Poet of Womankind

Bharati is well-known as a champion of women's rights, but his impassioned advocacy for women's freedom transcends much of the usual discussion surrounding women's equality. Instead, Bharati saw women as the social superiors of men - engaged in the task of civilizing man through her masterful absorption and development of stories and symbols. "Where woman comes, comes Art," he writes, a stirring and provocative assertion that places him at odds with all those who have tried to minimize women's contributions to civilization or argued against women's capacity for artistic and intellectual life. His perspective on women shows him at his most creative and original. In honor of International Women's Day, this episode explores one of Bharati's most powerful essays on women, originally written in English, aptly entitled "The Place of Woman."