The 14th and current Dalai Lama has said some great things during his 64-year reign as the spiritual head of Tibetan Buddhism. But earlier this week, he said something we might have excepted to hear from the mouth of the 16-year-old boy he was at the beginning of his reign.
During an interview with BBC , he was asked whether he thinks a future Dalai Lama could be a women, which prompted an enthusiastic “yes!” – though with a condition. “I mean, if female Dalai Lama come, then that female must be very attractive,” he said.
And if she isn’t? “Otherwise not much use,” apparently. Come on, D.L.!
The reporter gave the octogenarian an opportunity to backtrack on the comment, asking if he was joking. He most certainly was not: “No, true!”
“It’s disappointing that any woman’s ability to take on a leadership role should be determined by her appearance,” said Vivienne Hayes, the CEO of an organization that campaigns on women’s inequality, in response. “We are concerned that society is in fact going backwards in terms of women’s equality,” she added, likely for emphasis rather than fact.
Others, like journalist Caroline Criado-Perez, took a more tongue-in-cheek view of the quip:
@damiengayle is “lol” appropriate?
— Caroline CriadoPerez (@CCriadoPerez) September 24, 2015
As for the comment’s place in history, it’ll likely be remembered as something an 80-year-old said one time. Still, for a spiritual leader, he should probably be more careful before throwing around soul-crushing insults…
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