Among the demanding voluntary fasts Jain lay tradition offers, one of the most extreme, varshi tap, involves alternate-day fasting sustained for an entire year, broken only by a specific ritual meal at its conclusion, and observation of Jain communities has repeatedly noted that shravikas undertake this and other extended fasts in disproportionately large numbers compared to shravakas, making sustained lay fasting practice, in observed practice if not in formal doctrine, a substantially female-led feature of everyday Jain religious life.
The shorter, communally observed Samvatsari fast that closes the annual Paryushana festival, when the whole community, ascetic and lay alike, is expected to fast and then to ask forgiveness of others for wrongs committed over the year, draws participation from shravakas and shravikas alike, but it is the more demanding, individually undertaken long fasts, sustained privately over weeks or months rather than for a single communal day, where the laywoman's central role in the devotional life of the household becomes most visible, and where Jain communities most often single out women for particular religious honour and recognition within the congregation.