Maybe one of the people in this forum specializes in Greek philosophy? I just saw it in that Youtube video, never hearing it before.
Excuse me, but this really makes no sense. You are misrepresenting Socrates as a woman-hater by sharing a fake statement. He never said this. Socrates, moreover, didn’t write down anything. Plato wrote down most of Socrates’ thoughts but certainly not such a cheap statement.
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Imo…A true Buddha follower should not even cling to the notion of “I am this.” or “I am that” or “I am neither this nor that” or “I am either this or that”. For there is no “I” to be found within five aggregates. He/she should just accept the Sammuti (conventional) reality of “having a male human body” or “having a female human body”, while contemplating the Paramattha (ultimate) reality of five aggregates.
Therefore, I believe the historical Gotama Buddha neither endorse patriarchy nor endorse feminism. And to make Buddha Sasana as a political tool to aid the movement of any -ism, is kinda misleading.
If He was siding with patriarchy, then He wouldn’t say “Well, some women are better than men, O ruler of the people.” when he advised King Pasenadi Kosala as we read from Mallikāsutta.
If He was siding with Feminism, he wouldn’t say “the Tathagata knows what is possible and what is impossible. A woman cannot be Sakka, Mara, Maha Brahma, Sammasambuddha, etc. It is impossible.” as in Bahudhatuka Sutta.
The Blessed One always speaks about Dhamma. And the Dhamma is always been about the existence of Dukkha and Cessation of Dukkha.
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yes. There is no any moral essence in masculine and femenine. This is just a rupa production, kamma. The Buddha explained how the mind works and the causes for the wholesome and unwholesome actions. There are not femenine or masculine roots for that.
Some people is upset because the Historical reality of the suppresion of the ariya women in the records of the Buddhist History. This was real, unfortunately. Obviously it was not developed according the Buddha thoughts and His behaviour in life. It happened at later times, and this could not be a forced imposition arising from arhants. The cause was ignorance and attachment of some people with a wish so the world should be this or that.
If we assign moral roots to the femenine and masculine, then we should leave Dhamma to enter in that same crazy world inhabited by that type of people. This is an space populated with endless wrong views, the always-failed salvific agendas and ideologies and all the absurd pulsions of power over the world with a sure data of expiration. In that space we never find real solutions for those problems. For this reason all those magic ideas don’t last, and soon fall in the incoherence and adverse effects.
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I think what you said is reasonable.
As long as those people don’t drag “Buddha Sasana” into their worldly agenda, or claiming that Lord Buddha was feminist or worse, an oppressor of women, that’s fine.
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Did you bother to do a web search for anything like “Socrates Once made equal to man, woman becomes his superior”? Apparently not. You’d find it quoted in many a place in the search results. I expect you’ll have to throw something else negative at me, other than the accusation of “fake quotation”.
I’m not sure if I agree with Socrates or not, on this issue, BTW.
This seems to be congruent with some things I’ve read online regarding the quote. I wonder if Bodhipaksa from fakebuddhaquotes has to contend with arguments that a quote is reliable just because it’s widely distributed online.
So a quick google search doesn’t yield a single reference to any Platonic dialogues or passages from Xenophon’s Memorabilia containing this quote, nor any scholarly sources discussing it. I can only find the quote repeated on inane quote websites, and discussed only on dubious forums. Given that the documentation we have on Socrates is pretty limited to two sources - Plato and Xenophon - and that the former in particular are some of the most heavily analyzed texts in the Western canon, I think it’s safe to say that a quote like this would not have slipped through the net.
This is a response to a Reddit post about this particular quote.
Edit: My response doesn’t seem to relate to the OP. To reconcile that, I’ll say, “ Patriarchy is bad, mmk?”
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Since when is what’s on the internet true? We should not attribute thoughts to someone if there’s no original source - a text in this case - that states it. Again, Socrates never said this. I studied ancient Greek philology and there is no such text that attributed this statement to Socrates. If however it were a quote by Peterson, whom you unfortunately openly support as a Dhamma teacher (see an earlier thread), it would not surprise me. Peterson’s discriminatory ideas are incompatible with the Buddha’s message of compassion and I don’t appreciate it that you support Peterson.
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The thread shouldn’t exists at the first place, for it is not about Buddha Dhamma. But since it was permitted…then everyone has a right to disagree with.
