are the same as all other women, except with certain eating and drinking restrictions. So women don't see the point of having to get amrit.

[MisterrSingh]

I'd be very interested, from a statistical standpoint, the spread of female Gursikhs across the various jathe; or not as the case may be. I think a lot could be gained from identifying which jatha attracts the highest numbers of female Sikhs. From there you could ascertain why that is, and certain groups could take steps to correct a potential imbalance. Anecdotally i have an idea which jatha has the highest numbers of female Gursikhs, but it's just a hunch.

However, that would only work if the female takes amrit before marriage. I might be way off target here, but I'm assuming a female is expected to follow the same rehat as her husband, so i suppose she has less choice in her adherence to a certain jatha's rehat, than a female who decides not to wait to see which jatha her husband belongs to.

[jkvlondon]

1 hour ago, MisterrSingh said:

I'd be very interested, from a statistical standpoint, the spread of female Gursikhs across the various jathe; or not as the case may be. I think a lot could be gained from identifying which jatha attracts the highest numbers of female Sikhs. From there you could ascertain why that is, and certain groups could take steps to correct a potential imbalance. Anecdotally i have an idea which jatha has the highest numbers of female Gursikhs, but it's just a hunch.

However, that would only work if the female takes amrit before marriage. I might be way off target here, but I'm assuming a female is expected to follow the same rehat as her husband, so i suppose she has less choice in her adherence to a certain jatha's rehat, than a female who decides not to wait to see which jatha her husband belongs to.

I agree a bibi should answer the call to Amrit as soon as possible before marriage because otherwise she would not have developed enough depth of abiyhass to discern potential hazards to her sikhi by prospective families . Plenty of oppressive in-laws out there without the complication of control of jatha rehit . 

A Gursikh is a Gursikh there is very little difference in rehit , maybe some do more i their nitnem others less  but we are told by Guru ji to always look to increase , the jatha amrit sanchar is just the launchpad  the swim is ahead of us .