Dalai Lama Says Female Successor Would Have To Be Pretty

The Dalai Lama thinks a female successor would have to be attractive so “people want to look at her”

Having a woman as the next Dalai Lama would be a huge step forward for women everywhere. The spiritual leader’s post is one of the most visible religious roles in the world, and having a woman do the job would be incredible for representation of women all over the world. The current Dalai Lama isn’t opposed to a woman being his successor, but he does have one requirement: He says she has to be attractive. Yep, you read that right.

Journalist Rajini Vaidyanathan recently interviewed the now 83-year-old Dalai Lama and asked him how he feels about having a woman step into the role. TBH, you just need to watch his response for yourself, because otherwise, it’s hard to believe these words actually came out of a person’s mouth in the year 2019.

Here’s what he said.

“If female Dalai Lama comes, she should be more attractive… people I think prefer not to see a dead face.”

To her credit, Vaidyanathan kept her composure remarkably well for a woman being told by her interview subject that if he doesn’t find her attractive, she has a “dead face” that people won’t want to see. She went on to ask if he could see why that comment might upset a lot of women around the world. In response, he kind of shrugged and said, “OK.”

He continued on to add that a female successor could “spend some money on makeup” if she needed to.

That’s right. This guy whose head looks like a bowling ball perched on top of a pretzel stick says a woman better be hot to do his job, or people won’t want to look at her. So much for inner beauty, which is definitely something Buddhism preaches. Inner beauty must be enough for men, because, um, look at this guy. But it’s not enough for women, who need to be beautiful inside and also smokin’ on the outside just to be on the same level as a man when he does the job.

Ugh, and we had such high hopes for the future when he said he’d be down with a woman taking over for him. The Dalai Lama has always been a figure who commanded respect, but these comments reveal he may not actually deserve it.

What’s super ironic is that later in the same interview, the Dalai Lama talked about how U.S. President Donald Trump lacks moral principles. Yet, that comment about a female successor needing to be a stone cold fox in order to do a job wouldn’t even surprise us if it came out of Trump’s mouth.

It’s 2019. Women are smart, capable, and qualified, and their looks have nothing to do with their ability to lead and change the world. Everyone who thinks otherwise, time to step aside.