Well, I don’t see any problem with Peterson’s argument…
And Peterson isn’t a straight Anti-feminist either. In many ways, I think Peterson is not challenging but rather educating these people. But it is rather the radical feminism is setting off many people…
And I don’t think all women share the view either… certainly no Judge Judy…
Well, back to Theravada Buddhism, historical Gotama Buddha never spoke about these things either. And neither Patriarchy nor Feminism was taught as Dhamma.
And about this “Patriarchy influences happiness” article posted by Ven. Vimala above, where feminism is said to be in essence similar to what Buddha prescribed for the historical AriyaSangha, to that I disagree wholeheartedly. To agree with that statement is totally rejects Vinaya Pitaka and all the historical accounts of Sangha.
If someone advocates “Empowering Women” or “Equality for All”, to that I can agree with, for it is a Buddhist value. But the new radical feminism that picking on male sex isn’t inline with Buddhism at all.
Seems to be a lot of male voices on a discussion about patriarchy. 
Just bear that in mind folks.
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Siddhartha Gautama was a male too, a warrior clan member, endowed with 32 marks of a Great Man (Maha Purisa).
So, what is the point of your statement? And why would that be a point at all?
And back to the OP, why would people put “modern feminism” to be equal with “Buddha’s way”? Why it is a mandatory thing to require Buddhists to accept it? Why should people accept that classification of masculinity and femininity has influences on happiness or spiritual development, when it is clearly not the case?
That’s unfair to all real-life eastern and western practicing Buddhists of both sexes.
Very interesting points Ayya, thank you for this. As a Finn I have a bit of mixed feelings about the conclusions, though I agree with the general idea that if countries are Feminine it is better for everybody.
If we take Finland as a case study it is impossible to ignore the history of the country. In one way the history of Finland after the second world war was all about surviving next to the “Big Bear” aka Soviet Union. Basically this meant the adoption of bunch of tendencies and policies that came to be known as Finlandization. It was the state-level equivalent of a family with an abusive parent who everyone else in the family has to keep happy in order to prevent huge conflicts. So Finland was the enabling family member/survivor in this scenario. In my view this survivor-mentality together with the trauma of the second world war fostered a close-minded and even a bit of slavish mentality which favored hierarchy and “live-in-order-to-work” mindset, both hallmarks of masculine society as outlined in your essay.
But of course at the same time the Nordic welfare state developed and the rising tide of economic growth was actually lifting all the boats, like for real, not just in the imaginary world of Laissez-faire-trickle-down-economics. So in one way the movement in the background from masculinity to femininity was also a movement from mere surviving to thriving, from close-mindedness to openness. Basically it came down to people making the decision that overall it’s better to care for each other than to compete ruthlessly. Buuut, then came the neo-liberal ethos of the 80´s, and the slavish survivor-mentality was replaced by a greedy focus on achievement and status. So the patriarchal framework behind everything morphed from stifling hierarchies (pretty much a synonym for old boys’ network, which is still going strong but at least has taken some hits. Case in point: Finland had the same fricking president for like gazillion years from the 50s to 80s) to one of individualistic competition, privatization and financialization. The well-known global currents of capitalism shook Finland as well.
So what is the situation today? Well, it’s messy. Yes, we have more female leaders (BTW, Sanna Marin is the prime minister of Finland, not the president). Yes, there is much more emphasis on inner happiness. And I feel the overall atmosphere is much more emotionally intelligent then it was even when I was growing up. But at the same time the over-arching framework of individualistic competition is very much alive and well in Finland. Partly because of this constant competition and the subsequent divide between winners and losers all sorts of shady far-right political movements are doing pretty well in Finland too. And I don’t see much positive change in the overall attitude from individualism towards co-operation atm. As an example, instead of putting resources into climate journalism the biggest newsrooms are mainly focusing on writing about investing, financial success, and self-branding, because that is what sells. And I feel that is what most of my peers are also really interested in, sadly, even if everyone likes to support “nice” things when asked. Huge amounts of money and power has also gone to very few people in the last 20 years, so inequality is a problem in Finland too, though the situation could be worse.
So yeah, I pretty much agree with your overall conclusions and I definitely see this Feminine Dimension in Finnish society, but as you know the situation on the ground can be very complex. A lot of good thing are happening, especially at grass-roots level but it’s a constant struggle to promote co-operation over competition, care over casual cruelty and equality over hierarchies. And this is the case even in a relatively feminine society like Finland. But this is probably just the way it has to be. Or like the Buddha put it:
Dhp. 163
It’s easy to do bad things
harmful to oneself,
but good things that are helpful
are the hardest things to do.
