Through Vipassana Meditation females, especially non-buddhists, reported experiencing reactions to gender discrimination as well as  increased femininity, despite VM being a non-gendered practice.

Syracuse University

Vipassana meditation is a form of Buddhist meditation that involves continued close attention to sensations and mental events with the intention of gaining insight to the true nature of existence/ reality.  

Vipassana (insight) meditation

Gender can be defined as socially constructed characteristics of women, men, people outside the expected binary. Some examples being norms, roles and relationships among and between groups of women and men.



Gender is a nonexplanitory measure, meaning gender can not be counted as the cause of a difference in population statistics. Learned behaviors or differences in physicality, among other things, can be counted as explanitory information.

Gender

Schedneck, B. (2018). Transcending Gender: Female Non-Buddhists’ Experiences of the Vipassanā Meditation Retreat. Religions, 9(4), 90. http://dx.doi.org.libezproxy2.syr.edu/10.3390/rel9040090

Transcending Gender: Female Non-Buddhists Experiences of the Vipassana Meditation Retreat

It has been supported by mutliple studies that MBI's such as Mindfulness Meditations and Vipassana Meditation help those involved in the justice system reduce stress, anger, substance use and improve emotional regulations.

Mindfulness-Based Interventions for Incarcerated Individuals

Vipassana Meditation and Gender

Preliminary studies have shown that practitioner’s of VM have a lower density of occipital slow sleep spindles and experienced a reorganization of memory consolidation during sleep.

Vipassana Meditation and Sleep Regulation

"Vipassana" means insight in Sanskrit. It is the media of teaching by Buddha. Because Buddha attain the experience of truth by meditation, what Buddha taught people will also be meditation. 

Definition of Vipassana

Participants are asked to stay in an isolated, secluded place for 9-10 days to avoid contact with others. The basic physical needs are provided by a helper. Participants follow code of morality which includes abstinence and celibacy, and they are required to be silent except for asking for help and instruction.

Practice of Vipassana Meditation

To search for truth:

1.Truth of reality and suffering

2.Truth of mind and happiness

Principle of Vipassana Meditation

1. Self-liberation

2. Truth about happiness

Why people should do Vipassana meditation

The social construction of gender refers to how meanings of gender are created through social interactions and norms. 
- Gender is not innate and is subject to change:
 - Pink used to be a "boy" color and blue was a "girl" color; now pink is considered a "girl" color and blue a "boy" color
 - What is considered gender appropriate is determined collectively
 
Candace West and Don Zimmerman developed this idea that we "do" gender, instead of it being something that we are. They claim this by saying that we "do" gender knowing that we will be judged by others and held accountable for our gender performances. 

The Social Construction of Gender

This refers to the way that different social relations are linked together, examples of these types of social relations are race, gender, class, ability, sexuality, geography, etc. 
- Femininity intersects with ethnicity, religion and nationality:
- Filipino immigrants tend to think of American girls as uncaring and promiscuous, while holding the belief that Filipina girls were sexually modest and dedicated to their families
- This shows that girls are expected to maintain both gender norms and ethnocultural norms

Due to the connection between social relations one cannot look at something like gender and ignore race or ethnicity. 

Intersectional Perspective on Gender

- Institutional Inequality
- Gender and Violence

Gender Inequality

Much of the research has been conducted on binary gender identifying participants. The data has problems with inconsistent results, but it appears that men have greater risk for procrastinating in academic life. 

- men are more likely than women to procrastinate
- women show higher levels of academic performance, correlated with less procrastination
- men's procrastination adversely impacts their performance and satisfaction

Gender differences with procrastination

Gender studies is an interdisciplinary field that explores how all gender identities are developed and how they affect people’s experiences in society.

Gender Studies

Men and women are at differential risk for mental illnesses. Different forms of response/adaptation could predispose men and women to different illnesses and health problems, such as psychophysiological differences between men and women in context of stress




Gender, Stress, and Health

Individuals who experience Gender Dysphoria and feel that their gender identity is incongruent with their sex assigned at birth experience psychological distress due deviation from the societal norm, and Compassion-based Art Therapy combined with mindfulness can help build self-compassion and greater resilience

Mindfulness-Based Art Therapy for Gender- Variant Individuals

Wolf et. al argue that core cultural values moderate gender stereotypes, particularly that stereotypes of men align more closely with this values than those of women. Essentially, key values in a particular culture are more often ascribed to men when compared to cultures that don't share the same values. Thus, stereotypes for men and women vary across cultures in being culturally mediated rather than universal. 

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