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Essay on Androgynous Buddhism: Pros and Cons
What is the “essence” (if any) of a given religion? Can a religion be reconstructed to eradicate its patriarchal, sexist, and misogynist elements without destroying what is essential, or even distinctive, to that religion? These are some of the perplexing issues that Rita Gross addresses in Buddhism After Patriarchy (Hereafter referred to as “Patriarchy”) from an explicitly feminist perspective.
Patriarchy is divided into three main sections. Following a short, two chapter introductory sections entitled “Orientations,” the first main section, “Toward an Accurate and Usable Past,” provides historical background about traditional Buddhist attitudes towards women, as contained in various scriptures and teachings. The second main section, entitled “The Dharma is Neither Male nor Female,” outlines Gross’s critique of sexist and patriarchal elements of the tradition--what she refers to as “key concepts” (125)--from a feminist perspective. The third and final main section, “The Dharma is Both Female and Male,” proposes Gross’s outline for “an androgynous reconstruction of Buddhism” (207) along feminist lines. Two appendices to the volume are also included, the first describing Gross’s views about feminism as academic method and social vision and the second on the study of “history of religions.”
As “theology” (which Professor Gross deliberately but nonetheless inaccurately uses with reference to Buddhism, a nontheistic religion) (13), Patriarchy represents a bold and courageous effort by a feminist scholar and practitioner of Buddhist religion to grapple with some of the fundamental paradoxes and frustrations presented by the patriarchal and sexist (and even occasionally misogynist) dimensions of her chosen religious tradition. As academic scholarship, however, Gross’s project is limited in its usefulness by significant conceptual and methodological deficiencies, especially by the highly idiosyncratic and controversial nature of her conceptualizations of “Buddhism” and “feminism.”Perhaps in justification of such an objective, especially for a feminist who might view religious traditions.....
