Buddhist feminisms and femininities
Karma Lekshe Tsomo (Editor)
This groundbreaking book explores Buddhist thought and culture, from multiple Buddhist perspectives, as sources for feminist reflection and social action. Too often, when writers apply terms such as "woman," "femininity," and "feminism" to Buddhist texts and contexts, they begin with models of feminist thinking that foreground questions and concerns arising from Western experience. This oversight has led to many facile assumptions, denials, and oversimplifications that ignore women's diverse social and historical contexts. But now, with the tools of feminist analysis that have developed in recent decades, constructs of the feminine in Buddhist texts, imagery, and philosophy can be examined--with the acknowledgment that there are limitations to applying these theoretical paradigms to other cultures. Contributors to this volume offer a feminist analysis, which integrates gender theory and Buddhist perspectives, to Buddhist texts and women's narratives from Asia. How do Buddhist concepts of self and no-self intersect with concepts of gender identity, especially for women? How are the female body, sexuality, and femininity constructed (and contested) in diverse Buddhist contexts? How might power and gender identity be perceived differently through a Buddhist lens? By exploring feminist approaches and representations of "the feminine," including persistent questions about women's identities as householders and renunciants, this book helps us to understand how Buddhist influences on attitudes toward women, and how feminist thinking from other parts of the world, can inform and enlarge contemporary discussions of feminism. --Publisher description
Print Book, English, 2019
State University of New York Press, Albany, 2019
x, 343 pages ; 24 cm
9781438472553, 9781438472560, 1438472552, 1438472560
1031409550
Introduction: Conceptualizing Buddhist feminisms and images of the feminine / Karma Lekshe Tsomo
Part I. Buddhist feminisms : texts and communities. Reimagining Buddhist women in India / Karen Lang
The religious life of Buddhist women in Chosŏn Korea / Eun-su Cho
Raichō Hiratsuka and socially engaged Buddhism / Christine A. James
A "great man" is no longer gendered: the gender identity and practice of Chan nuns in contemporary Taiwan / Ching-ning Wang (Chang-shen Shih)
Sikkhamats: the aesthetics of Asoke ascetics / Robekkah L. Ritchie
New Buddhist women across borders: Buddhist influences and interactions in alternative histories of global feminisms / Amy Holmes-Tagchungdarpa
Part II. Buddhist femininities : demystifying the essential feminine. Only skin deep? female embodiment and the paradox of beauty in Indian Buddhism / Lisa J. Battaglia
Conflicts and compromises: the relationship between the nuns of Daihongen and the monks of Daikanjin within the Zenkōji temple complex / Matthew Mitchell
Gendered hagiography in Tibet: comparing clerical representations of the female visionary, Khandro Tāre Lhamo / Holly Gayley
Feminine identities in Buddhist chöd / Michelle J. Sorensen
Mindfully feminine? the role of meditation in the production and marketing of gendered lifestyles / Jeff Wilson
Insights and imaginations: an epilogue / Karma Lekshe Tsomo