I saw this article in the Rocky today about Carol O'Dowd, who went from a career in local government to Buddhist ministry. This section jumped out at me:
How does a Western teacher fare in a congregation that is 60 percent Asian? Noreen Okubo, a chemical engineer of Japanese ancestry, said O'Dowd does well because she teaches Buddhism in English, now the preferred language. The real barrier, worldwide, is being a woman."BCA stands for Buddhist Churches of America," Okubo said. "But Carol and I say it stands for 'Boy's Club of America.' The idea has been, 'You can't be enlightened if you're a mother; no way can you be a priest if you're a woman.'"
It's eased up now, though O'Dowd remains one of only a handful of women clergy in the San Francisco-based BCA, a network of 60 member churches in the U.S.
Read the article here.
2 comments
I know that Nichiren Shu allows women to become ministers. Yay! But I don't really know anything about hierarchies of power in that organization. Are women regarded as equal to men in NShu leadership?I don't know of any other Nichiren group that invites women to become ministers. Anyone out there have more info?Last time I checked, the Bowling Club was letting women be in charge of the "women's division" (gender segregation, anyone?) but all the international VPs are still men. Anyone know if this has changed?
Hi, Brooke & all -
I guess we would have to take this on a case-by-case basis. I don't know of any women bishops yet. Probably a good third of all of the resident ministers outside of Japan are women. Within Japan it is becoming less unusual for a woman minister to be running a temple, to the best of my knowledge. I hope others may have some additional information.