Thank you so much, Ven. @vimalanyani for expressing the trials and tribulations we have to go through as female monastics. May we all be free from suffering and swiftly attain awakening!
My experience however has been more along the ‘what is wrong with these people, why are they treating me like I am an inferior being’?” 
So while I haven’t gotten awakened yet, since I put robes on I got ‘woke’ to the truth that sexism is alive and well everywhere. It stings more as a female monk because we have no place to hide anymore: the line between Dhamma and ADhamma can get very blurry and sacred scripture is often used to put us faithful women into submission.
This is no different in Buddhism than it is in every single other religion that I am aware of. So I am afraid the root of the problem here is not Buddhism or the Vinaya, but rather unquestioned patriarchy and our internalization of it. A clear example of this is in this thread: amongst so many liberal woke practitioners not one challenged @Ehipassiko claim that women are matter-of-factly inferior to begin with.
[quote=“Ehipassiko, post:21, topic:18771”]
Don’t the suttas say that being born as a woman is worse karma than being born a man? Clearly that’s true. Biologically we have it a bit harder with all the childbearing stuff. And not only throughout human history, but in nature also females are subordinate to males in most species. [/quote]
As they say, silence is complicity. So let’s be clear here:
-
No, the Buddha never said that a female birth is an inferior rebirth. Those are just assumptions that unenlightened people have made in the past 2 millennia.
-
No, women don’t intrinsically have it harder than men. Childbearing is not just some painful experience, it’s also for example an incredible and powerful state of being which creates conditions for generating the type of unconditional love described in the Metta Sutta. It’s very good kamma to have a human rebirth: whether it’s female, male, trans, non binary… it does not matter. The body is just the body.
-
No, females have not been subordinate to males throughout history. Just mostly in the patriarchal past 4000 years or so, which is nothing in the large scheme of history. For more information you can read Gerda Lerner’s “The Creation of Patriarchy”: PATRIARCHY: IS IT INVENTION OR INEVITABLE? - The New York Times
All conditioned things are impermanent, so why would patriarchy be any different? It is our delusion that gives it the attributes of permanent to the extent that we even project this ‘natural patriarchal state’ on the animal world, creating distorted assumptions of other mammals, like in the case of lions: Where’s Simba’s mom? In real life, female lions run the pride.
As women, before we get into any efforts of practicing non-self (…or telling other oppressed folks that there is no self that is being oppressed), our job should be first and foremost to question our underlying assumptions. Where are we getting these ideas from? Why do we think we are inferior? Who taught us to hate yourselves?
Ideas, thoughts and emotions don’t belong to us, they are dependently arisen phenomena. Whatever conditions we are immersed in, those will affect the way we think and act on the path. It is for this reason that the Buddha advised Ananda that spiritual friends are the entire path. If we are surrounded by people who don’t cultivate the Noble Eightfold Path, it will be very difficult for us to nourish wholesome qualities. In the same way if we are immersed in an oppressive system, we will inevitably absorb such ideology, and act in accordance with it. That’s exactly what you see described in Venerable @Adhimutti accounts of the feeling of female inferiority and male superiority in practitioners, no matter how accomplished in meditation they both might be.
This is problematic not only for women, but for everyone in Buddhism. Not only because it’s a human rights issue, but because first and foremost it’s a huge obstacle in the path. Meditation represents only three factors of the path at best, and as the current system puts people in the gendered position of oppressor or oppressed, it hinders each one of us from fully acting skillfully through body, speech, and mind in all occasions. This is a huge issue in the development of virtue.
While I appreciate and support the efforts of Ajahn @Brahmali on @Vinaya matters, I personally don’t think the Vinaya is the problem per se, but how and why we decide to uphold each precept. Because the latter this stems from delusion within our communities and from our own mind.
I think a lot of times we are asking the wrong questions. For example, in an ideal world having a senior Bhikkhu teach Bhikkhunis would be considered a blessing (who would not want to have Ven. Bodhi share Dhamma with them on a regular basis?), so the ones who are missing out are the poor Bhikkhus who don’t have the same opportunity with Bhikkhunis. Being admonished in this Dhamma and discipline is not a punishment but an opportunity for growth, something to be looking forward to. So in this light, preventing Bhikkhunis from admonishing Bhikkhus is detrimental to the Bhikkhu Sangha, isn’t it?
I personally would like to see a conversation on how patriarchy is in opposition to core elements of the Dhamma and a hindrance first and foremost to the the practice of awakening of the Bhikkhu Sangha.
And what are the three kinds of conceit that are to be abandoned? (4) Conceit, (5) the inferiority complex, and (6) arrogance: these are the three kinds of conceit that are to be abandoned.
The Buddha AN 6.106