Modernyoga as exercise has often been taught by women to classes consisting mainly of women. This continued a tradition of gendered physical activity dating back to the early 20th century, with the Harmonic Gymnastics ofGenevieve Stebbins in the US andMary Bagot Stack in Britain. One of the pioneers of modern yoga,Indra Devi, a pupil ofKrishnamacharya, popularisedyoga among American women using her celebrityHollywood clients as a lever.
The majority of yoga practitioners in the Western world are women. Yoga has been marketed to women as promoting health and beauty, and as something that could be continued into old age. It has created a substantial market for fashionable yoga clothing. Yoga is now encouraged also forpregnant women.
The yoga author and teacherGeeta Iyengar notes that women in the ancientVedic period had equal rights to practice the meditational yoga of the time, but that these rights fell away in later periods.[1] TheIndologistJames Mallinson states that the Gorakhnati yoga order always avoided women, as is enjoined by hatha yoga texts such as theAmritasiddhi, theHatha Yoga Pradipika, and theGheranda Samhita; but all the same, women are mentioned as practising yoga, such as usingvajroli mudra to conserve menstrual fluid and hence obtainsiddhis.[2]
The yoga scholarMark Singleton notes that there has been a dichotomy between the physical activities of men and women since the start of Europeangymnastics (with the systems ofPehr Ling andNiels Bukh). Men were "primarily concerned with strength and vigour while women [were] expected to cultivate physical attractiveness and graceful movement."[3] This gendered approach continued as the practice of yogaasanas became popular in the mid-20th century. A masculinised form of yoga grew fromIndian nationalism, favouring strength and manliness, and sometimes also a form of religious nationalism, and continues into the 21st century among Hindu nationalists like theRashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, continuing the tradition of gymnastics andbodybuilding exemplified by early-20th-century figures likeK. V. Iyer andTiruka. The other form emphasises stretching, relaxation, deep breathing, and a more "spiritual" style, continuing a women's tradition of exercise dating back to the Harmonic Gymnastics ofGenevieve Stebbins andMary Bagot Stack.[4]
Alongside the yoga brands, many teachers, for example in England, offer an unbranded "hatha yoga", often mainly to women, creating their own combinations of poses. These may be in flowing sequences (vinyasas), and new variants of poses are often created.[7][8][9] The gender imbalance has sometimes been marked; in Britain in the 1970s, women formed between 70 and 90 per cent of most yoga classes, as well as most of the yoga teachers.[10] The scholar of modern yoga Kimberley J. Pingatore similarly notes that yoga practitioners in the United States are predominantly female, young, affluent, fit, and white.[11] In the United States in 2004, 77 per cent of yoga practitioners were women; in Australia in 2002, the figure was 86 per cent, the majority middle-aged and health-conscious.[12] The imbalance may be increasing:Yoga Journal's survey in 1997 found that a little over 80 percent of readers were female; in 2003, the journal's advertising page reported 89 percent female readership.[13] This is causing yoga to evolve as a female practice, taught by women to women.[14]
Leading "yoginis" (named for themedieval female deities and their worshippers that were so described), women in modern yoga, includeNischala Joy Devi,Donna Farhi,Angela Farmer,Lilias Folan,Sharon Gannon (co-founder ofJivamukti Yoga),Sally Kempton,Gurmukh Kaur Khalsa,Judith Hanson Lasater,Swamini Mayatitananda,[15]Mira Mehta,[16]Sonia Nelson,Sarah Powers (founder of Insight Yoga),Shiva Rea (founder of Prana Vinyasa yoga),Patricia Sullivan,Rama Jyoti Vernon,[15] andSadie Nardini (founder ofCore Strength Vinyasa Yoga).[17]
In 1936, the journalist Louise Morgan interviewed therajah ofAundh,Bhawanrao Shriniwasrao Pant Pratinidhi, in theNews Chronicle. Her report announced "Surya Namaskars – The Secret of Health", claiming that not only were the rajah and the rani (his wife, the queen) in perfect health (although he was over 70, and she had had eight children), but the 60-year-old wife of the rani's tutor looked younger than her daughters. According to Goldberg, many American mothers secretly but heartily wished that. This was the first time that Surya Namaskar had been sold to Western women.[18]
