Beyond the recovery of women: The evolving study of gender in Tibetan Buddhism

Abstract Taking the study of women as a cousin to—but not a conflation of—the broader realm of gender studies, this article examines recent developments at the intersection of Tibetan and gender studies. Focusing specifically on the historical study of religious women, it addresses scholarship dedicated to women in Tibet as the beginning of a potentially broad conversation about how we engage with the field of gender studies in the Tibetan context. The article offers a review of recent scholarship—highlighting the themes of female inferiority, the relational nature of individual identity, and women's authorship—and makes suggestions for a more sustained focus on issues related to privilege, masculinity, and intersectional identity, in the study of Tibetan Buddhism and gender.