Why not be a man?

I just read about a humorous early Mahāyāna sutta and I thought I'd share a little about it. My source is A.K. Warder's "Indian Buddhism", pp.377-379. The text is called "The Exposition of Vimalakīriti", who is presented as a bodhisattva who lived as a Householder (a.k.a. layperson, as opposed to monk) who visits taverns, casinos and prostitutes, but only of course to show people "the disadvantages of pursuing pleasure." Hey, enlightenment and bars? I think I know a few people who would sign up for that gig!

The part I really wanted to relate though, concerns Sāriputta, one of Buddha's main disciples. This is a later text though, so as one of the elders he comes in for some abuse. He's treated as a comical character here. At one point, Sāriputta asks the "house-goddess" of Vimalakīriti's house why, if she is so powerful, she does not make herself male, which would obviously be an improvement in the eyes of most of the contemporaries to this tale. The real point of the sutta is about the lack of essences, so she first tells him that she doesn't recognize this principle of femininity, which is just an illusion. But then she turns Sāruputta into a (beautiful, I presume) goddess and herself into an unkempt old man like Sāriputta, and confronts him as to whether he wants change his sex now! I really liked the image of this old coot suddenly transforming into a beautiful goddess, seeing the image of his former self, and realizing how much better off he is in his new female condition. Of course, after he has learned his lesson, she turns everybody back the way they were before, adding that nothing had really changed anyway.

Now it's probably not fair to read any kind of feminism into this 3rd century sutta, which as I mentioned above is really about the lack of essences. And of course I'm importing my own ideas about goddesses into this. But it's hard for me today not to see it as a little feminist rebuke. "Oh really, I'm a goddess and you think I'd be better off as a man like you? Here, feel the difference for yourself!"