Kam Louie’s theories of wen (civil or literary) and wu (martial) masculinities have shaped scholarship on masculinity in Chinese culture, including the few studies of masculinity in Chinese religions. This panel recognizes the theoretical contributions of wen and wu masculinity while also revealing the many ways in which masculinities in Chinese religions transcend the wen-wu spectrum. By focusing on masculinity in lived religious contexts, as opposed to only addressing prescriptive or hegemonic forms of masculinity, the four papers in this panel offer alternative theoretical and methodological possibilities for making sense of masculinities in Chinese religions from the late imperial to the contemporary period. Insights about monastic gender for eunuchs and non-elite monks, physical intimacy and vulnerability for male religious healers, and spatial constructions of masculinity in local ritual practice enrich the field of Chinese religions by addressing masculinity as gendered and showing that masculinities extend well beyond wen and wu.
Kam Louie's wen-wu paradigm offers valuable insights into elite Chinese masculinity, yet the case of eunuchs in Buddhist contexts demonstrates how lived experiences of gender-nonconforming individuals revealed alternative paths to masculine identity and authority. Despite vinaya codes explicitly barring eunuchs from ordination, historical records from Ming China reveal their presence within monasteries, either seeking refuge from court life or entering religious service after retirement. How did temples reconcile canonical prohibition with the presence of powerful eunuch benefactors seeking spiritual refuge? What negotiations occurred when palace eunuchs exchanged court life for monastic robes? Drawing on vinaya texts, temple records, and patronage accounts, this investigation explores how Buddhist institutions reconciled doctrinal restrictions with the lived experiences of eunuchs who sought monkhood. It further looks into how eunuchs, as both patrons and monastics, shaped Buddhist institutions, leveraging influence to negotiate their place within the monastic order.
This study examines how lower-level clerics in Qing China maintained familial ties, thereby challenging the gender norms imposed by their religious tradition. It highlights the tension between the idealized clerical conduct prescribed in monastic regulations and the lived experiences of monks who remained embedded in kinship and community networks. Drawing on underutilized criminal case records, this research adopts Matthew Sommer’s framework of Buddhist monasticism as a form of transgender practice, expanding current understandings of gender fluidity in late imperial China. While existing scholarship on Buddhist masculinities has largely focused on normative ideals and prescriptive sources, this study shifts attention to the everyday negotiations of monastic masculinity. In doing so, this work contributes to broader discussions on gender diversity and the lived realities of clerical life in late imperial China.
My paper argues for the category of the religious healer to be included in the conversation regarding Chinese masculinities. Using the case study of a contemporary Chinese American healer who employs qigong, fengshui, acupressure massage, and Buddhist chants, I explain how this religious healer attends to wounds in his community and for himself. Admitting one’s wounds and need for healing is a vulnerability not typically associated with masculinity. Through the dominant the lens of Chinese masculinity, the wen-wu (civil and martial) dyad, this healer had multiple teachers and is an autodidact, and practices baguaquan, a form of boxing martial arts. However, my case study aims to interrogate how my subject’s role as a religious healer moves beyond wen-wu. The theoretical contribution is to highlight what has been missing in scholarship on Chinese masculinities: physical touch and intimacy in the healer-patient relationship. His healing is not only physical, but also soteriological.
This study examines the Nine Emperor Gods Festival through a gender-focused lens, making two key contributions to the study of masculinity and male dominance. First, it demonstrates how masculinity is not only embedded in the festival’s structure but continually reinforced through ritual, myth, and institutional authority. In postcolonial Southeast Asia, sworn brotherhoods fostered a homosocial environment that shaped the festival’s leadership, securing male control over ritual space and religious power. Second, this study introduces the “peripheralizing impulse”, a mechanism that systematically relegates women to secondary or symbolic roles across individual, institutional, and cultic domains. Despite social and demographic shifts, the festival’s male-dominated hierarchy persists, sustained by historical inertia and evolving gendered exclusions that uphold masculine religious authority. By tracing the festival’s history across East and Southeast Asia, this study reveals how entrenched gendered power structures persist and adapt, ensuring the continuity of male dominance despite broader societal change.
| Xiaofei Kang | xkang@gwu.edu | View |