April–June 2011, Volume 38
Features
Religion and the Power of Women
Women, either cleric or lay, play a significant role in the religious activities of many faith communities. Furthermore, in interreligious activities, such as those of the World Conference of Religions for Peace, women are a driving force for global cooperation. We would like to focus attention on these roles women are playing in faith communities around the world.
It is also true, however, that religion has often been used to justify discrimination against women. In this special issue, we would like to hold up a religious ideal transcending differences of gender for the building of a society that fosters religious sentiment and reverence for life.
Women in Religion and in Buddhism
by Gene Reeves
It can be argued that subjugation and subordination of women does not come so much from Buddhist teachings as from the customs of societies in which Buddhism exists.
The Future of Women in Buddhism
by Karma Lekshe Tsomo
We can no longer afford to squander half of our precious human resources by ignoring or devaluing women’s spiritual potential. Nowhere do the Buddhist texts say that teachers need to be male.
Women Building a Just Society
by Sharon D. Welch
“The ennobling truths are not just challenges to act with wisdom and compassion but challenges to act with creativity and aesthetic awareness. . . . The human world is like a vast musical instrument on which we simultaneously play our part while listening to the compositions of others. The creation of ourself in the image of awakening is not a subjective but an intersubjective process. We cannot choose whether to engage with the world, only how to.” —Stephen Batchelor, Buddhism Without Beliefs: A Contemporary Guide to Awakening
Being a North American Buddhist Woman: Reflections of a Feminist Pioneer
by Rita M. Gross
The process of contemplating and the encouragement to investigate for oneself mean that Buddhism is alive and that its insights can be applied to any situation or problem one might encounter.
Islam and the Status of Women
by Yoshiaki Sanada
Islamic teaching itself is not the source of discrimination against women, this writer argues. There are no expressions of sexual discrimination, such as that women were created from men, in Islamic human creationism.
Japan’s Traditional Buddhism and the Gender Issue
by Noriko Kawahashi
Inherently, the teachings of Buddhism point the way to equality among all human beings. We must not lose sight of the fact that the Buddha did not discriminate among human beings by their birth regardless of race, ethnic group, gender, or anything else.
Religion and the Power of Women as Agents of Peace
by Lilian J. Sison
Dedicated women of faith, Christian and Muslim alike, have worked successfully to advocate peace and reconciliation in violence-torn Mindanao in the southern Philippines.
Religions for Peace: Promoting the Roles of Women of Faith in Peace Building
by Jackie Ogega
The international nonsectarian organization is explicitly dedicated to mobilizing religious communities to collaborate for peace. Through its Women’s Mobilization Program, it works with others to develop programs that engage both men and women in efforts to empower women and girls.
Religion and Women: “Empower Women—Empower the Future”
by Johanna Boeke
The valley spirit never dies. / It is the woman, primal mother. / Her gateway is the root of heaven and earth. / It is like a veil rarely seen. / Use it. It will never fail.
—Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching
Empower Women Through Faithful Connections Around the World
by Barbara Kres Beach
The oldest international women’s organization and the youngest agree. Their principles are solidly in accord, and their members work hard, dedicated to their faiths and to their actions.
Dialogue
Women and Nonviolence—Clearing a Path for the FutureThe Twenty-Seventh Niwano Peace Prize Commemorative Dialogue between Ms. Ela Ramesh Bhatt and Rev. Nichiko Niwano
The twenty-seventh Niwano Peace Prize was awarded to Ms. Ela Ramesh Bhatt of India, founder of the Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA), a women’s labor union with more than 1.2 million members throughout India. She was honored for her contributions of more than thirty years to improving the lives of her country’s poorest and most oppressed women workers. In this commemorative dialogue with Rev. Nichiko Niwano, president of the Niwano Peace Foundation, on the theme “Women and Nonviolence—Clearing a Path for the Future,” held on May 12, 2010, in Tokyo, she emphasized the importance of realizing that we are all bound together at all levels, now and for centuries.
Reflections
Like a Mother’s Love
by Nichiko Niwano
We should consider others’ suffering as our own and comfort them with the selfless love that a mother gives her child.
