A Garland of Feminist Reflections

Rita M. Gross has long been acknowledged as a founder in the field of feminist theology. One of the earliest scholars in religious studies to discover how feminism affects that discipline, she is recognized as preeminent in Buddhist feminist theology. The essays in A Garland of Feminist Reflections represent the major aspects of her work and provide an overview of her methodology in women's studies in religion and feminism. The introductory article, written specifically for this volume, summarizes the conclusions Gross has reached about gender and feminism after forty years of searching and exploring, and the autobiography, also written for this volume, narrates how those conclusions were reached. These articles reveal the range of scholarship and reflection found in Rita M. Gross's work and demonstrate how feminist scholars in the 1970s shifted the paradigm away from an androcentric model of humanity and forever changed the way we study religion.

Rita M. Gross is Professor Emerita of Comparative Studies in Religion at the University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire. She is the author and editor of many books, including Religious Feminism and the Future of the Planet: A Buddhist-Christian-Feminist Conversation.

I. INTRODUCTORY MATERIALS
Introducing A Garland of Feminist Reflections
1. How Did This Ever Happen to Me? A Wisconsin Farm Girl Who Became a Buddhist Theologian When She Grew Up

II. FIVE ESSAYS ON METHOD
2. Androcentrism and Androgyny in the Methodology of History of Religions
3. Where Have We Been? Where Do We Need to Go? Key Questions for Women Studies in Religion and Feminist Theology
4. The Place of the Personal and the Subjective in Religious Studies
5. Methodology: Tool or Trap? Comments from a Feminist Perspective
6. What Went Wrong? Feminism and Freedom from the Prison of Gender Roles

III. THEORY APPLIED: THREE TESTS
7. Menstruation and Childbirth as Ritual and Religious Experience among Native Australians
8. Toward a New Model of the Hindu Pantheon: A Report on Twenty-Some Years of Feminist Reflection
9. The Prepatriarchal Hypothesis: An Assessment

IV. FEMINIST THEOLOGY
10. Steps toward Feminine Imagery in Jewish Theology
11. Is the (Hindu) Goddess a Feminist?
12. Life-Giving Images in Vajrayana Buddhist Ritual
13. Feminist Theology as Theology of Religions

V. BUDDHIST FEMINISM: FEMINIST BUDDHISM
14. The Clarity in the Anger
15. Why (Engaged) Buddhists Should Care about Gender Issues
16. The Dharma of Gender
17. Yeshe Tsogyel: Enlightened Consort, Great Teacher, Female Role Model
18. Buddhist Women and Teaching Authority
19. Is the Glass Half-Empty or Half-Full? A Feminist Assessment of Buddhism at the Beginning of the Twenty-first Century
20. Being a North American Buddhist Woman: Reflections of a Feminist Pioneer

Notes