Women can't become Buddhas?

A discussion on all aspects of Theravāda Buddhism
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Ngawang Drolma.
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Re: Women can't be enlightened?

Post by Ngawang Drolma. »

Women get more illnesses, at least according to Tibetan Medicine.

:buddha2:
Individual
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Re: Women can't be enlightened?

Post by Individual »

Dhammanando wrote:If one considers those features of men's and women's bodies that are differentiated by the gender-controlling faculties, it seems that in every case the male features are stronger, less susceptible to injury, and more versatile for nearly every end save that of attracting mates and child-rearing.
Ven. Dhammanando, when it comes the physical body, men clearly have the advantage from an obvious evolutionary standpoint. More children would be produced from a group of 10 women and 1 man than from a group of 10 men and 1 woman. So, women are more valuable to our continued survival than men, thus it's more risky to our survival to put them at risk and so they needed to be protected. As a result, women (in early human history) did not hunt for food or wander outside the safety of the human camp. As time went on, and we specialized, men developed the mental and physical qualities necessary to be a better hunter (aggression, more muscle mass, better peripheral hearing, better night vision, single-minded concentration, etc.). However, to say that women's specialization left them to play the roles of merely "attracting mates and child-rearing," is not based on evidence on the various traits of womens' brains that, in some ways, make them superior to men.

Whereas the men hunted and women did play the role of attracting mates and child-rearing, social activity and tool-making are both activities that can be done at home -- that is, things that could be done by women too. When the men were hunting, it may have been the women crafting or repairing the tools they used to hunt with. When angry, possibly violent disputes arose at home, it may have been the women which acted as negotiators and social arbiters (we still often see both traits among mothers in households today). Because of this, whereas men have the physical advantage, and some mental advantages, women have many of their own unique mental advantages, including greater empathy, social skills, and the ability to multi-task. I wouldn't really be able to go much into detail, but I do know that if you take a look at the evidence on the neurological differences between men and women, you won't find the majority of scientists supporting your claim that women have developed merely for "attracting mates and child-rearing".

With metta :heart:,
Individual
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Element

Re: Women can't be enlightened?

Post by Element »

Annabel wrote:Actually, men often feel intimidated by selfconfident women.
Maybe, adversial view needs to change and gratitude & mutuality developed.
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Re: Women can't be enlightened?

Post by Individual »

Element wrote:
Annabel wrote:Actually, men often feel intimidated by selfconfident women.
Maybe, adversial view needs to change and gratitude & mutuality developed.
"Once made equal to man, woman becomes his superior."
-Socrates

(To understand that in context, look into Socrates' relationship with his wife)
The best things in life aren't things.

The Diamond Sutra
Element

Re: Women can't be enlightened?

Post by Element »

Individual wrote:"Once made equal to man, woman becomes his superior."
-Socrates

(To understand that in context, look into Socrates' relationship with his wife)
Does not mean Socrates was right.

Buddha said: "A woman's quest is a man, her maintstay is sons and her ideal is domination".

But this is worldly life. Spirituality, man leads the spiritual realm.

Even in worldly life, a woman requires male support more than a man requires female support.

From a woman, a man needs to acquire 'grace' or 'softening' but a man does not need 'strength' from a woman.

It is best to remove the delusions of female power, like the view a women are powerful and can 'save' or 'sustain' a man.

As a man, one must be prepared to support a woman. This is the safest & wisest view.

Feminism is mostly a whole lot of hot wind and empty talk.
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Ceisiwr
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Re: Women can't be enlightened?

Post by Ceisiwr »

Isnt this all coming from assuptions that all men and women are the same.

That all men are strong and all women have grace and negotiating skills etc

Some men arent strong and do acctualy get this from their female partner and some women can learn grace etc from their male partner.

Also the conditions in which the old evolutionary traits of males as hunters and females as nest builders no longer apply in any real sense in the modern world, at least not in first world countries as these societies are man made constructs, shaped by ideas of equality and individual rights and so are far removed from natural habbitat so any natural evolutionary traits no longer have any meaning.

:focus: In reguards to this threads title, yes a women can become enlightened. If a women can become a buddha, most likely we will never know for sure but it doesnt really matter. "Women" is just a convenient description as is "Man" that involves identification with one or more aggregates and a Buddha cannot be pinned down as being one of the aggregates.

A Buddha is neither man nor women in reality.

:namaste:
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as impermanent, unstable, insubstantial.
Mind, let me leap into the victor’s teaching,
carry me over the great flood, so hard to pass.”
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Ngawang Drolma.
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Re: Women can't be enlightened?

