Gender equality campaigners have criticized the Dalai Lama for his suggestion that any potential female successor to his role “must be very, very attractive.”
In an interview, the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhists said there was no reason why a future Dalai Lama could not be a woman — but she would have to be good looking otherwise she would be “not much use.”
The 80-year-old’s remarks — which he made in an interview with the BBC reporter Clive Myrie, as he talked of succession, or reincarnation — provoked accusations of sexism that look set to plague the remainder of his tour of the UK, which began on Monday last week.
Since 1959, the Dalai Lama has lived in exile in Dharamsala, northern India. For about 300 years the Dalai Lamas, or their regents, have led the Tibetan government, but China has occupied Tibet since 1950 and has long insisted it will appoint any successor to the post.
The present, 14th Dalai Lama, whose original name was altered to Tenzin Gyatso, said his institution would continue only if it were the choice of the people of Tibet. Asked if the next “incarnation” could be female, he answered, “Yes!”
Both men laughed at the comment, which seemed at first to come off as a clumsy joke, and Myrie gave the Dalai Lama a chance to clarify his statement. The reporter asked whether he meant a female Dalai Lama would be very attractive?
“I mean, if female Dalai Lama come, then that female must be very attractive,” the Dalai Lama said. “Otherwise not much use.”
“Really? You’re joking,” Myrie said
“No, true!” Gyatso said.
Women’s equality campaigners said the Dalai Lama’s remarks, apparent in the interview posted online on Monday, were disappointing.
The Women’s Resource Centre chief executive officer Vivienne Hayes said: “It’s disappointing that any woman’s ability to take on a leadership role should be determined by her appearance. This seems to be a common obsession across the media, given some of the comments about women in politics. We are concerned that society is in fact going backwards in terms of women’s equality, and will keep tirelessly campaigning against this.”
Progressive Women spokeswoman Nicole Rowe, a charity that seeks to empower women in their professional and personal lives, said: “While we’re pleased to hear the Dalai Lama is in favor of the possibility of a female Dalai Lama, we’re surprised and greatly disappointed that a man of such compassion and wisdom could express such a retrograde opinion.”
“Perpetuating the antiquated idea that women are primarily useful as ornaments, as in the parlance ‘Women should be seen but not heard,’ only adds fuel to the manifold discrimination women still face to this day. A woman’s appearance is not more important than her achievements. If a woman were to become Dalai Lama, we’re certain that her actions would be of much more weight than how she looked, and we hope the Dalai Lama will take the time to reflect on the impact of his words for women, particularly given the scale of his influence,” Rowe said.
However, other prominent equality groups and campaigners chose not to comment on what they saw as a tongue-in-cheek remark by the Dalai Lama. Among them was Caroline Criado-Perez, the journalist and broadcaster, who has campaigned for UK currency to carry more illustrations of women.
Replying to a request for comment on the controversy, she tweeted: “Is ‘lol’ appropriate?”
Le Tuan Binh keeps his Moroccan soldier father’s tombstone at his village home north of Hanoi, a treasured reminder of a man whose community in Vietnam has been largely forgotten. Mzid Ben Ali, or “Mohammed” as Binh calls him, was one of tens of thousands of North Africans who served in the French army as it battled to maintain its colonial rule of Indochina. He fought for France against the Viet Minh independence movement in the 1950s, before leaving the military — as either a defector or a captive — and making a life for himself in Vietnam. “It’s very emotional for me,”
The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) Central Committee is to gather in July for a key meeting known as a plenum, the third since the body of elite decisionmakers was elected in 2022, focusing on reforms amid “challenges” at home and complexities broad. Plenums are important events on China’s political calendar that require the attendance of all of the Central Committee, comprising 205 members and 171 alternate members with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at the helm. The Central Committee typically holds seven plenums between party congresses, which are held once every five years. The current central committee members were elected at the
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi reaffirmed his pledge to replace India’s religion-based marriage and inheritance laws with a uniform civil code if he returns to office for a third term, a move that some minority groups have opposed. In an interview with the Times of India listing his agenda, Modi said his government would push for making the code a reality. “It is clear that separate laws for communities are detrimental to the health of society,” he said in the interview published yesterday. “We cannot be a nation where one community is progressing with the support of the Constitution while the other
CODIFYING DISCRIMINATION: Transgender people would be sentenced to three years in prison, while same-sex relations could land a person in jail for more than a decade Iraq’s parliament on Saturday passed a bill criminalizing same-sex relations, which would receive a sentence of up to 15 years in prison, in a move rights groups condemned as an “attack on human rights.” Transgender people would be sentenced to three years’ jail under the amendments to a 1988 anti-prostitution law, which were adopted during a session attended by 170 of 329 lawmakers. A previous draft had proposed capital punishment for same-sex relations, in what campaigners had called a “dangerous” escalation. The new amendments enable courts to sentence people engaging in same-sex relations to 10 to 15 years in prison, according to the