Best Of

May all beings be free of ignorance and discrimination.

I personally like and know three female Buddhist teachers: Ayya Vayama, Lama Tsondru and Damcho.

I have noticed a dominance of men, but I am open always to wise people, do not care about their sex. It is unfortunate people still discriminate on these grounds, getting further away from wisdom.

Peace!

Thus have I heard: According to some Chinese theory, women are 99% spiritual and 1% non-spiritual.
Men are 1% Spiritual and 99% non-spiritual.
However, it is just as difficult for a woman to overcome her final 1%, as it is for a man to overcome his entire 99%.
Make of that what you will.

I have also heard that for a heterosexual woman, it is hard to grasp that her dating pool (the remaining 50% of the population) also contains her only natural constant predator.

I have often endured prejudice, either unconsciously or deliberately applied.
And the news that the Buddha was reluctant to permit women into the sangha, is hearsay.
I believe he had no prejudice.
I also believe many of his followers - who submitted his teachings in writing - were prejudiced. So they imposed their own inclinations on the matter.
That some Schools make things more difficult for women is no surprise. It's been going on for millennia, and is still going on today.
I mean, the #MeToo movement is relatively recent, isn't it?
The Catholic church has an inhumane and appalling record of its treatment of women.
Westerners object and criticise the Muslim stance on how Islam treats women, yet under their very noses, Socially, in Commerce, and Religion, The West is just as culpable.

It's getting tiresome.
We require of male sympathisers to talk less, and act more.

Thanks.

Buddhism, women and the goddess

The Dharma as I have come to understand it, goes 'beyond' the culturally conditioned hang ups which sadly are still prevalent today in some Buddhist traditions, schools and sects, which favour male over female ...

From what I gather, in the ultimate sense Dharma practice itself transcends gender & sex......however, in the conventional world old habits die hard, some male practitioners still 'cling' to the "us & them" mentality of separateness/division...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guanyin#:~:text=In Chinese mythology, Guanyin (觀音,uncertainty, despair, and fear.

According to the twenty-fifth chapter of the Lotus Sutra, one of the most popular sacred texts in the Buddhist canon, describes thirty-three specific manifestations that Guanyin can assume to assist other beings seeking salvation. These forms encompass a Buddha, a pratyekabuddha, an arhat, King Brahma, Sakra (Indra), Isvara, Mahesvara (Shiva), a great heavenly general, Vaiśravaṇa, a Cakravartin, a minor king, an elder, a householder, a chief minister, a Brahmin, a bhikkhu, a bhikkhunī, a Upāsaka, a Upāsikā, a wife, a young boy, a young girl, a deva, a nāga, a yaksha, a gandharva, an asura, a garuḍa, a kinnara, a Mahoraga, a human, a non-human and Vajrapani.

If you divide the population of the world up 50/50 by just about any parameter you'll have an uneven split between men and women. Compassion, tenderness, sympathy, loving kindness, empathy will no doubt end up with a greater share of women.

I think the next move to say that women are more of that quality and men are less is where we go wrong. It may only be a 70/30 or 60/40 split and there are plenty of men who are more of whatever. There is also often a greater variation within all women or men than there is between men and women.

Putting masculine or feminine traits onto men or women is old, traditional gender stereotyping. Or as the Krishnamurti meme @Jeroen posted elsewhere, dividing people up into identity groups is a form of violence.