Feminist Sikh - Guru Nanak

From the Vancouver Sun:

“Guru Nanak is to me a feminist,” says Sikh scholar Nikky-Guninder Kaur Singh.

That’s why the Punjabi professor can’t accept how her religion has become so patriarchal; filled with “machismo” and a “warrior” mentality that often contradicts its original teachings.

The founder of Sikhism, Guru Nanak (1469–1539), was a truly “egalitarian,” “inclusive” man and a champion of women’s rights, Kaur Singh said this week before giving a lecture at the Asian Centre at the University of B.C.

The author of a dozen books, including the just-released Of Sacred and Secular Desire: An Anthology of Lyrical Writings from the Punjab (I.B. Tauris), laments how virtually all sacred duties within the 23-million-member religion continue to be performed by men.