Brad Warner's article on Buddhism, Evolution, and Women that he wrote for Suicide Girls is damn good. He says "The powerful patriarchal religions of the modern world have mostly treated women like shit .... Except for Buddhism." He then spends the rest of the article defending this claim against the anticipated charge of "sounding like a shill for Buddhism."The reason I really like what Warner says is that there are far too many people who unthinkingly make sweeping generalizations about "all religions" without ever bothering to find out what different religions actually do and say. Buddhism is far from perfect with respect to the issue of sexism, but I think Warner makes a good case that wherever and whenever there is sexism in the Buddhist Sangha, this "goes against the explicit directions" of the Buddha himself.
Oh, the actual article by Warner (at the Suicide Girls website) is here. Warner is supposed to have a new article coming out soon on meditation and post-traumatic-stress, or something like that. That's what I was looking for when I found this article. When that one comes out I'll probably post something about it, too.
OK, so finally I've got a little Buddhist content on this blog!
Note added later: Warner's next SG article won't appear until Monday, his blog says it will be "about whether or not zazen is dangerous for trauma survivors."
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