Adds new voices to the feminist conversation and brings a rich variety of diverse approaches to Buddhist womens identities the feminine and Buddhist feminism.Silver Medalist 2020 Independent Publisher Book Awards in the Religion EasternWestern Category This groundbreaking book explores Buddhist thought and culture from multiple Buddhist perspectives as sources for feminist reflection and social action. Too often when writers apply terms such as woman femininity and feminism to Buddhist texts and contexts they begin with models of feminist thinking that foreground questions and concerns arising from Western experience. This oversight has led to many facile assumptions denials and oversimplifications that ignore womens diverse social and historical contexts. But now with the tools of feminist analysis that have developed in recent decades constructs of the feminine in Buddhist texts imagery and philosophy can be examinedwith the acknowledgment that there are limitations to applying these theoretical paradigms to other cultures. Contributors to this volume offer a feminist analysis which integrates gender theory and Buddhist perspectives to Buddhist texts and womens narratives from Asia. How do Buddhist concepts of self and noself intersect with concepts of gender identity especially for women How are the female body sexuality and femininity constructed and contested in diverse Buddhist contexts How might power and gender identity be perceived differently through a Buddhist lens By exploring feminist approaches and representations of the feminine including persistent questions about womens identities as householders and renunciants this book helps us to understand how Buddhist influences on attitudes toward women and how feminist thinking from other parts of the world can inform and enlarge contemporary discussions of feminism.