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Buddhism beyond Gender: Liberation from Attachment to Identity by Judith Simmer-Brown, Rita M. Gross
schomj's review
3.0
I really enjoyed the beginning and thought the author's textual analysis of various sutras/sutras was insightful and helpful.
Unfortunately, the last part of the book is currently clearest in my mind and the part that I have the most qualms about. In no particular order:
-while Simmer-Brown mentions in the intro that Gross died before she could incorporate more discussion of issues facing transgender practitioners, I think it was probably better for my blood pressure this way: Gross was a cis woman writing exclusively from that perspective and it really showed. (Like seriously, no mention of hijra gender at all? 🙄)
-Gross was proudly attached to her identity as a second-wave feminist. I found this attachment problematic even if she didn't. I think if she were less attached to the label, she could have had more energy to explore intersectional feminisms instead of refusing those insights. (Not saying she should have become a postmodernist, but her hostility to the ideas was clear in the final chapter, when she complaines about people playing oppression Olympics and not letting her White Feminism™️ in peace (pp144-145).)
-she made a comment about social scientists critiquing her for trying to colonize Buddhism after spending half a chapter saying that Asian Buddhists refused to respect the word feminism and I had a very facepalm feeling because I'd spent that entire section cringing at her attempts at hermeneutic colonization*. Defensive walls make it hard to take in new ways of thinking and I completely have been there. But I've never written a book subtitled "liberation from attachment" 😕
Anyway, I have strongly mixed feelings about this book. Also, it's not a good entry-level text. The writing is engaging and readable, but if you don't have a solid grounding in Buddhist principles you'll be looking up a lot of terms.
(*is that a real term? I kept thinking of hermeneutic injustice and colonization while reading that part and this was the closest I could come to describing it?)
Unfortunately, the last part of the book is currently clearest in my mind and the part that I have the most qualms about. In no particular order:
-while Simmer-Brown mentions in the intro that Gross died before she could incorporate more discussion of issues facing transgender practitioners, I think it was probably better for my blood pressure this way: Gross was a cis woman writing exclusively from that perspective and it really showed. (Like seriously, no mention of hijra gender at all? 🙄)
-Gross was proudly attached to her identity as a second-wave feminist. I found this attachment problematic even if she didn't. I think if she were less attached to the label, she could have had more energy to explore intersectional feminisms instead of refusing those insights. (Not saying she should have become a postmodernist, but her hostility to the ideas was clear in the final chapter, when she complaines about people playing oppression Olympics and not letting her White Feminism™️ in peace (pp144-145).)
-she made a comment about social scientists critiquing her for trying to colonize Buddhism after spending half a chapter saying that Asian Buddhists refused to respect the word feminism and I had a very facepalm feeling because I'd spent that entire section cringing at her attempts at hermeneutic colonization*. Defensive walls make it hard to take in new ways of thinking and I completely have been there. But I've never written a book subtitled "liberation from attachment" 😕
Anyway, I have strongly mixed feelings about this book. Also, it's not a good entry-level text. The writing is engaging and readable, but if you don't have a solid grounding in Buddhist principles you'll be looking up a lot of terms.
(*is that a real term? I kept thinking of hermeneutic injustice and colonization while reading that part and this was the closest I could come to describing it?)
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