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A pioneer of modernasana-based yoga,Indra Devi (born Eugenie V. Peterson), the Russian pupil of the founder of yoga as exercise,Krishnamacharya, argued that yoga was suitable for well-to-do Indian women: "Yogic exercises since they are non-violent and non-fatiguing are particularly suited to a woman and make her more beautiful."[19]
The historian of modern yogaElliott Goldberg notes that the normally progressive Devi was effectively arguing for "a gentle yoga for the fairer sex",[19] deprecating the more energetic exercises such asSurya Namaskar.[19] Devi was encouraged by Krishnamacharya to begin teaching yoga in China.[20] In 1939, she opened the first yoga school inShanghai, continuing to run it for seven years, mainly teaching American women.[21] On her return in 1947, she opened a yoga studio onSunset Boulevard inHollywood, teaching yoga tofilm stars and other celebrities includingGreta Garbo,Eva Gabor,Gloria Swanson,Robert Ryan,Jennifer Jones,Ruth St. Denis,Serge Koussevitsky, and the violinistYehudi Menuhin.[22][23] This famous clientele helped Devi to sell yoga, and her books such as her 1953Forever Young Forever Healthy, her 1959Yoga for Americans, and her 1963Renew Your Life Through Yoga, to a sceptical American public.[24]
Not all her clients were women, but all the same, much of the advice in her books was to women. For example, inForever Young Forever Healthy, Devi advises her readers that "Nomake-up can hide a hard line around the mouth, a selfish expression on the face, a spiteful glance in the eyes."[25] She instructs them to stay absolutely quiet and ask themselves if they are as beautiful as they can be; in her view, yoga brought beauty by assisting with peace of mind.[25]
The American heiress (her father was the founder ofSheraton Hotels) Marcia Moore studied yoga inCalcutta in the 1950s, and trained as a yoga teacher underSwami Vishnudevananda in Canada in 1961; she opened the Sivananda Yoga Vedanta Centre inBoston in 1962.[26] Her classes were, according to the journalistJess Stearn, "wholly attended by upper-middle-class fortyish housewives".[27] Stearn reflected on why their husbands did not join the classes; he supposed that the men were put off by how easily their wives performed theasanas, and being unfit office workers, felt they would lose face if seen to be less physical than their wives. Moore explained to Stearn that the women were more interested in caring for their bodies than their husbands, since they had been caring for that "package" all their lives, and they didn't want to "see the wrapping wrinkled and spoiled."[28] Goldberg adds that this did not explain why the women chose classes rather than home practice; he suggests that, as well as the skill and motivation that a teacher could provide, going out to a class gave these 1960s housewives an identity of their own, "being involved in an exotic exercise practice with a group of other daring women."[28] They developed their own subculture with yoga books, lectures, classes, friends and a shared uniform of blackleotards and stockings, combining a dancer's "hip severity" with a chorus girl's "ostentatious allure".[28]
While Devi and Moore were spreading asana-based yoga on the other side of the Atlantic, women in Britain took up the practice from the 1960s, and yoga, in other words asana sessions, became a common option amongadult education evening classes. For example, inBirmingham, a local newspaper editor, Wilfred Clark, gave a lecture on yoga to theWorkers' Educational Association in 1961, meeting such an enthusiastic response that he proposed yoga classes to thelocal education authority, and founded in turn the Birmingham Yoga Club, the Midlands Yoga Association, and finally theBritish Wheel of Yoga in 1965. Yoga groups soon sprang up all over Britain.[29]
Yoga reached London's evening classes in 1967. TheInner London Education Authority (ILEA) stated that classes in "Hatha Yoga (sic)" should not cover the philosophy of Yoga, favouring "Keep Fit" classes in asanas and "pranayamas (sic)" especially for people aged over 40, and expressing concern about the risk of "exhibitionism" and the lack of suitably qualified teachers. The ILEA's Peter McIntosh watched some classes taught byB. K. S. Iyengar, was impressed by his bookLight on Yoga, and from 1970 ILEA-approved yoga teacher training was run by one of Iyengar's pupils,Silva Mehta.[10] Her daughter,Mira Mehta, also taught by Iyengar, became a yoga teacher and helped to run the Iyengar Yoga Institute inMaida Vale, opened in 1983, for many years.[16][30]
