Innovative Buddhist Women: Swimming Against the Stream

This book combines the voices of scholars and practitioners in documenting and analyzing Buddhist women's history. It addresses many gaps in the documentation of Buddhist women's experience. The 26 articles - written by a range of Asian, Asian American, and western Buddhists '- document the lives of women who, individually or collectively, have set in motion changes within Buddhist societies. The articles include analyses of issues such as gender, ethnicity, authority, and class that affect the lives of women in traditional Buddhist cultures and, increasingly, the west. The book is unique in analyzing Buddhist women's historical experience in different Buddhist cultures and placing it side by side with western perspectives.