Gender Inequality in
Tibetan Buddhism

Project Summary

A big theme in Buddhism is the concept of cause and effect. One’s actions, the good and bad karma he or she collects during this lifetime, will in turn affect the outcome of the next life. A collection of good karma will result in rebirth as an organism in an environment with little suffering, while bad karma could result in a rebirth in hell, as an animal, or an insect. A majority of the nuns live a life of doing dharma and collecting good karma in the hopes of being reborn as a male in the next life. (Mackenzie) The Tibetan word for nun itself “skye dman”, literally translates to “inferior birth”, and the Tibetan nuns themselves find this to be true. They believe that as females, they are automatically inferior because they have smaller minds, and smaller brains, and these are the reasons why they’re unable to achieve the same success as males. If ever there are nuns and monks in the same room, nuns are expected to sit behind the monks, lower their heads towards the monks in respect. They have to defer to the monk, and if there is any teaching to be done, the monk should always be asked first whether he would like to teach or not. Nuns are only allowed to touch their foods after the monk has taken a bite.

The primary focus of this project was to investigate how gender differentiation manifests itself in the daily lives of Tibetan Buddhist monks and nuns currently residing in monastic institutions in Nepal.

Ani Namdol Phuntsok
Kachoe Ghaykyil Nunnery

Skills Developed

  • Ethnography

  • In-Depth Interviews

  • Participant-Observation

  • Budget Creation

  • Qualitative data collection

  • Presentation to diverse audiences

Study Population

Tibetan Buddhist monks and nuns living in monastic institutions

Methods

  • Lived with monks and nuns for three weeks each at four different Buddhist institutions - Hyulsahyong Monastery, Nagi Nunnery, Kopan Monastery, and Khachoe Ghakyil Nunnery, participating in all of their daily activities (meditation, chanting and prayer rituals, visiting lay people etc.) as permitted.

  • Attended and observed some of the coursework taught by the older monks and nuns and attended the weekly philosophical debate sessions when appropriate.

  • Conducted formal in-depth interviews with monks and nuns from multiple generations, and supplemented these with informal conversations as well to understand their views on gender and gender inequality within Buddhism.

  • Presented findings at the Atlantic Coast Conference Meeting of the Minds, Society for Applied Anthropology annual conference, WFU Women's and Gender Symposium

“They tell us every day that we are stupid; they really believe that the ladies brain is smaller. Living here, when I see my monk friends from the big universities in south India, they are much better than us, it’s a fact. I don’t know if it’s about mental potential, or about conditions, or a mix, it’s difficult to understand. In our nunnery, we have many nuns who are not that bright because of these traditional rules and sometimes I doubt, since I’ve lived here, in the past I would have never said that girls are stupider than boys, but, ever since I’ve lived here, when I see Tibetan nuns versus Tibetan monks, they really look brighter.”