Nuns , Witches and Patriarchy 1

Transculrural Negotiations on Gender : Studies in (Be)longing, 2016

Apparently, it may seem that Hinduism is sincere towards upholding the dignity of women, as its various treatises and mythologies give us some suggestive accounts in this regard. However, behind such a projection, we can find out subtle tricks of socio-religious agencies which work for brahminical patriarchy. The non-mainstream or alternative religious practices like Tantra originated with an aim to challenge and subvert the patriarchal brahminical religious hegemony, and often provide gender equilibrium in the socio-religious space. Nevertheless, such forms were also not free from veiled patriarchal tropes and agendas. In today's society , the baul and faqir sects of Bengal, who formed a folk-oriented sahajiya-cult incorporating tantric practices and Sufi mysticism, are internationally regarded as the believers of a de-institutionalized free society with equal religious and social rights for men and women. However, the question is to what extent do women, who serve as the 'sadhan-sangini' (female partner in sexo-yogic religious practices) of the bauls, actually get equal rights, dignified position and true fulfilment in religious and social life. This article tries to re-explore Indian mythological, classical as well as folk socio-religious texts, treatises and traditions to find out the hidden framework of patriarchy. Keywords Religion and female sexuality · Manusmriti · Durga · Tantra · Baul · Faqir The history of civilization shows that, in the course of time, religion becomes a social (and often, national) agency of utmost power, encompassing various social institutions to utilize them for executing its own propaganda, or the propaganda of the dominating male constituency of that very society. Hinduism, not unlike

Patriarchal religion does violence to women through its preponderant use of male language for God, its traditional teaching on women’s inferiority and the household codes prescribed by all religions, mandate the subordination and passiveness of women. With a brief review of literature this paper tries to explore how women are condemned and marginalized in ancient religious literature, myths and scriptures. The objective of the study is to explore how patriarchy accelerates its exploitation on women through the means of religion. Following the method of purposive sampling 9 religious heads of three different religions (Hinduism, Islamic, Christianity) have been interviewed in depth. Simultaneously a household survey of 90 women, taking 10 from each religion (Hinduism, Islamic, Christianity); has been conducted. Major agenda of the study is to explore the deliberate attempts of the various religious heads to control women can be seen not just as an idiosyncrasy but rather a typical characteristic of authoritarian regime of patriarchy. This study analyzes how patriarchy in different religions, chains back women to orthodox practices till today and how men especially through their religious faiths, threaten and prohibited the utilization of an unlimited amount of talent and abilities within them.

Journal of Student Research, 2021

Hinduism is accused of suppressing its women devotees, despite a history suggesting a matriarchal approach. Over the years, original knowledge surrounding religious practices have been lost due to misinterpretation, misinformation and autonomy over said knowledge by certain groups. The purpose of this essay is to explore the various practices that accuse Hinduism of being anti-feminist, and to identify their origins to understand the role that both culture and religious doctrine played in promoting women's inferiority, as well as which had greater influence. Previous research relies heavily on scriptural understanding and secondary data analysis, despite the fact that overreliance on scriptures is one of the major contributors to the spread of false information regarding the divorce between the intentions of the religious doctrine and subsequent traditions and customs. I interviewed practitioners of the religion coming from various backgrounds and used the primary data to theori...

The aim of the present paper can be described in broad strokes as an attempt to elaborate on the thematics of quasi-feminism in Buddhism through considerations of various Buddhist legends and the perusal of the ancient text Therigatha, the first and quite probably the only canonical religious writing attributed solely to female authorship. The examination will exert an equal emphasis on gender-related issues and to the experiences of female spirituality that can be inferred from the content. The discussion will centre on the place designated by femininity and the female body in the social relations within the practice of Buddhism in the ancient Indian sub-continent, what is of valuable in this debate is how these gender relations constructed socially and represented through textual imagery became closely linked with the spiritual tenets, and this synthetic linkage has cemented over time into dogmatic gender practices within Buddhism. For the majority of human history the literature of and hence the successive research into every organised religious system, western or eastern, has been androcentric at the very least along with multiple observable instances of misogyny. Buddhism, despite its egalitarian front as well as its collective and personal goals of social along with spiritual liberation, cannot be exempted from this generalisation. Drawing from the core concepts of Anatta, or no-self, which is one of the three marks of existence and the emphasis of Sunyata or emptiness, Buddhist teachings are interpreted to preach a metaphysical neutrality of bodies and genders, yet this preaching has limited itself to a quasi-feminist theory and has failed to translate into a sustainable practice of gender equality within its various sub-branches till date since their establishment. The quasi-feminism that is attributed to the system on the grounds of its singular ontology of the empirical self and absolute no-self seems unintuitive upon analysing the abundance of discursive tropes wherein the female features as the object of harm. A tale

