I was doing research for my thesis but got distracted by this book by Rita Gross, called Buddhism after Patriarchy: A Feminist History, Analysis and Reconstruction of Buddhism. I’ve been reading it all day. I would say I have two complaints about the book: firstly, it’s got a relatively large number of typos. Secondly, there was little analysis on Chinese Buddhism.
The rest of the book was extremely informative and important.
I would say it’s central message is the necessity of a “prophetic” dimension to Buddhist ethics – something that is distinctly lacking in Dharmic religions. And honestly, I would agree. The heritage of the prophets is a distinctly Middle Eastern concept, now surviving in the forms of socially engaged Christianity and traditional Judaism. In her feminist critique of Buddhism, Gross rightly acknowledges that Buddhism, doctrinally, acknowledges male and female as co-equal. Therefore, it is of particular concern for her that in practice and in history, there is such a strong patriarchal streak in Buddhist institutions. Bhikkuni orders were allowed to die out, women were discouraged from the spiritual life, Asanga even noted that a Buddha does not appear in the form of a woman. At least the Abrahamic religions have an excuse – they can attribute their patriarchy to divine mandate! But if emptiness pervades everything, how can one justify gender privilege?
Obviously, I can’t agree with everything in there (her critique of Pure Land Buddhism, I would say, is unfair). But she makes an excellent point that if Buddhists are all about challenging superficial reality and penetrating into thusness, why hasn’t the same been applied to their institutions, where it’s so obvious that there is an element of sidelining, even denial against women’s potential? This is when the prophetic dimension comes in – an energetic, passionate call to social change and justice, one which rings more with Jesus than with someone like Asanga. But the best thing is that the “prophets”, thanks to insight and calming meditation, won’t burn out so badly like they’ve done throughout history.
8.5/10
Good review, Raymond. The HKU library has a copy of the book and I’m going to borrow it to read.
I’ve also got this concern that there are sexist traces of patriarchy in Buddhism as seen from, at the notional level, as early as record of the Buddha’s hesitancy in admitting women into his sangha to one of the Amitabha’s 48 vows about not attaining Buddhahood until all women exercise their bodhicitta to renounce their female body (Vow No. 35), and, at the ritual level, that women laity has to be behind men laity in ritual practices, etc.
As far as the issue of allowing Bikkhuni order to die out, I think that’s more a situation of Theravada Buddhism, and at least in the Chinese stream of Mahayana Buddhism there are still nuns.
I don’t know what the book’s comments about Pure Land Buddhism are with regard to this issue of gender equality, and I’ll certainly watch out for them when I read it. But if it’s about Vow No. 35, then it’s hard for one not to think doubt about Buddhism’s claim of gender equality.
I’ll offer more thoughts after reading the book.
Now about Vow Number 35 and about Chinese Buddhism in general. Gross is at the same time fair and unfair in her treatment of Pure Land Buddhism because she understands the PL doctrine as having developed during an Indian/Chinese context that did not imagine the possibility of men and women practicing together or gender-neutral beings in the PL. So if women are seen as an “unfortunate rebirth”, the most compassionate resolution would obviously to be reborn as a future man. So in the historical context of “unimaginativeness” about gender equality, asking a woman to be reborn as a man is not sexist but compassionate. Obviously Gross’ interpretation means that in this day and age we can no longer interpret Vow 35 as literal. Now that we DO have access to alternative conceptions of gender equality as opposed to just women becoming men, the vision of the PL has to be readjusted accordingly.
But at the same time, Gross is unfair in her emphasis on Buddhism’s “excessively masculine and harmful” extolling of “aloneness and existential solitude” especially when comparing it to Judaism/Christianity/Islam, in which she says at least in those religions there is an eternal Other that will always accept you and love you. I think intellectually honest PL Buddhist will attribute the same things to Amitabha (let’s face it, Amitabha is completely different to early conceptions of Buddhas). Chinese Mahayana is not the same as Indian Mahayana and the converging doctrines of PL and Ch’an prove that. I don’t think her scholarship into Amitabha’s offer of Other Power is thorough enough. Other Power has distinct themes of love, acceptance, and other relational connotations but she ignores this in order to push forward her contention that Asian Buddhism is particularly hypermasculine and dysfuctional in its treatment of relationship. I think you’ll agree with me that so much of modern PL literature focuses on the relational qualities between the disciple and Amitabha.
And on the treatment of bhikkunis, I agree with Gross when she says that historically nuns have been treated as second rate citizens of the sangha, and some residues of it have been left today, and especially in south-east Asia, where nuns have to seek confirmation from Chinese orders as opposed to the Theravadin schools they belong to.