In a world on the path of self-destruction, unity of humanity that goes beyond religions, races, castes, and classes is of at most importance. Religions, races, and nations need to come together and develop a unifying conscience, philosophy, and spirituality for the world. Humanity can only prosper in an atmosphere where everyone's human rights, equality, and freedom are secured and safeguarded. We have made considerable strides in race and caste relations. Dogmatic, non-compassionate religions coming from an intolerant, fundamentalist mold and politics without principles that cater to vested and sectarian interests, that fragment society are on the increase. Voices of gender equality are increasingly heard on the horizon across the globe. Gender equality is going to be the major struggle (war) of humanity in the coming decades.

             On the one hand we have the plight of a six-year old daughter in Kabul, Afghanistan, as the painful payment of a debt of $2,500 incurred by the family for hospital treatment (Painful payment for Afghan debt: A daughter, aged 6: New York Times News Sevice, April 1, 2013). The girl, Naghma, will be forced to leave her home forever to be married to the lender's 17-year old son. A smiling, slender child, oblivious of everything happening around her is being sold. On the other hand, in the front page of Malayala Manorama, April 2, 2013 we have the rich and famous but sad saga of a couple with two children - Ganesh (a minster in the Kerala state government) and Yamini (a physician) - mired in civil and criminal charges and counter-charges. Sad and tragic as it is, this couple's story is going to throw spot-light on the physical and mental abuse that mostly women (but also some men) in Kerala suffer. Interestingly, according to the United Nations Human Development Index, India having a rank of 136 out of 186 countries studied has one of the worst gender-equality records (UN, TNN, March 15, 2013). India is South Asia's worst performing country after Afghanistan with regard to gender equality. Harmonious development of all can occur only when everyone is given one's due.

             Major impediments to the unity of humanity have been broached at length elsewhere. Here I am going to examine some minor discriminations that are there but often go unnoticed.

Stereotyping:

            Stereotyping is a firm impression or mental picture formed due to a prejudiced attitude about a certain ethnic or racial group or caste or class, and this impression or judgment is uncritically attributed to the members of that group time and again. This group may often be identified by a slang derogative name. Here I am going to illustrate a possible stereotyping. When my wife and I were leaving St. Louis International airport in the USA for India a few years ago, l tendered our passports and tickets to the lady at the air-line counter. The lady did not even bother to look at me, and started talking to my wife, who, a Caucasian, looked very American. I guess she thought I did not know enough English. Wearing a kurtha (a loose-fitting long Indian style shirt) and a knit cap with stars and a long white beard, I could pass for a middle-easterner who might not speak English. Yet there I was who taught Master's level psychology courses in Lindenwood University in St. Charles, Missouri, and who on occasions corrected the English of even Master's level teachers in the special school out-patient treatment program I directed in Hawthorn Chirdren Psychiatric Hospital for children in St. Louis. I can narrate many such instances of intended or unintended discriminations or disregards. A stereotype generally has a cognitive component (thought) that leads to prejudice as an affective component (feeling) that ends up in discrimination as the behavioral component (action). Racial, caste, ethnic, sexual, and gender remarks and jokes and demeaning stereotypical proverbs are the worst stereotypes that a conscientious and aware person needs to avoid at any cost. A good criterion: avoid a joke if one would feel hurt if he or she were the butt of that joke. It is important to use language carefully, judiciously, and wisely.

Man � Woman

             After leaving the Jesuits in 1982, my wife and I decided to form a community (Commune) in the USA modeled on the basis of the early Christian community as described in the Acts of the Apostles (chapters 2 and 4). We strived to live a very simple life directed by the spirit. There were about 15 of us, 5 married couples and three women and two men sharing all our resources, giving what we have and taking what we need. We mostly lived in very poor, run-down, inner-city, black neighborhoods with minimum conveniences in St. Louis, Missouri. We communally owned an 80 acre-farm with a nice farm house on a beautiful river to have solitude and reflection from the hectic life of the St. Louis metropolis. In the city we tried to help the deprived and empower the poor. Equality of sexes and races was a prime concern in the Commune. After about five years of communal experiment, I began to notice the extreme feminism and gradual denigration of men that began to creep in. Some of the women in the Commune became very strident, loud, and even intolerant. They thought of every man taking part in patriarchy and oppressive structures that dominated women. They thought that men, growing up and programmed in a dominant, male chauvinistic culture, could not but dictate terms to women and use their power to control women knowingly or unwittingly. Even I who was a moderate feminist defending the rights of women and being conscientized about the indignities and discriminations that women suffer in a world of men could not change fast enough to suit their pace.

            In my commune days I became very aware that the battle of sexes was brewing in the air especially in the West. The women's liberation movements were afloat. And I thought the next war after the wars of races and castes would be that of genders. Unrest and agony have been widespread in the institution of marriage, the most sacred of relationships between a man and a woman. It is not uncommon to have media reports of spousal violence even to the point of a man killing his wife or a woman killing her husband. Talking of genders, my wife told me that men sometimes do not have a clue to what is going on in the mind of a woman. Half-jokingly she stated further that men do not understand women and women do not understand men. I mused: Are we then condemned to be united in love? Looking at me with a puzzling smile, she said: I guess so. While men are trying to understand the feminine make and mystique, women are trying to figure out what clicks for men.

             I have no doubt in my mind that both men and women can be violent. Culturally men are more likely to be aggressive and physically violent, while women tend to be passive-aggressive and emotionally violent. Men tend to dominate and intimidate women into subjugation; women enthrall men to slow psychic enslavement. When benign understanding is not there, both cannot live with each other and cannot live without each other. The plain fact is that both need each other. When both complement each other and function as one entity as they are supposed to, the marital bliss is never-ending. Here then both, at least in a fantasy yearning, returns to the mythological state of Hermaphroditus the fusing of the son of Greek god, Hermes, and love goddess, Aphrodite, with a nymph resulting in one person possessing the physical characteristics of both male and female. For us living in the present dispensation the only fair thing for both men and women is to respect the sexes and give them their human rights so that the war of genders can be avoided. At this moment it is good for a man to do some self-examination: If I were a woman, would I like to be treated by the way men treat women? Women also can, in empathy, put themselves in the place of men.