Becoming a Nun, Becoming a Man: Taiwanese Buddhist Nuns’ Gender Transformation

This paper explores apparent contradictions in the gender identifications of Taiwanese Buddhist nuns. Because the texts and teachings of their tradition provide conflicting messages about women\u27s spiritual abilities, the nuns create a complex gender cosmology as a means to accommodate textual contradictions without rejecting any textual statements. This strategy allows the nuns to assert that they have spiritual abilities equal to those of men without rejecting or contradicting textual statements that they do not. Without denying that they are women (and that they are therefore threatening to men) the nuns primarily identify with the male gender. Compartmentalizing and contextualizing gender symbols allows the nuns to see themselves both as men and as women without contradiction

Resistance through Transformation? The Meanings of Gender Reversals in a Taiwanese Buddhist Monastery

This chapter demonstrates that Taiwanese Buddhist nuns resist the limitations of traditional Han gender ideologies by drawing on opportunities offered within those traditional gender constructions—opportunities that allow them to define themselves in opposition to the limited female gender characteristics and roles they reject. Crane argues that we should not interpret these nuns\u27 masculine identification simply as resisting dominant Han gender ideologies. Instead, the nuns embrace the traditional, sexist Han ideologies, even to the point of exaggeration—portraying women not only as dangerous to the spiritual cultivation of others, but also of limited spiritual ability. They define the negative characteristics of women as stemming from the roles that they have within the family, and having freed themselves of these familial roles in order to become nuns, define themselves as quite different from women who exhibit these negative characteristics. As these nuns are informed by other aspects of traditional Han gender cosmology, particularly by their conceptualization of genders as correlative rather than binary, changing gender is relatively easy for them. In analyzing the nuns\u27 statements about their gender change as well as their repeated references to religious, historical and mythical figures who change from women to men and serve as role models for the nuns, Crane draws on the works of historians, philosophers, and anthropologists to show that in the correlative model, genders are fluid and defined by the embodiment of the yin and yang analogy. A female in a yang position becomes, for all intents and purposes, a man. In this way, the nuns are able to imagine themselves as men in every way that is spiritually important and reject the female constraints they perceive as hingering their religious progress. This correlative gender model provides the possibility for a woman to imagine herself to be a man, provided she adheres to certain rules and has certain statuses. In this model, gender is related (but not affixed) to the sex of one\u27s body and is more accurately thought of as a product of one\u27s relationships than as a description of what one truly is

Systematic education in Dolma Ling leading to gender equality

The primary aim in establishing Dolma Ling Institute is to raise the education standard and improve the opportunity for nuns to study advanced Buddhist philosophy and doctrine. During the Tibetan Women's Association fourth working committee meeting in Dharamsala in October, 1992, His Holiness the Dalai Lama said, " In our society , we have as a legacy from the past the notion that nuns engage in ritual only and do not study Buddhist texts. This should be changed." His Holiness has in this way been urging the nuns to study higher Buddhist philosophy, in order to gain a deeper knowledge of Buddhism. Whenever His Holiness visits the Tibetan nunneries, he takes the opportunity to ecourage them to study. Dolma Ling Institute is specifically non sectarian and intented to provide nuns from all lineages with the opportunity to study to develop their full academic and spiritual potential. The crucial purpose of the overall project is to allow scholastically gifted nuns to attain the highest level of religious studies, that is the Geshe degree. This much respected degree has up until now only been attained by monks. Enabling women to participate in the study course leading to this goal will give them the confidence to take on roles as teachers and leaders within the communities. ..

Resisting Marriage and Renouncing Womanhood: The Choice of Taiwanese Buddhist Nuns

The traditional Chinese perception of Buddhist monastics is that they choose to renounce the world out of desperation — after failing in the world such that their only options are suicide or the monastery. That this perception of the monastic life persists in Taiwan today is evident in monastics’ own descriptions of their families’ responses to their choice as well as in several recent scandals related to monastic life. Despite the widespread negative perception of monastics, increasing numbers of women are choosing this life. Drawing on extensive fieldwork with relatively new monastics, the author explores the choice Buddhist nuns make to renounce the world they know (and the possibility of leading lives like their mothers, sisters, and friends) and instead embrace the monastic life despite its negative image. The author argues that the nuns’ choice is but a contemporary manifestation of a long-standing tradition of marriage resistance in Chinese culture and explains that, in the process of rejecting their lives as wives and mothers, Taiwanese Buddhist nuns reject their identities as women altogether

