Early in the history of Western scholarship about Buddhism, several well-known women scholars wrote significant studies about the role of women in early Buddhism. C. A. F. Rhys Davids's translation of the Therīgāthā (The songs of the female elders) was published in 1909, and in 1930 I. B. Horner published the very significant book, Women under Primitive Buddhism. However, by the mid-twentieth century, these works had been largely forgotten and scholars almost never discussed how gender affects Buddhists' lives or the practice of their religion. Scholarship had become almost androcentric, giving us knowledge only about what men thought and did, proceeding as if women were not part of the religious community. Furthermore, these studies rarely discussed cultural and religious attitudes toward women, or the presence of female divine beings. Such omissions were typical of scholarship in general, not only Buddhist studies or religious studies...