As the eminent (female) anthropologist Mary Douglas (1966) pointed out, the "social body" constrains and contrives the way the physical body is perceived and obligated into performance. The physical experience of the body is in turn often modified by a clutch of regulatory and panoptic religio-social categories through which it is known and made to reflect a normative view of society. This paper wrestles with the assertion (DeNapoli 2013) that female gurus are transgressive bodies and irruptions into a predominantly malestream tradition of religious teachers. The paper works through the theoretical notion of intertextuality and attempts to deconstruct and read whether such irruptions (and interruptions) into the Hindu tradition are actually transgressive and gendered religious violations, or whether they work instead to discursively and differently perpetuate particular parochial and masculinised social constructions of "woman". The paper thus probes what could be conceived of as "intertextual gaps" in order to examine the assertion that particular gendered enactments of the female gurus are subversive. The paper suggests instead that the gendered enactments appear to present ambivalences and ambiguities in renunciate discourses on gender and female agency.

Atlantis Critical Studies in Gender Culture Social Justice, 2003

2021

IN PRAISE OF THE HEADLESS, FEMME FATALE 'SCARLET WOMAN': Male monastic privilege and appropriation, denigration of women, female lineages, 'feminist' male consorts, and Vajrayoginī with severed-head and reversed Yum-yab union "Thus, I have heard-at one time the Buddha stayed in the vagina of the adamantine woman, who is the essence of the body, speech, and mind of all buddhas."-Shakyamuni Buddha[1] "Wherever in the world a female body is seen, That should be recognized as my holy body."-Vajrayoginī , in Caṇḍamahāroṣaṇa Tantra Today, on one of the most sacred days of the Buddhist calendar, Vesak Day (Saga Dawa, Buddha Jayanti), a time when followers remember the enlightenment of Shakyamuni Buddha, I share a new research article on the fully enlightened goddess, Vajrayoginī and how remembering her forms, words and male consort, might help bring us all back to a balance and respect for the sacred feminine as embodied in all women, in all their forms and guises. 'Scarlet woman' archetype as source of forbidden desire and temptation and wild, promiscuous female sexuality The Oxford English dictionary defines the phrase, ‘scarlet woman’, as a woman who is notorious for having many casual sexual encounters or relationships, a sexually promiscuous woman, or a woman who commits adultery, a hidden/secret woman. Desired by many, yet at the same time frowned upon as morally subversive and a dangerous ‘femme fatale’, the scarlet woman also symbolizes the ‘whore’ of the Freudian virgin-whore complex[4] that afflicts those in patriarchal cultures and religions. It is no coincidence that many fully enlightened female deities in Vajrayana Buddhism are bright, scarlet red. Red being the colour of magnetizing, blood and fiery heat, they are fully enlightened female forms representing the energy of lust, love, sex, desire, female power, magnetism, and the inner heat fire of passion and wrath. Vajrayoginī, a prime example of such a ‘scarlet woman’, in all her forms, is venerated and worshipped for her mandala of beauty, power and bliss, which are represented in monasteries and temples all over India, Nepal, Tibet and Bhutan. However, we also live in times when violence, humiliation and degradation against women is commonplace, and often used as entertainment. Gender inequality is still rampant in most cultures and races. Even though, respect and veneration for women is still publicly advocated as a necessity in most religious cultures and traditions, still the majority of those traditions maintain and promote men in positions of influence, power and visibility. Even within a goddess-worshipping culture such as Vajrayana/Tantric Buddhism, females have often been publicly and privately degraded as a group, and as individual practitioners/consorts. Yeshe Tsogyel’s gang-rape being a clear example. The last thirty years has seen increasing public exposure and censure of serious downfalls and transgressions by senior male teachers against females, and the trauma and harm it causes people within those communities[5], of which I recently wrote about my first-hand experience here[6]. In the first section, I consider the pervasive spread and influence of male monastic culture and privilege, with its emphasis on (often forced) celibacy, ‘taught’ aversion to female bodies and sexuality and its oppressive and misogynist effect on the treatment and perception of females by male practitioners (monastic and lay) as human beings, nuns, consorts[7], spiritual teachers[8] and even as a deity in yab-yum union. Citing the severe and catastrophic consequences of disrespecting women, as embodied by the male consort of Vajrayoginī , Caṇḍa¬mahā¬roṣaṇa, this is followed by an overview of the invisibility of female incarnation lineages in Tibet, yet the undeniable presence of ‘mother’ teachers of the founding fathers[9], and female lineage founders such as Jomo Menmo and Princess Lakṣmīṅkarā. In the second section, in order to address this ‘mistaken’ yet often unconscious, ‘inferior’ perception of the ‘female’, I consider the visceral example of two forms of Vajrayoginī : one with severed head, bringing to the forefront, ‘mother’ lineage holders such as Lakṣmīṅkarā. The other, Vajrayoginī as the female-centred deity, in reversed yum-yab with male consort, highlighting and reversing unconscious male-centric, sexist perceptions of consorts and deity visualization. It is hoped that citing these examples helps to re-balance and re-store the perception of the full and sacred equality of the female, as human, consort, teacher, lineage holder and deity.

