“Why should we expect to be able to say anything generically about women in Tibet?” (p. 24), editors Janet Gyatso and Hanna Havnevik query in their introduction. Indeed, the depth and variety of the eight chapters in this book call attention to women's contributions to Tibetan culture, both past and present, without essentializing them as a coherent, self-identified category of person. Women in Tibet resists the prevalent mistake of conflating Tibetan culture with the Buddhist religion—only half of the volume focuses on women and religion, while the other half covers areas such as politics, medicine, and the performing arts. The volume contains research on Tibetan women from different socioeconomic backgrounds in the People's Republic of China as well as in exile. The downside of the enormous diversity of topics covered in Women in Tibet is that the volume is unlikely to be relevant in its entirety for courses other than those focused on Tibetan civilization.
Women in Tibet emphasizes a historical perspective on a subject that has often been left hanging in the realm of stereotypes and idealizations. The editors evoke Joan Scott's call for “a review of the available sources for more information in order to correct the underrepresentation of women” (p. 3). In this project, Women in Tibet is immensely successful. In its two parts, titled “Women in Traditional Tibet” and “Modern Tibetan Women,” the book focuses on “fact-finding and data collection” (p. 3) about women from imperial to contemporary Tibet, with a particular focus on the twentieth century. While some of the articles engage in complex theoretical analyses of gender (Kurtis Schaeffer, Charlene E. Makley, Hildegard Diemberger, and Robert Barnett), others resist theory in favor of “let[ting] the data speak for themselves” (Isabelle Henrion-Dourcy, p. 197, but also Helga Uebach, Dan Martin, and Tashi Tsering).
In “Ladies of the Tibetan Empire (7th–9th Centuries CE),” Helga Uebach culls data from Tunhuang sources to expand our knowledge of women's roles in the imperial aristocracy. Beyond famous accounts of Songtsen Gampo's two (Chinese and Nepali) wives and the ubiquitous Tantric consort Yeshe Tsogyal, Uebach uncovers a long list of royal ladies who held positions of power (even empress) in the Tibetan imperial court. Her research demonstrates that imperial ladies did not live a life of seclusion, but rather were active figures who could make their own religious choices and own property.
In “The Woman Illusion? Research into the Lives of Spiritually Accomplished Women Leaders of the 11th and 12th Centuries,” Dan Martin claims that given the reluctance of those in later times to record women's accomplishments, “it becomes justifiable and even necessary to magnify what evidence we do have” (p. 50). Martin's evidence centers on the activities and disciples of the Indian Tantric saint Phadampa Sangye, whom he suggests advocated a type of women's liberation (p. 80). He also disproves the prevalent assumption that fully ordained nuns did not exist in Tibet, citing evidence of Gelongma in thirteenth-century sources (p. 67).
Kurtis Schaeffer's article on “The Autobiography of a Medieval Hermitess: Orgyan Chokyi (1675–1729)” analyzes the earliest female-authored Tibetan autobiography. Schaeffer finds “a unique rhetoric of the body” (p. 84) in the writings of this eremitic nun from the Dolpo region of Nepal in which she does not simply internalize misogynist rhetoric, but transforms her lowly female body into a privileged source of insight into the nature of suffering. Schaeffer's research demonstrates that women in the medieval Nepal Himalaya were “nuns and patrons, temple keepers and hermits, queens and goatherds seeking religious perfection” (p. 106).
Hildegard Diemberger's in-depth analysis of “Female Oracles in Modern Tibet” links the prevalence of village-level female oracles in Central Tibet to women's “ability to resolve personal life-crises and to deal with social liminality” (p. 167) on account of their status outside the politico-religious ranking system and as patrilocally married wives and mothers (p. 143). She critiques Lewis's theory of spirit possession (1971) by arguing that female oracles are more than peripheral and participate in central forms of spirit possession. Interestingly, Diemberger suggests that female Tantric adepts “benefited from a pre-existing social space for female sacredness” (p. 148) derived from women's involvement in ancient territorial cults involving spirit possession.
Despite the fact that Tashi Tsering unequivocally states that “[a]ll the academic institutions administered by the Tibetan government were set up solely for males” (p. 169), he finds ample evidence of women's importance in the Tibetan medical profession from imperial to contemporary Tibetan civilization in his article on “Outstanding Women in Tibetan Medicine.” Tsering highlights three noteworthy female physicians from the twentieth century, including Yangchen Lhamo (also known as Khando Yanga, 1907–73), Lobsang Dolma Khangkar (1935–89), and her daughter Tsewang Dolkar Khangkar.
Isabelle Henrion-Dourcy's article “Women in the Performing Arts: Portraits of Six Contemporary Singers” draws attention to “the significant role of performing arts as identity markers” (p. 201) through which performers portray what it means to be Tibetan, a role charged with gendered significance. After outlining common roles for female performers in pre-1959 Tibet, Henrion-Dourcy sketches the biographies of six prominent twentieth-century female singers whose accomplishments range from traditional musical genres, including Ama Lhagpa (1909–97, musical theater), Chung Putri (1920–85, folk songs), and Yumen (b. 1957, Gesar epic), to modern genres, including Tseten Drolma (b. 1937, Chinese propaganda songs), Dadon (b. ca. 1968, pop music), and Yungchen Lhamo (b. circa 1964, Western-influenced world music).
Charlene E. Makley investigates the significance of negative gossip about nuns in the monastery town of Labrang in her article, titled “The Body of a Nun: Nunhood and Gender in Contemporary Amdo.” Using feminist theories of the performativity of gender, Makley argues that gossip about nuns' alleged sexual exploits served to re-sex nuns and thus rebuff their “gender-crossing” into what was essentially a masculine societal ideal of celibate monasticism. Makley suggests that in the current sensitive political climate in which Tibetan identity in Labrang is besieged by outside cultural influences, nuns' transgression of the traditional Tibetan sex/gender system was particularly egregious to Tibetans in Labrang because it threatened the symbiotic relationship between monastery (masculine) and household (feminine) that defined traditional Tibetan society.
Robert Barnett's comprehensive article on “Women and Politics in Contemporary Tibet” describes the activities of two separate, although related, groups of women involved in Tibetan politics: women politicians in the Tibet Autonomous Region and political activists (both laywomen and nuns) who resist Chinese rule in Tibet. Barnett identifies a gendered body politic shared by these two disparate groups of political women in which both perform Tibetan womanhood as “celibate, austere, ethical, caring and committed to supporting Tibetan culture and the Tibetan people” (p. 313). He suggests that activist women have feminized protest through their nonviolent tactics and through their collective rather than hierarchical organization, which emphasizes group loyalty.
Women in Tibet's greatest contribution to Tibetan studies and gender studies is the abundance of women's names and the bio-data that these articles resurrect from the obscurity of centuries of androcentric record keeping and ethnographic oversight. This is not to diminish the volume's theoretical insights, particularly regarding women's writing and the complex interplay between the female body, nationalism, and the state. But as the editors and several of the authors indicate, this volume can be read as an invitation for further research on the many unknown aspects of the history and present situation of women in Tibet. It is hoped that Tibetan women themselves, and not only non-Tibetan and/or male scholars, as are included in this volume, will take up this important project in the future.
