The Attitude Towards Women
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The social attitude towards women in pre-Buddhist days can be traced from the early Vedic literature, such as the Rigveda. There is evidence indicating the honor and respect which women received in their homes. In the realm of religion, too, they had access to the highest knowledge of the Absolute or Brahma. However, such a liberal attitude towards women changed with the course of time, under the influence and dominance of the priestly caste with their priestcrafts, animal sacrifices, and other ritualistic practices. New interpretations were given to the scriptures. Women came to be considered as greatly inferior to men - both physically and mentally.
http://www.buddhistvihara.com/newsletters/2003-winter/status_of_women.htm
Gender Equality in Buddhism
Buddha's Kindness
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The Buddha would have been totally incapable of misogyny. Misogyny is a form of ill-will and to harbor ill-will would believe his awakening and everything he taught about the three fires of greed, hatred and delusion and the training in kindness (metta) and compassion. No species is exempt as an object of kindness, as non-harming to all living beings is advocated, which is consistently the Buddhas message, to not do harm to others.
In the Sangha, the Buddha eliminated the caste system altogether and established a consensus democracy with little hierarchy and no centralized authority (outside of himself in the beginning). It is within the monastic Sangha that we indeed discover his active promotion of the interests of women and the leveling of the disadvantages women would otherwise expect in ancient Indian society.
In the Sangha, the Buddha eliminated the caste system altogether and established a consensus democracy with little hierarchy and no centralized authority (outside of himself in the beginning). It is within the monastic Sangha that we indeed discover his active promotion of the interests of women and the leveling of the disadvantages women would otherwise expect in ancient Indian society.
https://bhikkhucintita.wordpress.com/home/topics-in-the-dharma/uposatha-1272012/
Women Outside the Sangha (Buddhist Community)
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The Buddha in many places offered advice to householders about the roles and status of the two genders which must have stood out in his culture for the reciprocity and mutual respect he recommended. For instance, he described the respective duties of husbands and wives as follows:
"In five ways should a wife as Western quarter, be ministered to by her husband: by respect, by courtesy, by faithfulness, by handing over authority to her, by providing her with ornaments. In these five ways does the wife minister to by her husband as the Western quarter, love him: her duties are well-performed by hospitality to kin of both, by faithfulness, by watching over the goods he brings and by skill and industry in discharging all business." – DN 31
"In five ways should a wife as Western quarter, be ministered to by her husband: by respect, by courtesy, by faithfulness, by handing over authority to her, by providing her with ornaments. In these five ways does the wife minister to by her husband as the Western quarter, love him: her duties are well-performed by hospitality to kin of both, by faithfulness, by watching over the goods he brings and by skill and industry in discharging all business." – DN 31
https://bhikkhucintita.wordpress.com/home/topics-in-the-dharma/uposatha-1272012/
Accomplishments of Women in Buddhism
Mahapajapati: The First Nun
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Mahāpajāpatī Gotamī was the first woman to request ordination from the Buddha and to join the Sangha. Mayadevi and Mahapajapati Gotami were the Koliyan Princesses and were sisters of Suprabuddha . She was both the Budda's maternal aunt and adoptive mother, raising him after her sister, Queen Maya died. Mahapajapati Gotami died at the age of 120.
She is reluctantly allowed into the Sangha after Buddha's cousin Ananda says, "Give women a chance; we cannot say for sure that they will fail unless they have a chance to study and follow the Dharma." Although Ananda had the same cultural conditioning as his cousin, here he speaks from his awareness of impermanence, that because of continual change, the world in each moment is new and we cannot judge the present based on the conceptions of the past. One concrete instance of impermanence which shakes up Shakamuni's view of women as pets/slaves of men is the death of his father. She now stands before him stripped of her former identity as mother and wife, no longer having a man for her life to revolve around.
She is reluctantly allowed into the Sangha after Buddha's cousin Ananda says, "Give women a chance; we cannot say for sure that they will fail unless they have a chance to study and follow the Dharma." Although Ananda had the same cultural conditioning as his cousin, here he speaks from his awareness of impermanence, that because of continual change, the world in each moment is new and we cannot judge the present based on the conceptions of the past. One concrete instance of impermanence which shakes up Shakamuni's view of women as pets/slaves of men is the death of his father. She now stands before him stripped of her former identity as mother and wife, no longer having a man for her life to revolve around.