[Buddha-l] Re: An experiment (Gender on Buddha-l)

[Richard P. Hayes]

On Tue, 2005-10-11 at 16:24 -0700, Franz Metcalf wrote:

> Gang,

Hey, cut the sexist language, eh?

> I must admit my answer seems a trifle loose and fuzzy, even to me. 
> Still, I'll throw it out there and say it seems to me that a Buddhist 
> environment ought to be inclusive and appreciative. 

I think you're off to a bad start. There is no reason why a Buddhist
environment ought to be inclusive. The Buddha never set out to make an
inclusive path. He set out to make a path for people who were convinced
that renunciation is the best way to attain dukkha-nirodha. That
excludes about 99% of the human race.

Several years ago, I presented a paper at a conference on Rita Gross's
book on Buddhism After Patriarchy. One of the points I argued in that
paper is that there is not now, and never has been, any rational reason
for Buddhism to make provisions for women. It's not as though the Buddha
taught that being a Buddhist monk is necessary to achieve dukkha-
nirodha. So excluding women is not depriving them of anything they
need. 

Moreover, the Buddha was a man and knew what a man needs to do to
achieve dukkha-nirodha. There is no way he could have known what a woman
needs to do to achieve it. Teaching women how to achieve dukkha-nirodha
is a woman's job. If women go to a man for advice on something like
that, they are bound to get inferior advice. 

It could even be argued that leaving men alone to develop in their own
way, without the distraction of women, benefits women, since it leaves
men alone to become much better men. And what could be better for women
than to have a world in which men have learned not to be the way they
usually are without the benefit of discipline? Undisciplined men tend to
be violent, to settle scores by conducting wars, and to be drunken
fools. So I submit that Buddhism would not be in the least compromised
if it were not gender inclusive; it would function quite well, and would
benefit the entire human race, if it were, like the Freemasons, an
exclusively male club dedicated to helping males be better men.

> It should embody (in our case, digitally) the compassion of hearing
> the other and wisdom of learning from the other. There are things most
> of us just can't 
> learn from folks nearly like ourselves. 

By that logic, naturally gentle people like me should hang out with
hockey players and NASCAR drivers. No thanks. I'm quite content to seek
out my own kind and to benefit from their company by letting their best
qualities reinforce my best qualities, and by counting on them to help
me back up when I fall from nobility of conduct. 

> I guess I see buddha-l as somehow inherently Buddhist or therapeutic. I 
> realize, thank you Andy, that this is NOT in the constitution of the 
> list. This is supposed to be an academic list. 

This is no longer the case. If you read the description of the list that
has been in effect ever since we got turfed out of Kentucky, buddha-l
has dropped all pretenses of being academic. It is just a Buddhist
discussion forum that is open to "all persons inside and outside the
academic context who wish to engage in substantial discussion of topics
relating to Buddhism and Buddhist studies." 

The only academic forum for Buddhism is H-Buddhism (of which you are one
of the capable moderators). The forum differs from Buddha-l in two
important ways. First, H-BUDDHISM is open only to professors and
advanced graduate students in the field of Buddhist studies; one must
apply for enrolment. Second, h-buddhism does not allow much discussion;
it is primarily for information exchange, job announcements and book
reviews. (Correct me if I'm wrong.) So any analogies comparing buddha-l
to the academic world are sure to break down. That notwithstanding, I
will indulge your false analogy, just for the sake of discussion.

> Yet I think others could back me up (if necessary) in asserting that
> an academic community functions best when the same principles of
> inclusiveness and 
> appreciation are upheld. 

I think that is true. Despite quite a lot of effort by quite a lot of
men and women, much of the academic world is still dominated by men, and
I think it suffers for that, especially given that something like 54% of
the students are women, many of whom say they would like to have female
role models. The academic world is pathological in many ways, and gender
imbalance is certainly one of them. 

Even worse, to my way of thinking, than the scarcity of women in the
academic world is fact that women in the academic world still get paid,
on average, considerably less than men at the same rank. (I am a happy
exception to this rule, since I agreed to come to my present position at
the lowest salary a non-tenured faculty member can be paid and so am
paid less than the average female.) 

What makes this whole situation especially enigmatic is that everyone
wants to change the situation for the better, but no one seems to be
able to achieve it. (It turns out there is not always a way where there
is a will.) Nothing is more annoying than a pile of victims of
circumstances over which no one has any real control. It just makes
everyone frustrated.

> Indeed, I think one could make this case more easily for academia than
> for Buddhism.

You are right. I don't think one can make the case for Buddhism being
gender inclusive, but it is easy to make the case for academia. I don't
know where that leaves a non-academic Buddhist discussion forum. Suffice
it to say, it is not a problem that engages my interest very much. I
believe in evolution by random selection, not in intelligent design.

> Cheers,

We were conducting a conversation on such a mature level, and then you
go and mention cheerleaders. The ones from Dallas wouldn't be half bad
if somebody would just buy them some more modest clothing.

-- 
Richard Hayes
***
"The spiritual path is never one of achievement; it is always one of
letting go. The more we let go, the more there is empty and open space
for us to see reality." 
                                              --Sister Ayya Khema