The Role of Women in Tibetan Buddhism Essay

Question: “Women received the vote based on their contribution to the war effort”. How accurate is this view that women gained the vote based solely on war work? 20 marks

Women had restricted and regulated roles during the time period of The Crucible yet many things have changed since then. They were seen as servants, expected to answer to men who rule the home, and take care of the children. Women from both the play and poem are put through different scenarios yet, the challenges they go through makes it clear to compare the two. The Crucible, by Arthur Miller, and Half-Hanged Mary, by Margaret Atwood, are similar to the theme regarding the role of women in various ways. They are comparable in behalf of characterization concerning Abigail Williams, Elizabeth Proctor, and Rebecca Nurse from The Crucible, and Mary Webster from Half-Hanged Mary.

Religion has existed for as long as man has. Both men, and women believed in a

In traditional Chinese culture, women were inferior to men. They were not allowed to make any decisions concerning their families. Their only purpose in life was to stay home and take care of the households. "A woman's duties are to cook the five grains, heat the wine, look after her parents-in-law, make clothes, and that's all! ...she must follow the `three submissions.' When she is young, she must submit to her parents. After her marriage, she must submit to her husband. When she is widowed, she must submit to her son. These are the rules of propriety." ("The Mother Of Mencius", p.34) That's the principle that was followed in traditional China. Some of the examples of this are discussed in this

Lang examines that if a women wants to involve in the community, she would have to change her mind to man. Lang also mentions that Buddhist thinks that the highest goddess is neither a male nor female (Lang 95-103). What she wants to argue is that women should not be tied with sexuality and impurity. Somehow, woman is equal to man because to become a highest goddess, there should not have a gender problem.

Buddhism: Buddhist views on females differed over time. Traditional views of Buddhism viewed females as inferior to males. Females were considered to be inferior to males, thus they were considered to be on the same level as Sudras (lowest-ranking people). Also, females were expected to perform medial tasks inside the home. Of course, this changed, as Buddhism progressed over time, and females began to have more roles in the Buddhist religion. ​

Buddhism is complicated with regard to women, as some countries’ version of it holds women in higher esteem than others. The whole religion has been debating on whether or not women can legitimately participate in enlightenment since

In terms of marginalization, we might look at many different forms, but for the purpose of this paper we are going to focus on social marginalization. This typically means that women were mistreated and looked down upon because of their gender. In what follows we will briefly look at a few scholarly articles in support of the claim that women were marginalized socially in early Buddhist societies. We are going to look at not only the practices of Buddhist societies but also the beliefs and how the beliefs related to the practices. We are going to focus on the views in Buddhism from around six BCE throughout the first century.

China, located in East Asia, is the third largest country by area and the largest

Women have been a part of Buddhism since it began in Northeast India in 6th century BC, by a man named Gautama Buddha. The religion of Buddhism does not involve any theistic world-view, therefore Buddha was not a god. The teachings of Buddha are designed exclusively to liberate emotional beings from misery. There is no doubt that Buddha was the first religious leader to give women equal opportunities in the field of spiritual development. Looking back to the very beginning of the religion, many of Buddha’s wisest and most capable disciples were laywomen and nuns.

Buddhism is a unique religious tradition in its involvement of women in monastic positions. Buddhist texts mention the importance of utilizing the skills of its female adherents, encouraging women in aspirations of enlightenment as men have been wont to do since the religion’s founding. This monastic path, however, has proven more challenging, is subjected to segregative stricture, and has afforded less egalitarianism for nuns than monks, further confounded by contradictory teachings and attitudes toward female monastics.

In the Hindu religion women play a bigger role than many other women do in their own religion. In the Hindu religion women are seen to make good inputs on the earth, dharma, and sensual pleasure. They are viewed as initiating men’s spiritualizing life forces. When a man and women get married in this religion they are supposed to be spiritual partners and complement one another. Husbands take the task of being the women’s god and teacher.

Every society, culture, and religion has their own justification of what they believe women should do and what they symbolize. The role of women in society is constantly discussed because it is always changing. While reading and analyzing history books, artworks, and scriptures, we are able to see the changes women have encountered, for example what rights they have gained or lost. Focusing primarily on religion, I will analyze Hindu and Buddhist scriptures in order to compare and contrast what they believe is the role of women. Despite bearing some differences in the manner that Hinduism praise women more than in Buddhism, both scriptures acknowledge women’s equality with men and believe women can hold great power.

Over the 2500 year history of the Buddhist religion, this statement doesn’t seem to fully follow the story of how women have been respected throughout its history. Although there is little textual evidence of how women were accurately respected and treated in the early history of Buddhism, it was suggested that women and men were held to the same regards and were more or less considered equals: “Buddhist nuns saw themselves as equal to the monks” (Anderson and Young 86). In accordance to the life story of Siddhartha on his spiritual journey of becoming a Buddha, he does encounter women and expresses empathy and compassion towards their worries and sufferings. It’s also fact that there was a higher amount of male interaction and significance in his journey, but that women too wanted to follow him: “his interaction with them is not noticeably different from his interaction with men regarding the men’s worries and sufferings” (Anderson and Young 85). Overall though, women did play a more inferior role than men in the Buddha's life. When I connect this back to the idea of Christianity, there again is a strong male dominance prevalent in both religions. In Christianity there too were women that wanted to follow Jesus, similar to how there were women that wanted to follow the Buddha. However, all of Jesus’s disciples were male and played a prevalent role in his

Due to gender discrimination, there is more violence against Tibetan women than men by the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Unconsented and forceful acts of violence have been committed against Tibetan women, specifically targeted at Buddhist nuns, since the Chinese invasion of Tibet in 1950. While Tibetan women non-violently protest the Chinese government, they are physically, emotionally, and sexually abused by troops and within prisons. The human rights of these women have been completely disregarded.