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Some women do kill their partners.
Of course. I did not mean it as an absolute. But pointing out exceptions merely proves the general rule.
Thanks for clarifying.
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Just for some stats, in the most recent data from the US, 85% of spousal murders had a wife as the victim (they only tabulate by the victim’s relationship to the perpetrator, not the reverse, so we cannot definitively state the ratio of husbands to wives who kill).
Though this is somewhat tangential, as of course women can be masculine and men feminine, and societies are not just aggregations of individuals.
As well, I just think it’s an important disclaimer to note that in the US, men and women are subjected to Intimate Partner Violence at very similar rates. Anyone can be the victim of IPV, IPV is always bad, we should always offer comfort to victims of IPV, and everyone should be deterred from engaging in IPV.
Interestingly, as demonstrated by studies of simulated same-sex IPV, it is very clear that IPV is gendered regardless of the sex / gender of the physical persons involved. Perpetrating IPV is unfortunately seen as masculine, and being the victim is unfortunately seen as feminine. People see someone as more masculine if they are perpetrating such acts, and are less likely to recognize acts of IPV as what they are if the perpetrator appears less stereotypically masculine in other ways (e.g. having longer hair, wearing makeup, etc).
I honestly wouldn’t be shocked if this was one of the mediating factors in the correlation Ayya Vimala drew. Not that the “Hofstede Masculinity Dimension” explicitly contains IPV as a factor, but, as one example “girls cry, boys don’t; boys fight, girls don’t” has an obvious potential connection to IPV, and IPV has an obvious connection to unhappiness.
Thank you all for your contributions here. I have been rather busy elsewhere so did not respond.
Note that I just made the graph to point to something that might possibly be a subject for further investigation and a possible essay or research, certainly not a final conclusion on anything. And it does not really need to surprise anybody that people are generally happier when people work together and are less individualistic i.e. the win-win situation vs the winner-takes-all mentality.
But the underlying reason I posted it is to let you look inside yourself and become aware of how you have been affected by the internalized patriarchy in your country. Let’s be honest here, Hofstede’s “feminine” countries are still partriarchal. But the culture we have been brought up in has a big effect on how our views are formed and how we see the world and other people based on their gender a.o. This underlying, subconscious conditioning affects our behavior. Looking at those underlying conditionings and feelings, acknowledging them and staying with them can be very confronting and uncomfortable. But that way we can learn to become aware of them and how they affect our lives, accept them as simply our conditioning, and let them go.
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It is very easy in a world of complex hierarchies to believe that something you do not understand or experience at full force does not exist.
I would like to take a moment, briefly, to introduce our friends here to the concept of kyriarchy.
Many world powers currently value and support social systems based around domination/oppression and submission. How well you do in the world in many areas will depend on where you are in the complex pyramid of intersecting hierarchies.
People modernly joke about the concept of privilege now due to it’s overuse, but, I believe it is important to remember that sometimes we are indeed born a little higher in the pyramid than someone else. Where you are in the pyramid can greatly affect how happy you are. Someone born female will have significantly different hurdles than one who isn’t.
What amount of privilege you are given by the randomness of birth can determine how well you live, if at all sometimes.
I did not understand the relationship between these two statements. Some clarification would be helpful.
But I would like to point out that while ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ are completely subjective expression [ i.g. the sun is masculine and the moon is feminine] as they are for the most part conditioned behaviors in a social milieu. We can not say for certain how much is nature, and how much is nurture…despite the claims made by involved parties. In order to find out how much influence either nature or nurture affects a human being we would have to raise a child in a completely genderless environment. And who knows when or if that will…or should happen.
But what I know, as a person who has experienced the full range of both, is that hormones are the primary predictor of behavior-not necessarily our inner sense of gender identity which is apparently a more more nuanced set of biological presets in utero.
I will not try to justify this with the inclusion of studies that support my statement. I don’t feel the need to support my life experience with academic proofs. And it will be easy to contradict my position with research because we all know about the self confirming way the internet works.
But until you have gone from a testosterone-based biology to an estrogen based biology, you will have to take my word for it…or simply observe the general behavior of animals.
I look for ward to your comments…with Metta!
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…and that is exactly why it’s so very important that we listen to people who don’t identify with the sex that they were assigned at birth. Your perspective is inspiring. So thanks, dear @Rosie, for your input here.
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