Elevating Women in Yoga

I’m a lifelong yoginī; enjoying a daily practice from five years old. As a youngster all my teachers were men, classes were a 50/50 split male and female… Three decades later the majority of students in classes are women and out of the thirty teachers I’ve trained; two have been men. Yet… all the greats and the authors of almost every inspiring yoga quotes are men. This article is will inspire us women to promote women’s place in the history of yoga, and together; forge a female future.

Honouring Women in Yoga’s Evolution

The focus of my Masters dissertation was the role of women in the evolution and transmission of yoga. It was a hard area to research because… women’s participation in yoga has largely gone undocumented. Swami Vivekananda is considered the father of modern (ish) yoga. He was a spiritual genius, and spread Vedanta and yoga to the West from the 1890s. He was a teacher, author and philosopher. Vivekananda had an essential message to share which offered a radically different relationship of practitioners to their bodies. Vivekananda taught adherents to regard their bodies as perfect receptacles for higher spiritual attainment, which would have been a powerfully subversive message for women culturally conditioned by society to see their bodies, and their natural processes, as innately sinful and symptomatic of some original transgression.

“Behind every great Yogi, were scores of female practitioners, yoginīs. They’re the union… they yolk and unite. The transmission and evolution of modern yoga is the epitome of girl power”

-Rosie Lux

Vivekendanda’s message was of vast import, it marked a momentous step forwards to yoga becoming an inclusive practice. His success was largely due to female supporters; Josephine McLeod and Margaret Nobel launched his career in the West. Sarah Waldo and Laura Glenn transcribed Raja Yoga and the lectures he gave at events and conferences organised by Sara Bull Chapman and Sarah Jane Farmer. Take a moment to re-read their names, we owe them so much.

We need to know where yoga came from, to inform our future. How can we honour his teachings… all those that came before and these wonderful women? Foster the feminine frequency. We are creators, connectors and messengers. Internalised patriarchy can manifest in feeling threatened of other women who step into their power, which interrupts the flow of the feminine. It can be a seductive frequency… which depletes the female spirit.

Here’s a practice from my heart to yours to reconnect you to the divine feminine force within.

Take a comfortable seated position, one that honours your female form and the curves of your spine. A flat spine, or tucked under tailbone disconnects us from our womb space.