A Garland of Feminist Reflections: Forty Years of Religious Exploration

Contents

Contents part one . Introductory Materials 1 Introducing A Garland of Feminist Reflections 3 1. How Did This Ever Happen to Me? 23 A Wisconsin Farm Girl Who Became a Buddhist Theologian When She Grew Up part two . Five Essays on Method 45 2. Androcentrism and Androgyny in the Methodology of History of Religions 55 3. Where Have We Been? Where Do We Need to Go? 65 Key Questions for Women Studies in Religion and Feminist Theology 4. The Place of the Personal and the Subjective in Religious Studies 77 5. Methodology: T ool or Trap? 94 Comments from a Feminist Perspective 6. What Went Wrong? 111 Feminism and Freedom from the Prison of Gender Roles Gross_FM 10/17/08 16:15 Page vii part three . Theory Applied: Three Tests 125 7. Menstruation and Childbirth as Ritual and Religious Experience among Native Australians 131 8. T oward a New Model of the Hindu Pantheon 143 A Report on T wenty-Some Years of Feminist Reflection 9. The Prepatriarchal Hypothesis 156 An Assessment part four . Feminist Theology 171 10. Steps toward Feminine Imagery in Jewish Theology 177 11. Is the (Hindu) Goddess a Feminist? 189 12. Life-Giving Images in Vajrayana Buddhist Ritual 198 13. Feminist Theology as Theology of Religions 211 part five . Buddhist Feminism: Feminist Buddhism 229 14. The Clarity in the Anger 235 15. Why (Engaged) Buddhists Should Care about Gender Issues 245 16. The Dharma of Gender 250 17. Yeshe Tsogyel 263 Enlightened Consort, Great Teacher, Female Role Model 18. Buddhist Women and Teaching Authority 281 19. Is the Glass Half-Empty or Half-Full? 291 A Feminist Assessment of Buddhism at the Beginning of the T wenty-first Century 20. Being a North American Buddhist Woman 311 Reflections of a Feminist Pioneer Notes 319 viii Contents Gross_FM 10/17/08 16:15 Page viii ...