The challenge of defining a woman's Tantric history

In this paper I reflect on methodological problems that arise in the construction of women's religious history. I look to Miranda Shaw's Passionate Enlightenment, one of the first investigations into the lives of women in the early history of Tantric Buddhism, to initiate this discussion. Shaw introduces, in some instances for the first time, texts written by and about women in early Tantric communities in order to offer an authentic Tantric Buddhism where women occupied a high status as founders, teachers and practitioners. I suggest that such a history accepts the idealized constructions of gender, particularly as expressed through the category of experience, as evidence for the social reality of women. This reflects a larger trend in some feminist histories and I am interested in problematizing the search for authentic or "true". forms of religion

Aesthetics · Archaeology · Buddhism · Enlightenment · Epistemology · Order (exchange · Sociology · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Cross-Cultural and Social Analysis · Gender Studies · History · Philosophy · Psychology · Southeast Asian Sociopolitical Studies

• Himalayan Hermitess

  Kurtis R Schaeffer•Himalayan Hermitess•2004

  Incluir item

• Gender

  Joan W Scott•The American Historical Review•1986

  Incluir item

• Ideology Critique, Feminism, and the Study of Religion

  Marsha Aileen Hewitt•Method & Theory in the Study of…•1999

  Incluir item

• Passionate Enlightenment

  Jacob N Kinnard•The Journal of Religion•1995

  Incluir item

• Passionate Enlightenment

  Liz Wilson•History of Religions•1996

  Incluir item

• Indo-Tibetan Buddhism

  Richard Sherburne, David Snellgrove et al.•Journal of the American Oriental…•1989

  Incluir item

• The Evidence of Experience

  Joan W Scott•Critical Inquiry•1991

  Incluir item

• The Tip of the Volcano

  Open Access•Joan W Scott•Comparative Studies in Society…•1993

  Incluir item