SATI-Violence against women in Hinduism

Hinduism is the religion that most legitimizes violence against women by seeing them inferior to the men. Indeed, women were not even counted as humans. It is quite common among Hindus to abort their child if the baby is a girl, which is called "sex-selective abortion". To prevent these abundant abortions and gender imbalance in numbers, the Indian government banned this specific type of abortion back in 1996.

Gender inequality has a very long history in Hinduism. This long history brought some unbelievably cruel rituals along with it, one of which is "Sati". Sati requires the widow to burn herself after the death of her husband. By doing so, she is showing her devotion to her husband. The assumption is that her life does not have any meaning anymore, therefore, there is no need to go on living. Women seemed like a burden for the society by the moment they lost their husband, indeed, they were even seen unsuccessful. The death of her husband meant that a woman was a bad wife that couldn't take care of her husband properly. If she did not burn herself immediately after the man's death, she had to face strict exclusions by society.

The question here is that: Was it a voluntary act or forced by society?
Though Hindu people argue that this ritual was practised voluntarily by the widows themselves, feminists think that it was the latter. Since women who did not obey this ritual were doomed to the total exclusion from the society, they had no other choice than to burn themselves. On the contrary, widows who practised this ritual were seen as pure, virtuous and sacred. Feminists further argue that this ritual served for one of the most explicit forms of violence against women.

Though this ritual is officially banned now India, there are still some rural areas that have this ritual as part of their social lives.