Bhikshunis and Breaking Barriers: The Changing Status of Women in Monastic Life

My research focuses on the recent changes in ideology and policy that have taken place in regards to the status of Tibetan Buddhist nuns and their monastic lives. I chose to focus on the nuns at Dolma Ling nunnery in Dharamsala, India who will be sitting for their geshema degree examinations in a few weeks time. These women are among the first nuns to be taking this examination because it was, until very recently, open only to Buddhist monks. This revolutionary change was accomplished in part by the efforts of the leaders of the Tibetan Nuns Project, who have also had a hand in several other changes concerning the status of nuns, including incorporating debate into the nuns’ studies and striving toward the controversial issue of full ordination for Tibetan Buddhist women. Using data collected at Dolma Ling and interviews conducted with co-directors of the Tibetan nuns project, an official at the Department of Religion and Culture of the CTA, and several of the nuns themselves, I will be discussing the significance of the recent changes for women in monastic life and the role that the Tibetan Nuns Project has played in these changes

A cloistered entrepôt: sir Tobie Matthew and the English Carmel in Antwerp

To escape religious persecution in England, English Carmelite nuns took refuge in Antwerp, where in 1619 Anne of the Ascension (Anne Worsley, 1588-1644) and Lady Mary Lovell (c. 1564-1628) had founded a convent expressly for exiled young English ladies. Although insulated from the world by enclosure and obedience to the rule, the Antwerp Carmel was not cut off from its surroundings. A careful perusal of the foundation's "Chronicle'' and the vast correspondence left by the women religious exposes an interesting jigsaw of intersections between the private and the public, and the religious and cultural worlds of the early modern period. The Carmelite community indeed patronized artists outside the convent walls, commissioning for instance an English translation of the Life of St Teresa from Sir Tobie Matthew (1577-1655), who also produced a hitherto unknown Life of one of the Carmelite nuns

CREATING SPACES OF THIRD GENDER IN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY NEW SPAIN: REPRESENTATIONS OF GENDER IN PORTRAIT PRINTS OF MEXICAN COLONIAL NUNS

In Colonial New Spain, vidas interiores were confessions written by nuns in convents under the order of their confessors. These vidas served as the basis for biographies of the sisters, which were written and distributed by confessors. Vidas frequently included printed portraits of the subjects on whom they were based. One important aspect of these portraits is the gender identities of the nuns portrayed. In many of these vidas, nuns took on masculine roles typically unavailable to women in the Viceregal era. To accomplish these undertakings, nuns gave up their femininity, including the standard colonial role for females as wife and mother. As nuns, these women struggled to shed their unholiness through prayer, reflection, and penance. This continual battle against feminine sin allowed nuns to take on roles considered traditionally-male in the Novohispanic era, such as leadership and scholarship. Because of the lack of unholy femininity and the “male” tasks these nuns could accomplish, they could be seen as beings in a space of third gender, whom were also worthy of emulation. In my discussion, I will examine the role of the space of third gender for New Spanish nuns, and how the printed portraits in vidas convey these standards

A nun\u27s life : Barking Abbey in the late-medieval and early modern periods

The purpose of this project is to gain an understanding of the daily lives of nuns in an English nunnery by examining a particular prominent abbey. This study also attempts to update the history of the abbey by incorporating methods and theories used by recent historians of women\u27s monasticism, as well as recent archaeological evidence found at the abbey site. By including specific examinations of Barking Abbey\u27s last nuns, as well as the nuns\u27 artistic and cultural pursuits, this thesis expands the scholarship of the abbey\u27s history into areas previously unexplored. This thesis begins with a look at the nuns of Barking Abbey. the social status of their secular families, and how that status may have defined life in the abbey. It also looks at how Barking fit into the larger context of English women\u27s monasticism based on the social provenance of its nuns. The analysis then turns to the nuns\u27 daily temporal and spiritual responsibilities, focusing on the nuns\u27 liturgical lives as well as the work required for the efficient maintenance of the house. Also covered is the relationship the abbey and its nuns had with their local lay community. This is followed by an examination of cultural activity at the abbey with discussion of books and manuscripts, music, singing, procession, and various other art forms. The final chapter examines the abbey\u27s dissolution in 1539 under Henry VIII\u27s religious reforms, including the dissolution\u27s effect on some of the abbey\u27s last nuns