Dalai Lama: Women Better Leaders Because Of Potential For Compassion; Next Dalai Lama May Be Female

Accessed 22^nd August 2013

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/14/dalai-lama-women_n_3440583.html?utm_hp_ref=fb&src=sp&comm_ref=false

Dalai Lama: Women Better Leaders Because Of Potential For Compassion; Next Dalai Lama May Be Female

Posted: 06/14/2013 7:23 am EDT  |  Updated: 06/14/2013 3:13 pm EDT

The Dalai Lama weighed in on the debate around women leadership and came out firmly on the side of the female.

Talking to reporters during a visit to Australia, the Buddhist leader was asked to weigh in on gender during a race for Prime Minister that has included charges of sexism.

Speaking generally, the Dalai Lama suggested that the crisis of suffering and inequality in the world requires a compassionate approach to leadership:

"In that respect, biologically, females have more potential... Females have more sensitivity about others' wellbeing. In my own case, my father, very short temper. On a few occasions I also got some beatings. But my mother was so wonderfully compassionate."

The exiled Tibeten Buddhist leader then applied the same logic to his eventual successor; reaffirming that a female Dalai Lama is possible.

"If the circumstances are such that a female Dalai Lama is more useful, then automatically a female Dalai Lama will come."