Bahá'ís Condemn Discrimination Against Women

Bahá'ís have long regarded the equality of men and women as one of the tenets of their faith. Now their American administrative body, the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá'ís of the United States, has issued a statement calling for the elimination of discrimination against women.

The statement, which was released at the assembly's national convention on April 27, says that "to proclaim equality is not to deny that differences in function between women and men exist but rather to affirm the complementary roles men and women fulfill in the home and society at large." The statement is entitled "Two Wings of a Bird," a quotation from the early Bahá'í leader 'Abdu'l-Bahá, who said, "The world of humanity has two wings – one is women and the other men. Not until both wings are equally developed can the bird fly."