The topics of women and feminist interpretation have become very important in many academic fields in the humanities and social sciences. A Buddhist study is no exception. Indeed, the feminine, women, sexuality, and gender have virtually become a subfield in Buddhist studies. So, the topic of this book is important in its own right but also for what it contributes to other fields. What strikes me as especially valuable about this volume is its relatively synoptic/inclusive nature, thereby giving it a very timely role in the current literature on Buddhism, women, and sexuality.
Scholars And practitioners from a variety of Buddhist cultures, philosophical traditions, and academic disciplines analyze important dimensions of the new cross- cultural Buddhist women’s movement: the status and experiences of women in Buddhist societies, feminist interpretation of Buddhist tenets, and the relationship 0f women to Buddhist institutions. Buddhist Women Across Cultures documents both women’s struggle for religious equality in Asian Buddhist cultures as well as the process of creating Buddhist feminist identity across national and ethnic boundaries as Buddhism gains attention in the West. The book contributes significantly to an understanding of women and religion in both Western and non-Western cultures,
What I like most about this book is the scope — feminism/Buddhism — in cross-cultural contexts. There is no other book like it. Buddhist Women Across Cultures articulates vital strands of the process which the author so aptly terms the ‘feminization of Buddhism.’“This is the only anthology that really works with these issues from cross-cultural and feminist perspectives. This insight makes the anthology stand out in the rapidly growing area of Buddhism/feminism—perhaps the key book to reconfigure the field at resent and for some time to come.
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