Post by Ngawang Drolma. »

Feminism is mostly a whole lot of hot wind and empty talk.
I understand feminism as a social movement :shrug:

All of these generalizations about qualities that are specific to gender will fall short.

True bliss and emptiness involves the unification/lack of differentiation between male and female qualities anyhow. Best to not invest too much effort in defining differences.

:namaste:
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Re: Women can't be enlightened?

Post by Individual »

Element wrote:It is best to remove the delusions of female power, like the view a women are powerful and can 'save' or 'sustain' a man.
The delusion of male power too.
The best things in life aren't things.

The Diamond Sutra
Element

Re: Women can't be enlightened?

Post by Element »

Individual wrote: The delusion of male power too.
No. Power of compassion is in the male. Neediness is in the woman. When a woman suckles a child this is not compassion but her own inner need. Or lets say, natures need to reproduce itself through female reproductive elements or energy. For example, femanists say men force women to reproduce. I say this is delusion.

There are two kinds of power. Worldly power & spiritual power.
Last edited by Element on Tue Jan 27, 2009 10:24 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Element

Re: Women can't be enlightened?

Post by Element »

Drolma wrote:All of these generalizations about qualities that are specific to gender will fall short.
Possibilty. But the thread must remain vital. There must be some Mara. :P
True bliss and emptiness involves the unification/lack of differentiation between male and female qualities anyhow. Best to not invest too much effort in defining differences.
Maybe in Mahayana but in Theravada Buddha said there are three faculities. Faculty of life, faculty of male & faculty of female. I think it is wiser to be able to discern male & female elements rather than dwell in undifferentiated white-darkness. I think however integrating, empathising and reconciling our notions of male and female is useful for our moral or social development & relationships.
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Re: Women can't be enlightened?

Post by Individual »

Element wrote:
Individual wrote: The delusion of male power too.
No. Power of compassion is in the male. Neediness is in the woman. When a woman suckles a child this is not compassion but her own inner need. Or lets say, natures need to reproduce itself through female reproductive elements or energy. For example, femanists say men force women to reproduce. I say this is delusion.

There are two kinds of power. Worldly power & spiritual power.
Can you cite suttas where the Buddha said that compassion was a "male" quality and neediness was a "female" quality?
The best things in life aren't things.

The Diamond Sutra
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Ngawang Drolma.
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Re: Women can't be enlightened?

Post by Ngawang Drolma. »

Element wrote:
Drolma wrote:All of these generalizations about qualities that are specific to gender will fall short.
Possibilty. But the thread must remain vital. There must be some Mara. :P
True bliss and emptiness involves the unification/lack of differentiation between male and female qualities anyhow. Best to not invest too much effort in defining differences.
Maybe in Mahayana but in Theravada Buddha said there are three faculities. Faculty of life, faculty of male & faculty of female. I think it is wiser to be able to discern male & female elements rather than dwell in undifferentiated white-darkness. I think however integrating, empathising and reconciling our notions of male and female is useful for our moral or social development & relationships.
Oh yes. We want to have discernment, and to see things how they really are are, by all means. I was really speaking to creating extra conventional divisions that may not be very useful or productive.

However, if the Buddha said that we should, then I'll defer to Him of course :buddha2:

Actually, male/female qualities, mother/father tantras are spelled out very specifically in TB. My statement has more to do with our focus on social structures and norms. I'm all for Engaged buddhism and getting involved in social issues, don't get me wrong. But at the practice level, I feel that development of insight beyond preconceived notions about gender is useful.

But maybe that's just me :toast:
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Re: Women can't be enlightened?

Post by retrofuturist »

Greetings,

My take is that we need to renounce both masculinity and feminity.

The Buddha merely defines and differentiates them to provide clarity for us on what needs to be renounced.

Metta,
Retro. :)
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Ngawang Drolma.
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Re: Women can't be enlightened?

Post by Ngawang Drolma. »

retrofuturist wrote:Greetings,

My take is that we need to renounce both masculinity and feminity.

The Buddha merely defines and differentiates them to provide clarity for us on what needs to be renounced.

Metta,
Retro. :)
I delight in these words :namaste:
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Re: Women can't be enlightened?

Post by Cittasanto »

Hi Retro,
retrofuturist wrote:Greetings,

My take is that we need to renounce both masculinity and feminity.

The Buddha merely defines and differentiates them to provide clarity for us on what needs to be renounced.

Metta,
Retro. :)
You remind me of something a teacher I know has mentioned a couple of times to me.
If you look at a statue of the Buddha can you actually tell if it is of a man or a woman?
yes there are no breasts but the look is quite feminine as well as masculine, and I would say (can't remember the lists name properly) that the description of the Buddha (Long elegant fingers etc) has allot of stereotypical feminine qualities
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