Women in Tibet - Past and Present

Filling a gap in the literature, this volume explores the struggles and accomplishments of women from both past and present-day Tibet. Here are queens from the imperial period, yoginis and religious teachers of medieval times, Buddhist nuns, oracles, political workers, medical doctors, and performing artists. Most of the essays focus on the lives of individual women, whether from textual sources or from anthropological data, and show that Tibetan women have apparently enjoyed more freedom than women in many other Asian countries. The book is innovative in resisting both romanticization and hypercriticism of women's status in Tibetan society, attending rather to historical description, and to the question of what is distinctive about women's situations in Tibet, and what is common to both men and women in Tibetan society.

List of contents

Introduction
Part I: Women in Traditional Tibet
Ladies of the Tibetan Empire (Seventh to Ninth Centuries), by Helga Uebach
The Woman Illusion? Research into the Lives of Spiritually Accomplished Women Leaders of the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries, by Dan Martin
The Autobiography of a Medieval Hermitess: Orgyen Chokyi (1675-1729), by Kurtis R. Schaeffer
Part II: Modern Tibetan Women
Female Oracles in Modern Tibet, by Hildegard Diemberger
Outstanding Women in Tibetan Medicine, by Tashi Tsering
Women in the Performing Arts: Portraits of Six Singers, by Isabelle Henrion-Dourcy
The Body of a Nun: Nunhood and Gender in Contemporary Amdo, by Charlene E Makley
Women and Politics in Tibet Today, by Robert Barnett
Contributors
Appendix
Index

About the author

Janet Gyatso and Hanna Havnevik

Product details

• Authors: Janet Gyatso, Janet (EDT)/ Havnevik Gyatso, Janet Havnevik Gyatso, Hanna Havnevik
• Assisted by: Janet Gyatso (Editor), Gyatso Janet (Editor), Hanna Havnevik (Editor), Havnevik Hanna (Editor)
• Publisher: Columbia University Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 11.01.2006
• EAN: 9780231130981
• ISBN: 978-0-231-13098-1
• No. of pages: 352
• Dimensions: 146 mm x 222 mm x 32 mm
• Subjects: Non-fiction book > Philosophy, religion > Religion: general, reference works; Tibet, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Women's Studies, Anthropology, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Anthropology / General, Gender studies: women, Gender studies: women and girls