Yoga classes grew beyond those of local education authorities whenITV screenedYoga for Health from 1971; it was adopted by more than 40 TV channels in America. The yoga researcherSuzanne Newcombe estimates that the number of people, mainly middle-class women,[a] practising yoga in Britain rose from about 5,000 in 1967 to 50,000 in 1973 and 100,000 by 1979; most of their teachers were also women. With the rise offeminism and being well-educated, middle-class British women were starting to resent being housewives, and given their relative economic freedom, were ready to experiment with new lifestyles such as yoga. Newcombe speculates that their husbands may have found having their wives attending "course on traditionally feminine subjects like flower arranging or cooking ... less threatening and more respectable than employment outside the home."[10] The women saw evening classes as safe, interesting, and a good place to make friends with like-minded people. Further, women in Britain were accustomed to gendered physical education, dating back to Mary Bagot Stack's Women's League of Health and Beauty before the Second World War.[10]
Little is known of many of the women who helped to develop modern yoga in India, but one ofBishnu Charan Ghosh's pupils in Calcutta was Labanya Palit, who published a manual of 40 asanas,Shariram Adyam ("A Healthy Body"), in 1955, a work admired by the poet and polymathRabindranath Tagore.[32][33]
Yoga has been marketed to women as something that made them look younger, and that they could carry on learning or teaching into old age, a message taught by books such as Nancy Phelan and Michael Volin's 1963Yoga for Women: "Most yoga teachers know ... of women who have astonished everyone ... discarding stiffness and tension for suppleness, slimness, serenity and poise".[35] The yoga models in the 1960s and 1970s wore "flattering and sexyfishnet stockings and a tight-fittingleotard top."[10]
Women's yoga has created a large market for fashionable yoga clothing. Major yoga clothing brands includeLululemon, known for theiryoga pants.[36]Sales ofathleisure clothing including yoga pants were worth $35 billion in 2014, forming 17 per cent of American clothing sales.[34]
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In the 1960s,Krishnamacharya identified asanas suitable for pregnant women.[14]Geeta Iyengar's 1990A Gem for Women described a yoga practice adapted to women, with sections on yoga inmenstruation,pregnancy, andmenopause.[37]
Before 1980, few books considered whether yoga was relevant to pregnancy.[10] Since then, numerous books have addressed the subject,[38] including Geeta Iyengar's 2010Iyengar Yoga for Motherhood,[39] Françoise Barbira Freedman's 2004Yoga for Pregnancy, Birth, and Beyond,[40] and Leslie Lekos and Megan Westgate's 2014Yoga For Pregnancy: Poses, Meditations, and Inspiration for Expectant and New Mothers.[41] According to the American Pregnancy Association, yoga increases strength and flexibility in pregnant women, helping them with breathing and relaxation techniques to assistlabour.[42]
The practice of yoga asanas has sometimes been advised against during pregnancy, but that advice has been contested by a 2015 study which found no ill-effects from any of 26 asanas investigated. The study examined the effects of the set of asanas on 25 healthy women who were between 35 and 37 weeks pregnant. The authors noted that apart from their experimental findings, they had been unable to find any scientific evidence that supported the previously published concerns, and that on the contrary there was evidence including fromsystematic review that yoga was suitable for pregnant women, with a variety of possible benefits.[43][44]
Pioneering female teachers of modernyoga as exercise are sometimes described asyoginis, though the term principally denotes medievaltantric figures, whether goddesses or female practitioners, as recorded in tantric texts and the survivingyogini temples.[45]In her 2006 bookYogini,Janice Gates describes the contributions of leading "yoginis"Nischala Joy Devi,Donna Farhi,Angela Farmer,Lilias Folan,Sharon Gannon (co-founder ofJivamukti Yoga),Gurmukh Kaur Khalsa,Judith Hanson Lasater,Sarah Powers,Shiva Rea, andRama Jyoti Vernon.[46]
If you are browsing through a yoga studio's brochure of classes and the yoga offered is simply described as 'hatha,' chances are the teacher is offering an eclectic blend of two or more of the styles described above.
All 26 yoga postures were well-tolerated with no acute adverse maternal physiologic or fetal heart rate changes.
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