Concordia University

This course examines various positions, roles and activities of women and nuns within different traditions of Buddhism. We will begin the course with a brief survey of the historical origins of Buddhism considered in the social and religious context of ancient India as a whole. We will investigate images and situations of female figures in early Buddhism described in canonical scriptures and other contemporaneous texts. We will also examine epigraphic and artistic evidence offering insights into the lives and activities of early medieval Buddhist women in India. Bhikkhuni monastic codes and the order of nuns will be explored. Another topic we will deal with is the concept of gender as related to nirvana's achievement; one of the important themes for discussion here will be how, when and why the Indian male bodhisattva Avalokitesvara was transformed into a Chinese female deity Kuan-Yin to become "a cult of half Asia." The spread of Buddhism outside of India during the early medieval period will be discussed through the examination of subsequent developments of Buddhist women's experiences in China, Vietnam, Japan, and Thailand. As such, in the later part of the course, we will explore the religious life of women in contemporary East and Southeast Asia where Buddhism has been adopted and has given rise to local variations and distinctive practices. We will end the class with a discussion of how Buddhism has been studied and reconstructed in the West. * I would like to acknowledge that Concordia University is located on unceded Indigenous lands, particularly those of the Kanien'kehá:ka Nation, who are recognized as the custodians of the lands and waters on which we are situated.

The South Asian sub-continent, even when restricted to those areas that are predominantly Hindu, is a vast and variegated region subject to immense geographic, historic, economic, sectarian, caste and other differences-all of which are reflected in the diversity of women, their lifestyles and their positions visa -vis men. 1 Yet, despite this great diversity, there is a continuous though developing theme of cultural uniformity-in part derived from the classical Hindu traditions, in part from the interaction between the bearers of such traditions and a variety of tribal and indigenous peoples, and in part from unorthodox developments within Hinduism itself. In this introductory chapter I examine those aspects of Hindu ideology that directly impinge on the formation of significant views of Hindu women. I first examine the fourfold structure of goals (moksa, dharma, artha and, kama) and their associated ideological emphases on renunciation, purity, worldly success and sensuous gratification, These fixed structural categories give rise to a large number of well-known Hindu female stereotypes-such as pure virgin, voluptuous temptress, obedient wife, honoured mother, dread widow, impure menstruating woman, powerful sexual partner etc, I then examine the same ideological components in the context of social process, and here the most relevant schema is that of the triguna with its dynamic representation of woman as consisting of three interrelated forces-those of creation, maintenance and destruction-with the best known stereotypes consisting of fertile maiden, nurturant mother and destructive widow. This triple format is, as Kondos has demonstrated for the Parbatya of Kathmandu, relevant not only at the metaphysical, but also at the ritual and social levels. I should also point out that each of the fourfold structures has its triadic processual form when restricted to the this-worldly context of phenomenal existence. In the final section I briefly indicate that each of the principal stereotypes can, in their positive and negative forms, be so represented as to constitute extreme positions on a hierarchical continuum. Just as the fourfold structure of goals can be reduced to a dialogue between moksa and, dharma, between the renouncer and the man-in-the-world, so too can the Hindu woman be alternately viewed as pure/impure, sinister/benign, creative/destructive, ally/opponent, goddess/witch. I should stress that my aim in this paper is to focus attention on the more purely ideological components of Hindu thinking about women. I make no attempt to consider the relationship between ideology and behaviour, a task that is left to the succeeding essays.

In this paper we will discuss the correlation of gender relations to religion with respect to the indian medieval society and certain theories discussed by Joan W. Schott in her article 'Gender: A useful category of historical analysis'. Starting with basic information, the concept religion did not originally refer to a social genus or cultural type.