History of Prejudice Patriarchy, Asceticism and The Bias to Women in Buddhism after The Buddha’s death

Abstract

This research paper is developed from my research; Women’s rights in Theravada Buddhism, a critical study of the Theravada’s perspective on women's rights, status, duties and in socio-economic - political roles as portrayed in the Pali Tipitaka and other related Buddhist texts. The focus of the study is Early Buddhism in India up to 700 C.E., But in this paper, I would like to present some prejudice to women appeared in Theravada and Mahayana Buddhism.

In Theravada literatures, There were no direct teachings with respect to women’s socio-economic-political status, rights and roles. But there existed some interpretable teachings which illustrated some places in the universe that women could not get into. In Theravada Buddhist perspective, women should not be allowed to get involved in any socio-economic and political matters.   It is noted that Theravada literatures collected in the later periods of time depicted more negative portraits of women when compared to the earlier ones.  It is true that Buddhism in both early and later periods has been significantly influenced by the patriarchy culture in India. The negative images of women were increasingly portrayed due to the influences of asceticism which, to a certain extent, were associated with the patriarchy culture.